Serena Williams on her Loss at the French Open

Quite a few years ago, I took advantage of a moment to talk to the last kid out of my classroom, to mention that he was going to need better test scores in short order if he wanted a decent grade.

I was completely bowled over by his reply. He looked down at his foot and moved it around like a baseball pitcher rearranging some dirt on the mound while the manager talks to him, and said, "Yeah, Biology isn't working."

"BIOLOGY isn't working?" I asked. "Do you mean that YOU aren't doing well in Biology?"

Well, yeah, sort of.

He was 15; Serena Williams is 26.

Below are some of her remarks in an interview after her loss to Justine Henin today. Note that they are taken out of context to illustrate something that has nothing to do with the context. For the context, read the transcript here.

Yeah, nothing worked today. Some days you just have days like that.

...I just think it was -- I don't know what it was. I don't know. There's really no explanation for it.

... I don't know. Just everything was going wrong. Usually, I don't hit in the net, like I think I hit so many errors today. I hit in the net a lot. And it was very frustrating. ...And I was just making all the errors and just playing like a maniac.

... My routine was off. I'm very superstitious, and things weren't right, so...

Superstitious? I'll say. Why not quit being superstitious? Try reason and realism instead of all that positive delusional thinking that leaves you high and dry on a day like today?

Newsflash: believing a thing doesn't make it so.

But, you know, nothing really went right for me this morning, and it just continued on through the match.

Do you mean that YOU didn't do anything right during the match?

No, it sure sounds like she means that we shouldn't bother to watch her play a match: that we should just check her horoscope for that day.

It gets to the point that she even starts distancing herself from her performance by referring to herself in the third person:

Serena kept hitting balls in the net and Serena kept making errors. And it wasn't that. It was just that I couldn't hit my shots the way, you know, I was hitting them earlier or whatever.

Evidently then, Serena has no control over how she hits her shots. She does not even know how she hits her shots, because she cannot even tell us whether she was hitting too early or too late.

In fact, she was so somewhere else (presumably because her play is the doing of the Fates) that she didn't even know how many errors she was making...

No, at that point I hadn't even realized how many errors I was making. At that point -- I mean, I was still fighting. I mean, I was fighting until the end.

Good thing you slipped that little correction in there so fast. People might not like hearing that you just gave up.

But I just, I don't think I've ever played so bad in the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam. And it's not, you know, here I am always saying I want to peak at the right times, but I didn't have any peaks today.

You just didn't HAVE any peaks today? Do you mean that YOU didn't peak today?

And I just -- I don't -- I've never played so hideous and horrendous, and all those other words I can use to describe my play today.

Well, I guess that's OK, because by now you've made it clear that you are not the one responsible for that.

I never play like that.

Well, then who the hail impersonated you today and did?

At this point the reporter pointedly asks, "Is it like you can't believe it, sort of?"

Sometimes, yeah.

Sometimes? Yeah, when you play badly, but not when you play well, right?

Not even your opponent has anything to do with it...

I think all she had to do was show up.

Would it kill you to give credit to her? What? Are Justine Henin's shots so insignificant that they couldn't possibly have anything to do with your play? Kinda like if I play tennis with God and he loses, it's all because of his play, not because I'm capable of pressing The Great Him?

Would it cost you anything to pay credit where credit is due? In tennis, you are to RETURN your opponent's shots. You failed to return, or to return well, Justine Henin's shots today. Justine Henin's shots won the match.

Not the tennis gods.

You are nothing special. At your level everyone has great talent. You are only as good as your hard work and effort make you.

Serena isn't the only pro tennis player showing the ill-effects of what is called "positive thinking." It's just the antithesis of the negative thinking that can delude us during play. But delusion is delusion, whether it's positive or negative. And delusions must be constantly maintained.

Unfortunately, reality won't cooperate and do that. Sooner or later reality assaults our delusions. And when reality assaults your delusions, and your psych job rests on it like a house of cards, look out.

Technorati Tags: tennis