The General Psychology Of Tennis (Part 1)
Tennis psychology is the same as understanding the workings of your opponent’s mind and assessing the effect of your own strategy on his/her mental viewpoint and also understanding the mental 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 mental processes. Therefore, you must study the effect on yourself of the same thing occurring under various circumstances. This is because people 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, go for it, but never give it to your opponent. Does it deprive you of concentration? If so, either remove the reason, 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 temperaments. Like temperaments react in a like manner, and you can judge people of your own type by yourself. Different temperaments you must try to liken with those people, whose reactions you are already familiar with.
A person 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 examining them.
The regular, unemotional baseline player is seldom a keen thinker. If he was, he would not stay on the baseline. The physical appearance of a player is usually a pretty clear indicator of his/her type of mind. The stolid, easy-going player, who usually advocates the baseline game, does so because he hates to stir up his/her slow mind to work out a safe method of getting to 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 hits the ball without much idea of what he is actually up to, while the latter always has a solid, thought-out strategy and adheres to it.
If you are interested in the psychology of tennis, you ought to visit our website entitled Tennis Tips for Beginners Also published at The General Psychology Of Tennis (Part 1).