The hard-hitting, erratic, net-rushing player is a creature of impulse. There is no real strategy to his/her attack, no comprehension of your game. He will make brilliant coups on the spur of the moment, largely by instinct; but there is no, mental power of consistent thinking. It is an fascinating type of character.
The really dangerous player is the one who mixes his/her strategy from back to fore court at the command of an ever-alert mind. This/her is the player to study and learn from. He is a player with a definite intention. A player who has an answer to every query you present him in your game. He is the most subtle antagonist in the world of tennis. He is from the school of Brookes. Second only to him is the player of dogged determination that sets his/her mind on one plan and sticks to it, bitterly, fiercely fighting to the end, with never a thought of change.
This is the player whose psychology is rather easy to understand, but whose mental standpoint is hard to derail, for he never allows himself to think about anything except his game. This/her player is your Johnston or your Wilding. I respect the mental capacity of Brookes more, but I admire the tenacity of purpose of Johnston.
Choose your sort from your own mental pattern, and then work out your game along the lines most suited to you. When two men are on the same level as regards stroke, strength and equipment, the determining factor in any game is the mental viewpoint. Luck, so-called, is often just seizing the psychological value of a change of flow in the game, and turning it to your own advantage. We hear a lot about the “shots he has made.” Few understand the importance of the “shots he has missed.”
The psychology of missing shots is just as vital as that of making them, and at times a miss by an inch is of more value than a return that is killed by your opponent. Let me explain. A player forces you far out of court with an angle-shot. You run hard to it, and getting there, drive it hard and fast down the side-line, missing it by an inch. Your opponent is surprised and shaken, realizing that your shot could just as well have gone in as out. He will expect you to try it again and he will not risk it next time. He will try to play the ball, and may fall into error. You have thus stolen some of your opponent’s confidence, and increased his/her chance of error: all this by a miss.
However, if you had just tapped back that ball, and it had been killed, your opponent would have felt increasingly confident of your inability to get the ball out of his/her reach, while you would only have been winded for no reason.
Let’s just say that you made the shot down the sideline. It was an apparently impossible get. First it amounts to TWO points in that it took one away from your opponent that should have been his/her and gave you one you ought never to have had. Second it also upsets your opponent, because he feels that he has thrown away a big chance.
The psychology involved in a game of tennis is very interesting, but easily understood. Both player start with equal chances. However, once one player has gained a real lead, his/her confidence rises, while his/her opponent stresses, and his/her mental viewpoint becomes poor. The only objective of the first player is to hold his/her lead, thereby holding his/her confidence.
If the second player pulls even or draws ahead, the inevitable reaction occurs with an even greater contrast in psychology. There is the natural confidence of the leader, but coupled with the great stimulus of having turned a seemingly inevitable defeat into a probable victory. The reverse is the case of the other player, who is apt to lose confidence and play worse. The collapse of his game plan soon follows.
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