Operation Doubles Tennis: Australian Open: Marcos Baghdatis defeats Marat Safin

Marat Safin surprised himself today.

He came out to his second round Australian Open match against 15th seeded Marcos Baghdatis in the usual frame of mind, believing that he was going to screw up.

And he did.

Despite whatever he was telling himself consciously, deep down he believed that he was going to screw up. And then did.

If you know anything about this big Russian, you know that he thus serves as is his own worst enemy. Head case extraordinaire. And the frustrations of a year battling injury only compounded his struggle with a mindset that amounts to a deep seated belief that "I can't."

But we all know that Marat is a terrific tennis player who can.

How does this happen? Indeed, this is a common problem tennis players have, and it should comfort the rest of us to see that even a great player like Marat Safin can struggle with it.

Like so many human behaviors, this low opinion of oneself is actually a complex, a reflection of its opposite. For example, people with low esteem often go into denial of that, repress awareness of it, and seek to negate it through an internal narrative that pretends an equal amount of the opposite – high self esteem. Hence, an inferiority complex comes off as a superiority act. Deep down, no one has a lower opinion of himself than a malignant narcissist does.

This is something like that. It stems from the perfectionism that, for many reasons, plagues many tennis players. They actually think they should make every shot.

Not consciously, of course. I'm sure that if you asked Marat, he'd say that he knows errors are part of the game. But when you miss an easy shot, you think, "That was an easy shot, one I shouldn't have missed." The better player you are, the tougher that shot can be and still make you think that.

John McEnroe is probably the best example. To this day, he gets mad at himself for virtually every error. Ironically, no one ever came closer than he did to flawless tennis. But after two flawless sets, he can go off over one unforced error. Perfectionism.

This stems from the mistaken belief that you err because you do something wrong, that every error is some sort of personal failure. It's not.

To the contrary, every good shot is somewhat lucky. When you think of all the calculations and estimates the brain must make in judging the ball and timing and coordinating your stroke, you can see why. All this calculating and estimating is almost never perfect. Why? Because, tennis happens too fast: for example, the brain hasn't time to take enough snapshots of the approaching ball to judge its speed perfectly. It must guestimate. Sometimes an imperceptibly slight gust of wind or a grain of sand on the court can throw those calculations off enough to produce an error.

Of course, the quieter your mind, the more brainpower you have free to devote to judgment and coordination = the better you'll play. But nobody ever plays perfect tennis. We all regularly miss shots we are good enough to make.

That happens. Every shot has a probability of error. Even if the probability of error for a particular shot is low, sometimes you ARE going to miss it. Them's the odds. Accept them or find a different sport.

It's crucial to take your errors in stride as part of the game. Don't view them as personal failures, as shots you SHOULD have made. If you do, your ego pipes up, and you get distracted by the internal tongue-lashing it starts giving you. That just wastes brainpower on thinking rot and makes your play worse. It can destroy your game.

Indeed, it would be more correct to think that you SHOULD miss every shot. So, be glad to make the ones you do. The object of the game is to maximize the percentage of good shots you make, but perfection is unattainable.

The overemphasis on form contributes to this psychological problem in tennis players. It tends to make us think that every time we miss a shot, it's because we swung wrong. Wrong. You can hit a great shot with lousy form and a terrible shot with "perfect" form. Tennis technique isn't an exact science: it's just a set of parameters to keep your strokes within, parameters that make it mechanically effective, efficient, and minimize the probability of error. But it doesn't guarantee success.

After losing the first two sets to Baghdatis 4-6, 4-6, Safin turned his game around. How?

Not by any pep talk he gave himself. He simply got his attention focused where it belonged, on strategy and tactics. This is a simple matter of shoving aside the stupid things your ego is yakking at you and thinking about the GAME.

Marat didn't suddenly become a true believer in himself. He didn't suddenly find his mojo. He simply changed the way he was playing. He stepped up inside the baseline and started taking shots on the rise. He wins the next two sets 6-2 and 6-3.

Obviously, he has made this strategy change because he has occupied his mind with strategy and tactics, tuning out the noise his ego was making.

But then, as so often happens in these cases, in the natural letdown after catching up, Marat took a mental breather and gave away some cheap points early in the final set. Then the racket abuse blow-up. Note to Marat: Don't encourage your opponent that way!

Baghdatis is just too good and too determined to get away with that against. Safin let him back in the match, and Baghdatis was mentally tougher under the withering pressure and won 6-2.

Nonetheless, this match serves as a confidence builder for Safin. Via the BBC:

Safin said he had paid for making a slow start.

"It's a pity," said the 27-year-old. "I consider I should have won in three, four sets.

"The first two sets should not have happened. That's the first and last time I make that mistake."

Still learning at 27? That's a good sign!

However, the Russian said his performances in Australia had given him belief that he could rejoin the game's elite.

"It's actually a little bit surprising for myself to be in such a good shape and to play good tennis and be able to compete against top players for five sets with a chance to win.

"The year is pretty long, so I'll have my chances, that's for sure."