Tuesday, October 10, 2006

The Joy of Tennis

To many players, a tennis match is just an exercise in hitting forehands and backhands. In other words, it isn’t a GAME. It’s like a race or some other form of competition in which you just try to do something better than the other competitors do it – run faster, jump higher, skate better, and so forth.

There’s nothing wrong with this view of match play, but it greatly limits your playing experience. It makes you like an eighteenth century sailor who sees nothing but the “waste and void” surface of the sea, having no idea what an intriguing, colorful, and diverse world teeming with life lies underneath the surface. Or, you might say that it’s like watching a black-and-white silent movie instead of a Technicolor movie with reverberating surround sound in stereo.

In other words, you are missing out on a lot. Why not enrich that dull playing experience? Why not follow the USTA’s advice and “Get into the GAME.”

Tennis is a GAME, not a track-and-field event. To view it as but an exercise in executing forehands and backhands makes as much sense as viewing a chess match as an exercise in picking up the pieces and moving them from place to place on the chess board. It’s so much more than that.

Much more than just hitting shots better than your opponent does. The game’s the thing. Tennis is a fascinating game.

I am continually amazed at how little even advanced players with NTRP ratings of 5 and 5.5 do not know about strategy and tactics. Often, you could write everything they do know on the back of a post card!

Their answer to everything in singles is to either come to the net or go back to the baseline. In doubles, it’s basically the same: play both-up. If there’s a problem, play both-back. Often you hear advanced players revealing that they don’t even know what strategy is, for they regard a statement like “Hold you own serve and break the weaker opponent’s serve” as a strategy. That ain’t a strategy: it’s an objective you might devise a strategy to achieve.

And don’t get me started on the average recreational player, club player, and social doubles player. Look around. The world over, the vast majority don’t even know that, in doubles, you should NOT look back to watch your partner hit the ball.

That’s the first thing to know about playing doubles, something you learn by experience if you just have your head in the GAME. Yet millions play doubles regularly for decades without catching on.

Why are so many playing matches on such a superficial level and missing out on so much?

I think it’s psychological, a result of politically correct memes that have people thinking it’s bad to make errors. Indeed, making many errors is practically viewed as a character flaw. So, players think it’s all about how well they hit the ball. Younger, developing, players obsess about their form, strokes. I think it’s also due to politically correct memes that have people thinking it’s bad to want to win. You’re supposed to say, “I just play for fun.”

Wrong on both counts. Obsessing about form is perfectionism, which is an exercise in futility and the kiss of death tennis – a game of errors. So, this attitude is a recipe for frustration in a sport like tennis.

And as for wanting to win being wrong, let’s run a logic check on that.

I’ll never forget my lesson on the morality of games. I was a little child playing checkers with my sister. She HAD to win, so she started losing on purpose, leaving me no choice but to jump her checkers. I was furious. That was cheating. She cheated me out of my chance to win. SHE was the one who won that way. And she did it by cheating.

Bottom line: if you’re not going to play to win, don’t play the game. Playing to win is a moral imperative in any game.

Yes, wanting to win and playing to win takes some guts, because you might not win. That’s what you risk. That’s what makes it exciting.

Indeed, that’s what makes it FUN. More than fun, actually. It’s a blast. A thrill. As major league pitcher Nolan Ryan once said, “The greater the pressure, the more I like it.” Excitement. It’s what we live for. When you get into the GAME, you relish it.

And, if you lose, it’s a bummer. But the sun rises on the morrow. And you’re ready for another thrill.

Since it’s a game, it isn’t just an exercise in hitting forehands and backhands. As William Talbert said, you can get as much, or more, fun out of outfoxing your opponents as you can get from whacking the devil out of the tennis ball.

In my own experience, once my eyes were opened to the intriguing and fascinating world beneath the surface of match play, I fell in love with tennis. Getting into it adds a whole new level to your playing experience. A rich and satisfying one.

For, tennis is an athletic game of chess. There is no other lifelong recreational sport like it in this regard.

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