Tennis Psychology (Part 1)
Gail Jones | April 10, 2010Tennis psychology is nothing more than understanding the workings of your opponent’s mind, and assessing the effect of your own game on his/her mental viewpoint and also understanding the mental effects resulting from the different external causes on your own mind.
However, it is also true that you no one can be a successful psychologist of others without first understanding his own psychology. Therefore, you must study the effect on yourself of the same thing happening under various circumstances. This is because people react differently in different moods and under different circumstances.
You must understand the effect on your game of the resulting annoyance, joy, confusion, or whatever other form your reaction is. Does it improve your efficiency? If so, go for it, but never give it to your opponent. Does it rob you of concentration? If so, either remove the cause, or if that is not possible, try to ignore it.
Once you have accurately judged your own reaction to circumstances, observe your opponents in order to determine their temperaments. Like characters react similarly, and you may judge men of your own kind by yourself. Opposite characters you must seek to compare with people whose reactions you know.
Someone who can control his/her own mental processes has an great chance of reading those of someone else for the minds works along certain lines of thought and can be studied. One can only regulate one’s own mental processes after studying them very carefully .
A regular, unemotional baseline player is rarely a quick thinker. If he were, he would not stay on the baseline. The physical appearance of a player is usually a fairly clear indication of his/her sort of mind. The stolid, easy-going player, who normally advocates the baseline game, does it because he does not want to activate up his/her slow mind to think out a reliably safe method of reaching the net.
Then there is the other type of baseline player, who would prefer to stay at the back of the court while directing an attack intended to break up your game. He is a much more dangerous player and a deep, quick thinking opponent. He obtains his/her results by changing his/her length and direction and worrying you with the variety of his/her game. This player is a good psychologist.
The first type of tennis player mentioned above simply strikes the ball without much thought about what he is actually up to, while the latter always has a solid, thought-out plan and adheres to it.
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