DW: Never, Never, Never

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

Someone recently told me she was going to give up having tennis lessons because she knew she would never be any more than an average player.

Martin Luther King once said: "If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say: 'Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well'". At first, that may sound like a blueprint for underachievement and reinforcing the status quo, but it's not.

You do not underachieve if you strive to make the best of what you have. We may not all be blazing trails like Roger Federer or Serena Williams but we don't have to be stuck in a rut.

I've always been impressed with King's philosophy. It may sound trite. It may come over as preachy, homespun wisdom, but you should endeavour to hang in and do your best at all times at whatever you do. Don't let what you can't do get in the way of what you can do. Set yourself realistic, achievable goals and don't lose sight of them. You will then succeed or fail on your own terms.

Be prepared to set bigger goals if the opportunity presents itself. It's a scaleable philosophy. It applies equally to the broadest ambitions and the nitty-gritty of particular game situations. A positive mindset is the only requirement. Mario Ancic illustrated this recently at the Hamburg Masters.

The Croat was trailing by a set and 4-1 in his quarter-final encounter with Nikolay Davydenko. Undeterred, he went over to his coach and asked for a couple of rackets to be restrung! It was a great demonstration of his positive and resolute approach to playing tennis. You doubtless want to know whether he went on to win or lose the match, but the outcome isn't really the point. Truly, it's not the point!

Okay, okay. For the record, Ancic went on to win in three sets.

Never, never, never give up!

Copyright 2006, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide

Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at www.tennisontheline.org.