Winning Ugly: Mental Warfare in Tennis--Lessons from a Master

by Brad Gilbert

The Plan: Short and Simple The warm-up doesn’t have to be long, but there are three things you want to accomplish with it: 1. Continue the physical warming up of your body and mind that began with stretching and pre-match planning and visualization. 2. Get your eyes and body working together for successful stroke production, which includes managing nerves. 3. Learn as much as you can about your opponent.

How to Defrost Your Strokes in Seven Minutes and Forty-Five Seconds Here is a very specific warm-up procedure guaranteed to set you up correctly for the match, both physically and mentally. When you go on the court, use it. Your opponent will probably go along with anything you say if you’re nice about it. You may choose to use your own variation. That’s fine as long as you remember to cover all these strokes and to have a regular routine you follow in doing it. The pattern you establish adds to the process of telling your mind and body that tennis is on the agenda.

Ninety Seconds: Volley to Volley You want to get the eyes and hands working together. Don’t run out on the court and start banging groundstrokes. Especially if you’re a B or C player and especially if you haven’t played for several days.

easy volleys back and forth, both of you inside your service boxes four or five feet from the net. It’s just a little wake-up call for the old eye-hand motor function. Believe me, it works. It gets your eyes watching the ball and your racket hitting the ball with the least effort and best chance for good contact. Your opponent is going to make a face when you start it.

Four Minutes: Groundstrokes the Correct Way First thing to remember: Try and hit your initial groundstrokes deep, just inside the baseline. In fact, if the ball is a little long, great. Aim for just inside the baseline. Try to hit your first six or seven shots with plenty of depth. Don’t let a ball fall short. Pay attention to what you’re doing. If a ball lands in or near the service box, correct it and go for that baseline.

Thirty Seconds: Overheads

The overhead warm-up does two things. Obviously, it warms up the overhead. But it also starts warming up your serve. It gets you doing all the things you need to be doing during the serve: looking up, following through, transferring your weight. It gives you just a little more time to bring the serve up to speed. Your objective is modest. Just make solid contact on the swing. Don’t worry about power. Don’t worry about great angles. Just take a relaxed cut at

Fifteen Seconds: The Toss As the toss goes so goes your serve. When was the last time you actually practiced your toss? Before you serve, practice your toss four or five times. Just focus on doing it smoothly and putting the ball where you want it. Toss it up. Then catch it without moving your feet. It’s a great way to improve your serve with very little effort. (And during the match if your serve starts to give you trouble, slow things down and take a couple of practice tosses. I’ve found it helps to get things back on track. If your toss is all over the place it’s impossible to have a reliable serve.)

Finally, on this much overlooked but crucial part of the game, don’t be afraid to stop your service motion if the toss is terrible. Catch it! Toss it again. Club players will chase a bad toss into the locker room trying to salvage it.

Need to remember this and do this more

One Minute: The Serve I want you to hit four serves to both courts, both wide and down the center. Most club players tend to hit just to the deuce court. I want you to hit to both courts for this reason. The service warm-up is aimed primarily at setting up a good comfortable motion for yourself early in the match so you don’t needlessly double-fault. Hit your initial serves with an easy, relaxed motion. Keep your wrist very loose—almost floppy. Hit your first three or four serves with almost a lazy motion. Aim for the service line or beyond. Then gradually increase velocity. You want to help yourself as much as you can for that first service game. You want to be comfortable with the stroke and you don’t want to be serving to the ad court for the first time during the match, so serve to it in the warm-up.

Thirty Seconds: Service Return When your opponent is hitting serves during the warm-up, don’t catch them, hit them back. Practice hitting their serve with a good service return. I believe it can be one of your...

Learn About Your Opponent: The Quick Study Another objective during this final stage of the pre-match opportunity is to see if your opponent is showing you anything about their game that you can use against them. This is important with someone you haven’t played before.

Four “Nervebusters”: Overcoming Pre-Match Nervousness

Gilbert’s Nerve Busters 1. Breathe Like You’ve Got Asthma

2. Get Happy Feet

I consciously tell myself to move my feet. It’s an order I give to myself when I’m nervous. “Bounce. Get up on your toes, Brad. Stay light on your feet! Bounce.” I keep telling myself to bounce, to stay light, to keep moving. It helps me work into good footwork and out of nervousness. I want happy feet, not heavy feet. Movement reduces nerves. Lack of movement increases nerves. You’ve heard people say, “He got nervous and froze up.” They’re not talking about body temperature. They’re talking about movement, or lack of it.

Read the Label During the initial part of the warm-up, when I’m anxious and trying to settle down, there’s another little trick I use to fight nerves. I read the print on the ball. I try to see “Wilson” or “Penn” or “Slazenger” as the ball is coming at me. You’ll find that trying to see the writing not only helps get your eyes tracking the ball, but it gets your mind off nerves and onto something else.

4. Sing a Song

1. Breath like you’ve got asthma 2. Get happy feet 3. Read the label 4. Sing a song

The Connors Approach to Nerves There’s one other approach to nerves that you can consider, but it’s only worked for one player that I know of: Jimmy Connors. He has a unique attitude about pressure. His perspective is this: Pressure usually represents opportunity. The more pressure the more opportunity. And he loves opportunity.

