Basic Tennis Psychology (Part 1)
Posted on July 29, 2009
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Tennis psychology is only understanding the workings of your opponent’s mind, and gauging the effect of your own game on his/her head and also understanding the psychological effects resulting from the various external causes on your own mind.
However, it is true that you cannot be a successful psychologist of others without first understanding your own mental processes. Therefore, you must study the effect on yourself of the same thing happening under different circumstances. This is because you react differently in different moods and under different conditions.
You have to understand the effect on your game of the ensuing irritation, joy, confusion, or whatever other form your reaction is. Does it improve your efficiency? If so, strive for it, but never give it to your opponent. Does it rob you of concentration? If so, either remove the cause, but if that isn’t possible, strive to ignore it.
After you have properly assessed your own reaction to conditions, study your opponents to decide their characters. Like temperaments react in a like way, and you may judge people of your own sort by yourself. Different characters you have to seek to compare with those people, whose reactions you are already familiar with.
A person who can control his/her own psychology stands an excellent chance of determining those of another for the minds works along definite lines of thought and can be studied. One may only regulate one’s own mental processes after examining them meticulously.
The steady, unemotional baseline player is rarely a quick thinker. If he was, 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 impassive, easy-going player, who usually displays the baseline strategy, does so because he hates to activate up his/her slow mind to work out a safe method of reaching the net.
Then there is the other type of baseline player, who would rather stay at 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, quick thinking antagonist. He obtains his/her results by mixing up his/her length and direction and worrying you with the variance of his/her game. This player is a good psychologist.
The first type of player mentioned above just strikes the ball with little idea of what he is actually doing, while the latter always has a definite strategy and adheres to it.
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