In today’s episode, I am going to tell you the secret of how to win the match every time! I think it may get you thinking a bit differently out there on the practice and the play court.

I hope you enjoyed episode 005 with David Brouwer.  I know I sure did and have put some of his wisdom to work in my own program. I have always been into not sweating the small stuff, but I like how he empowers and ignites his students, getting them to say, “That’s the type of player I am!”  Great stuff.

I just finished interviewing Jorge Capestany and hope to get him on soon. He wrote the book The On-court Guide to “Tennis Strategy – How to Beat Every Style of Player” and we went over some singles and doubles styles that I know that drive me crazy, but his tips are great and I hope to get him on in the next couple of episodes. You will really like to hear what he has to say

Before we get into today’s topic, on how to win every match, I would like you to  check out the quick tip page sometime at www.realtennisnetwork.com/quicktips.

I am hoping to get these out on a regular basis and would like to hear your input on what has worked for you, or what you would like me to discuss more when it comes to these quick tips.  What I like to do is give you analogies on how you can perform certain tasks easier, because you can relate them to something that makes sense to YOU and not just a tennis teaching professional.  This is partially how I came up with the name “Realtennis”

You will see what I mean when you go to this weeks quick tip.  You can access it right here: www,.realtennisnetwork.com/qt001.  My next quick-tip (qt002), will show you how you can hit 1000 more balls with your partner in one hour of practice and hit properly with good balance. Please let me know what works for you by commenting at the bottom of the posts.  I would love to hear from you.

In this episode we are going to talk about performance and outcome and when is the right time to think about each or both.

As players, it is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT to think about your performance and not the outcome.

Let’s first define some Performance Goals:

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  • Hitting with more topspin
  
  
  • Keeping the ball deeper
  
  
  • Getting my first two shots in when I serve and volley
  
  
  • Trying to hit three balls in play before I even think about going for it
  
  

  
  

 In a match, performance goals, based on who you are playing, may get more specific (more tactical, like):

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  • Hit high to the backhand
  
  
  • Bring my opponent to the net
  
  
  • Attack the second serve
  
  

  
  

OK, now let’s define some outcome goals

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  •  I want to be ranked top 50 sectionally by the end of the year
  
  
  • I want to be a 4.0 player within 2 years
  
  
  • I want to win the State Championship
  
  
  • I want my time in the spider drill to be 13.5 seconds within 6 months
  
  
  • I want to be able to beat John Smith
  
  

  
  

In a match, outcome goals my sound like this:

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  • I need to win this point
  
  
  • I need to win this game
  
  
  • I need to win this set
  
  
  • I have to beat this player
  
  
  • All I have to do is win this last game and…….
  
  

  
  

OK, now you tell me what would make more sense in terms of how to think during a match.  Focusing on performance will ultimately allow you to have better outcomes.

When you focus on the outcome, you tighten up, your stroke patterns change, you put much more pressure on yourself, You are trying to make adjustments for something you really can’t control anyway for the most part.  And you go back to what is comfortable, which is usually what you have been training to get away from in the first place

One of the great examples, and I just witnessed this last week at a tournament, was one of my players was in the third set against another one of my players and was up 5-0 .  She then went on to lose that set by the score of 7-5.

I asked her what she was thinking about before 5-0 and she told me that she was focusing on getting to every ball and hitting the ball crosscourt.  This sounds like great focus to me.

I then asked her what she started thinking when she got up  5-0 in the set and her response was, “Just win one more game and I win.” “Just don’t miss and I can win this match”

Do you see the mistake here?  At the most important time of the set, she changed a game-plan that was working flawlessly and completely started to think about the outcome, which made her change the way she was performing.  She took a game-plan that was working and decided to stop doing what got her to 5 games in the first place and then went downhill from there. So remember: Keep doing what got you to 5 in the first place and forget about the score (easier said than done)

It is much wiser to concentrate on your performance rather than the outcome. In practice, and in matches.

In practice, focusing on outcome is just as detrimental if we are working on stroke production for example.  In practice, performance is different than hitting with topspin……this is now an outcome of a desired stroke.  The swing pattern, footwork pattern, position of the racquet face is the performance

How many times have you taken a lesson and the pro has asked you to try to do something, and being the student of the year, you listened, but to your amazement your shot was nothing close to what you expected and decided against making the change because of the OUTCOME?

I was working with a student once and had her switch to continental grip and I knew that she could handle it.  She hit one serve and watched it almost take the clock off the wall, with great spin by the way and said “Nope, I wont ever do that again”  my reaction was, what? It was a great serve, you just have to change the way you aim to compensate for the great spin that you just applied to the ball.

My own personal coach would make a change in my game and would say “Mick, how does that feel?”  I would say , “I hate it” and he would say GREAT!  “If it feels good, you are doing it wrong!”  That made a TON of sense to me.  If I said awesome, he would usually joke about how disappointed he was.  I got the point

Here is another way to look at it for all you math geeks.

3×2 = 6. The 3 and the 2 are the ………..FACTORS by the way, for all you math wizards. And the six is the product or the ….OUTCOME.  There’s a lot of different ways to get to six. But in this equation we want a three and we want a two.  If we always have a three and a two, the six will take care of itself. 

For example, in a volley racquet above the wrist is a 3 and your wrist back is a 2.  If you always have a 3 and a 2, the volley will take care of itself

Another example I use a lot is when you’re 16 and backing the car out of the garage and you run over your brothers or sisters bike.

What do your parents do?  They will first of all call you all sorts of names that will affect you for the rest of your life, and then their Instructions will be performance oriented.

“Will you look behind the car before you back out of the garage from now on! ” 

In practice, performance is different than hitting with topspin……this is now an outcome of a desired stroke.  The swing pattern, footwork pattern, position of the racquet face are the performance factors.

Lets skim over some key common denominators (performance factors in practice)

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  • Balance
  
  
  • Hitting zones
  
  
  • Footwork (split steps and recovery)
  
  
  • Racquet face at contact
  
  
  • Stroke patterns
  
  

  
  

When we drill, focusing on stroke patterns is performance, not where the ball is going. If we are concerned with where it is going, we will resort back to our old ways.  This is not good practice. We may have a goal of where we want to hit it, but remember focus on the factors and not the product

When we are playing a match, some key performance factors might include:

 Singles

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  • Keeping the Ball In play
  
  
  • Hitting to a particular area (weakness, crosscourt….etc)
  
  
  • Hitting the ball with topspin
  
  
  • Hitting the ball 5 feet over the net
  
  
  • Recovery after my shots
  
  
  • First Serve percentage
  
  
  • Mental Rituals
  
  

  
  

 Doubles

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  • First Serve %
  
  
  • Serving to proper area of box
  
  
  • Getting my first two shots in
  
  
  • Getting to the net first (serve and volley)
  
  
  • Back to Back/Front to Front
  
  
  • Hitting I the direction I am moving
  
  

  
  

For example, in doubles,  if you think about serving and volleying for the whole set, Even if you lose the first set, if you’re concentrating on it deliberately all the time, you will improve during matchplay and improving during match play may be the only way you can improve if you are like 80% of most adults who go out and play their 2-3 days a week of doubles in a league or permanent court time.

How can you improve if this is all you do?

Well maybe one of the days you should be focusing on performance oriented goals, even though it is very difficult when you want to beat that pers