Tennis Psychology (Part 1)

Tennis psychology is the same as 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 psychological effects resulting from the various 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 have to understand the effect on your game of the resulting irritation, pleasure, 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 reason, but if that isn’t possible, try to ignore it.

Once you have correctly judged your own reaction to circumstances, study your opponents in order to determine their characters. Similar characters react similarly, and you can judge men of your own kind by yourself. Other temperaments you must seek to liken with people whose reactions you already know.

Someone who can regulate his/her own mental processes runs an great chance of reading those of someone else for the mind works along definite lines of thought and can be examined. One can only control one’s own mental processes after carefully studying them.

The regular, unemotional baseline player is seldom a keen thinker. If he was, he would not adhere to the baseline. The physical appearance of a player is often a pretty clear indicator of his/her type of mind. The stolid, easy-going player, who usually advocates the baseline strategy, does so because he hates to stir up his/her torpid mind to work out a safe strategy of reaching the net.

Then there is the other sort of baseline player, who would rather remain on the back of the court while directing an attack intending to break up your game. He is a much more dangerous player, and a deep, keen thinking opponent. He achieves his/her results by mixing up his/her length and direction and worrying you with the variety of his/her game. He is a good psychologist.

The first sort of tennis player mentioned above just strikes the ball without much idea of what he is actually up to, while the latter always has a solid, thought-out plan and sticks to it.

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