How much time is spent NOT playing tennis
In a tennis match, the ball is in play only around 10-15 minutes, maximum out of every hour. So once you think about that, when you’ve got a match the lasted three hours, a long three set match. you only really run and hit balls for 45 minutes. Therefore, the question is what happens in the other 45 minutes of the hour.
If I ask kids that I have coached over the years, they will say:
“We’re picking up balls and we are toweling off”
And while that is all correct, but the player is using every single second of those 45 minutes that the ball is not in play to apply his or her tactics on what went on in the last point. What is going to happen in the next point. In those minutes that the ball is dead that is where the thinking, the mental game is going on. So that’s where a player plays and that’s where a hitter doesn’t play.
The hitter hits the balls in 15 minutes pr. Hour and then 45 minutes of complaining about the sun, the strings, that they are losing or that the opponent hooked them. So the hitter is just so far off constructive thinking that a player is applying in those times and is what the difference is of every hitter and player.
If you look at today’s top players, you’ll look at Djokovic, Nadal or Federer or not the hour or if you look at their mind, you look at their eyes when the ball is not in play. These people are so intensely connected to that match. While the ball is not in play, they’re playing, but they’re not hitting or running. So that’s the main difference and the proof that the game is a lot more mental then physical and technical.
You can’t just play with your body, your physicality and technique thinking that that wins matches. What wins matches is what the player is doing when he or she is not hitting, when they are not running around the court.
What to do when you’re NOT hitting the ball
Tennis is not just the execution part of the of the game, but the planning and the tactics that goes on. After every point is over, you’ve got 25 seconds between points. A very important thing that a player does is the moment that the ball is dead, and that clock starts and at 25 seconds. The first 2-3 seconds, ok, we are all humans, we are not computers. So we do express ourselves either positively or negatively after a point because we are humans, so our feelings are connected to what happened in the last point. So, if you hit a beautiful passing shot, you might go “VAMOS!”, like Rafa does, or you just double faulted and you might shake your head in disbelief. But that should not take 25 seconds to take 2-3 seconds. The key to get out of that negativity or that pumping up and use your 25 seconds and then being ready for the next point is the following question:
“How is my opponent feeling about the last point?”
Because it doesn’t matter how I’m feeling after the last point, what matters is what a point does to your opponent’s mentality. Your opponent can basically feel 3 different ways.
He or she can be frustrated because the point didn’t go their way.
He or she can be confident because the point went his way.
He or she can be neutral after either a won or a lost point, that didn’t alter their mentality due to it being a well-played point.
So the first 3 seconds, a player shows their frustrations or excitement by the last point. Then the question is, how is my opponent feeling?. That should take another 2 seconds to get to that answer. You have now used 5 seconds of your time before you’re going to play atgain and you have got 20 seconds to figure out what the score is and plan the next point.
Now you know his mentality, how he’s feeling and how you need to be able to do a tactical move. At the end of the 25 seconds you should be prepared to play the point.
Few tennis players have the ability to actually segment those 25 seconds like I just did. They are caught in the emotional part following a point, because they don’t know how to get out. In that way the emotion you travel through the 205seconds and all of a sudden you’ve got to play the next point without being prepared mentally or tactically.
Get to know how your opponent is feeling
A guy like Jimmy Connors, a guy like John McEnroe, the epitome of competitiveness. These guys were out there only, for one thing, to control mentally the opposition. For them it was never about going out there hitting great shots thinking about whether their serve was going well or not or if they were hitting the ball well on the day. all my serve is going well. Jimmy Connors never thought about his strokes. McEnroe, never thought about strokes. What was on their mind was the question of:
How can I control the guy across the net?
Well, the only way you can control the guy across the net is if you know how he is feeling after every single point, isn’t it? Because then you are in control. You can control because you know how he’s feeling.
Most of the hitters, they don’t even know how the guy across the net feels. They don’t even know if the other guy across the net just twisted his ankle. They don’t even know if the guy across the net is shaky. Then comes the score. The score dictates how the opponent is feeling. Plus, the score dictates the tactical move in the next point. So, this is a very important part of being a player.