I like this.

a Top 20 player who wins the first set will go on to win the match 89.6 percent of the time! At the U.S. Open when Jimmy Connors has won the first set he has won the match eighty-eight out of ninety times! Winning the first set, then, carries significant weight. And getting off to a strong early start significantly boosts my chances of winning the first set. That’s why I’m so conscientious about preparing for the beginning of a match. It’s why you should do the same.

How to Get the Best Possible Start 1. Never serve first. 2. Start your match like Ivan Lendl. 3. Play the first two games correctly. 4. Utilize the first pit stop.

Six Reasons You Shouldn’t Serve First 1. THE FIRST SERVE IS NO BIG THREAT

2. THE SERVE IS WEAKEST EARLIEST

3. YOU GET MORE WARM-UP TIME

4. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT

5. LOSING THE FIRST GAME ISN’T LOSING

6. THE QUICK EARLY BREAK CAN BE VERY IMPORTANT

This is your goal. You’re thinking, “That’s no goal. That’s a fantasy.” Not really. It’s not a simple goal, of course, but it’s what you’re trying to accomplish. You want to get out of the gate fast. You want to stuff your opponent as early and as hard as you can. Get them on the run. A good player on a good day might get out of your grasp. Most of them won’t if you continue to exploit opportunities and avoid the temptation to get mentally lazy about paying attention to the “outer game.” Instead of starting the match with the idea that you’ll work your way into it, begin with the goal of working your opponent out of it.

The Wind and the Sun

Select the end that puts the sun at your back for the first game. (If the elements are a factor, never hand over the choice to your opponent.) Your opponent (if they’re paying attention)

If it’s blowing baseline to baseline I choose to start the match with the wind in my face. There’s more room for error because the wind will knock your ball down and keep it from going long. Typically

So as a general rule I like to start with the sun at my back and the wind in my face if I have the options. You should do the same. If it means you have to serve first, that’s okay. You’ve still gained the advantage.

2. Start Your Match Like Ivan Lendl

During the first three or four games he’s hitting at about 65 to 75 percent of his full power.

start below it and work up to it. It’s very hard to bring yourself down to your best pace if you start hitting too hard right away. You can spend the rest of the match looking for your rhythm. Ivan never makes that mistake. And that goes for his serve, too. By trying to slug the ball before your body and mind are really acclimated to the match you can take your service down for the whole day. The serve is complex. Even Lendl doesn’t go for it too early.

Lendl’s approach is the correct one. Start below your maximum pace and rhythm in your first few games. Don’t try to cream those early shots.

3. Play the First Two Games Correctly The first two games of the match can set the temperature for what follows. The mental and physical attitude established here is valuable because it can start you on a course that makes winning a lot easier.

No Unforced Errors Remember during these first two games that you’re not as loose as you’ll be later. Even if you warm up correctly you still aren’t really set to let it all hang out. So no unforced errors.

Serve Sensibly

1. Get the ball in. 2. Get it to their weaker side.

Remember, if you serve first and hold, a subsequent break is “longer.” By that I mean if you break them in that second game and then hold your own serve you’re up 3–0. Psychologically that seems a lot heavier than it is. It’s still just one break. But it’s three games difference. It feels worse to your

like to work my way to the net if I can early in these first few games. Don’t force it, but if the opportunity arises take it. I look to do it when I’m up 40-love and can spare a point.

because it gives you an opportunity to check your bearings before anything too drastic has happened. I use it as an opportunity to establish again in my mind what it is I’m trying to do. I review my game plan.

sweat, settle down, but mainly I think. I review my strategy. What am I trying to make happen? What do I want to prevent from happening? On subsequent changeovers I want to review anything that might have occurred that surprised me. Has my opponent hurt me with anything? I give myself a little pep talk: “Stick to your game plan. Don’t get overeager. Be patient. Remember to get that first serve in and to the backhand.”

That initial changeover gives you a chance to approach the job calmly with your plan clearly in mind. “Get my first serve in. Don’t get fancy. Make him play.”

think of the changeover as my isolation booth. I want to use what I’m learning in the match to my advantage. A smart tennis player is accumulating information as play goes on.

My coach at Pepperdine, Allen Fox, used to tell me, “Always be asking yourself during a match who’s doing what to whom.” That means knowing how and why points are being won and lost. It means knowing what’s going on out on the court.

I believe the most effective athletes are the ones who know their weaknesses. Of course they know what they can do. But, just as important, they know what they can’t do.

Take Notes During and After Class I also recommend that you take out a notebook during a changeover and write down information as it occurs to you in a match. As you do it more often, you’ll be like a computer logging information about who’s doing what to whom. And of course the best time of all for recording information is right after a match. Always spend a little time reviewing what just happened in the match. Grade yourself and come to some conclusions about what you did right and wrong. Add information about your opponent. Why did you win or lose? It’s amazing how perceptive you can be if you just decide to focus on it.