Three tennis myths that can disrupt your development as a player
Tennis matches are mainly decided in the mind. Tennis insider Marco Kühn clears up three myths that are not conducive to your game.
by Marco Kühn
last edit: Aug 08, 2022, 04:06 pm
You know her. The players in your club who have only played one level for years (or decades). They train hard. The material such as the racquet, the shoes or the grip tape is always up to date. Nothing is left to chance. In some seasons even more coaching hours are booked.
The result? Despite all the hard work, money and passion, the results on the court hardly improve. There are many tennis myths that stand in the way of many players like a court error. In this article, I have chosen three small, mean myths. But there are dozens more. Tennis is a damn complicated sport. In a tournament there is only one player who goes through without losing. All other players will lose. There is perhaps hardly any other sport in which you lose as often as in tennis. But, paradoxically, there is hardly any other sport in which the players are so afraid of losing. Crazy, right?!
With that in mind, let's march down to the baseline and see which myths are a bigger foe in your club playing career than your self-doubt.
Myth #1: You can play as relaxed in a match as you can in practice
Perhaps the biggest myth. And at the same time the one that robs numerous players of the fun and joy of playing in the competition. Which is absolutely a shame. Your head is free during training. You worry less between rallies and changing sides. You can think of it like a backpack that you carry on your back. In a relaxed training game on Thursday evening you have your backpack on, but it is empty. You can concentrate on your shots, swing through as cleanly as possible, check off the few mistakes with the forehand faster and just start playing.
At the weekend, in the match, in front of the expectant eyes of the other club members, you run out with a backpack full of bricks. In addition, your acquaintances and relatives are still attached to this backpack. With expectations and an unconscious pressure for you. With this backpack you should now play as relaxed as in training? Definitely not. Training and match are two different disciplines. You need completely different skills for great tennis in a match than for great tennis in a training game. Frustration tolerance, concentration, making decisions under pressure. You don't have all of that in a casual practice match. Comparing practice and match is like banging your shin with a racquet and complaining that it hurts. What can you do? Try to get a different perspective. See yourself once as a player in training and once as a player in the tournament. Then consider what the tournament player could learn from the training player.
Once you start looking at practice and match separately, you'll feel better as a tennis player. Which leads us straight to myth number two.
Myth #2: Deal with defeats quickly and easily
You know the story about the fire and the child. Anyone who has ever really burned themselves knows how hot a fire can be. We had a guy in our 9th grade back then who kept flicking his lighter around. He did this until his school knapsack caught fire during a long break. We humans are hardly rational creatures. That is why it is firmly anchored in our behavior to learn from mistakes. Well, some people learn more from mistakes than others. But the clever people always learn new things from mistakes in order to be able to behave better in the future.
It's different in tennis. As a child, I was drummed into the idea that I should brush off defeats quickly. Who likes to lose? straighten the string and move on. That sounds well and good. But for players who want to develop over a longer period of time, it is an absolute double fault. We were just discussing how often you lose in tennis. This is in the nature of the felt ball. Because we lose so often, we can learn all the more. A losing streak, if properly analyzed and interpreted, can be a development machine from another planet. The incredible Rafael Nadal rarely loses. Nevertheless, he took his defeats against Novak Djokovic (and partly against Roger Federer in Wimbledon) as an opportunity to develop his game. To play more aggressively, to improve the backhand, to go to the net more. The result? Rafa plays perhaps the best backhand cross in modern tennis. His volley is now integrated into his game and he can score many points at the net. And? He is (still) at the top in the race for the most Grand Slam victories. This would not have been possible without defeats. The individual way of playing and the development of this leads us to the third myth.
Myth #3: A hard and fast forehand is important for your game
On YouTube, the videos with tips and tricks for more power in the forehand have the most clicks. Yes, a badass advantage is a lot of fun. It gives every tennis player on this planet a great feeling when the forehand longline hits the back of the opponent's corner. But is this a must-have for successful and good tennis? Do you have to play fast? A quick look at the history of our beloved sport clearly reveals: No way! A Björn Borg or a Novak Djokovic don't play fast. Why? Their gaming philosophy is quite different. The Djoker lives from the opponent's speed. He's like a tennis vampire who feeds on his opponent's game. Would Nick Kyrgios have won Wimbledon if he'd also played slowly into the middle in sets two and three? Probably yes. But back to the topic.
Playing harder and faster doesn't necessarily get you ahead in the long run. Instead, figure out what gaming philosophy you want to pursue. Grab a few questions and answer them precisely. How do you get the most points? How do opponents score the most points against you? What's your favorite shot? Are you more the acting or the reacting player in rallies?
All the answers to these simple questions will get you further ahead than a hard-hitting forehand. At the beginning we talked about players who hardly improve over the years or decades. With the information from the three myths, you have a good basis for finding ways to gradually become a better tennis player.