Another very interesting point, is to look at the mathematics of the game. The hitters don’t even pay attention to that. Real players have a sense of what’s going on throughout the match. They don’t just play, point by point. They have a perspective of the match. They know they’re going to play a match. That could be a 5-set match. It could last 5 hours. They pace themselves through a match. They work themselves through the match and have a perspective on the whole match. Whereas hitters, they’re just playing the next point and the next point without a perspective of how the match is developing.
How to manage your game by understanding the numbers
Understanding the mathematics of the game gets players to manage his or her game better. A regular set, 6-3 you play about 50-60 points. If you go back to your club tomorrow and you go in front of 10 juniors, ask them how many points you play a set most of them will have no clue. They never thought about it. A tiebreaker set goes to 80 to 100 points. Well, how does that work out in terms of breaking down the numbers? Well, if it is 60 points, that means that presumably I would be serving 30 points and you will be serving 30 points.
I would be involved with 30 points and you would be involved with 30 points, right? Well, how does those 30 points break down in order for you to be a player that would be very difficult to beat. Well, I tell you how you can be difficult to beat. If you make 10 unforced errors in the set, if you hit 10 winners in a set and the most important part, if you force 10 errors in a set, those are your 3 areas. So, you gave 10 points, but you won 10 points with winners and then you forced 10 errors. So, you won twice as many points as you gave away. If a player plays with those numbers, 10 winners, 10 unforced 10 forced errors, it’s a very difficult player to beat.
If you can actually do those numbers in a set, it’s going to take a better player across the net that will make, let’s say, 11 unforced errors, will make 4 winners and force 15 times. But it’s very difficult to do that.
An example from Edberg vs Courier
I chartered a match for your information when the finals of 1991 US Open between Edberg and Jimmy Courier.
Jim Courier made 4 unforced errors.
So, you would say, man, that’s unbelievable, in finals of the US Open, Courier made 4 unforced errors in the set. Do you know what the score was in that set? 6-0 Edberg.
Courrier had 4 unforced. Had 3 winners and 4 forced errors. Edberg had 6 unforced, but he had 18 winners and forced Courier 10 times to errors.
The balance between winners, unforced errors and forced errors
So, from the mathematics, it’s not the amount of errors that you make. It’s not the unforced errors or how aggressive you are that decides who wins. Because Courier, even though he did not make any unforced errors, he did not hit any winners. And he did not force any errors because Edberg was on top of him. Edberg was the one that’s hitting winners and was forcing him to error. And even though Courrier did not make more than 4 unforced errors he did not win a game. So that’s a major lesson for people, because going out there and pushing balls over the net only wins in the 12s, but once you pass the 12s and unders you can’t win by just not making unforced errors and not learning how to hit winners and more importantly, learning how to hit, forcing shots, shots that force errors. That’s the main lesson from this part of this interview.
When you coach someone, you don’t even think about the winners. You are only allowed to hit winners when you are in a green point situation when you are up by two points or more. That’s when you can take a risk and go for a winner. The rest of the time, that you are in a yellow or a red situation you are just forcing errors. You’re forcing with high margin and with certain margin for errors because that’s the bread and butter of a champion. Forcing errors is what takes the confidence away from the opponent. Think about it.
If I make an unforced error, the opponent on the other side, confidence go up because it’s like this guy cannot play. I mean, you just missing everything. If your opponent hits a winner, your confidence doesn’t necessarily change that much. You might ask yourself how many more of those kinds of winners will your opponent be able to make? You don’t necessarily take it that seriously. So, it doesn’t have to affect your confidence. But now when the opponent comes in with a nice approach into your backhand and it pushes you out of balance and now you cannot come out of that hole and he forced you to make an error? Well, the first thing you start thinking, you don’t give him credit. You think that your backhand pass is not working. Well, that’s exactly how I want you to feel, because the more you get frustrated that your backhand pass is not working, the more I am controlling you. Controlling you so that I can win this match.
The opponent eventually is going to realize that he’s not just not missing his backhand passing shot because his backhand passing shot is not working. He is going to realize that he’s playing against a player that is taking him out of balance. And without balance, you cannot make an active, accurate shot. So, what is a forcing shot? A shot that takes the opponent out of balance while he has to make a shot. once you. That limits their ability to come up with a proper shot and there will be errors and that starts wearing people down. So, the bottom line is that this breakdown is very important in going from being a hitter to be a great tennis player.
