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Tennis psychology is only understanding the workings of your opponent’s mind and assessing the effect of your own game on his/her mental viewpoint and also understanding the mental effects resulting from the various external causes on your own head.

Nevertheless, it is also true that you no one can be a successful psychologist of others without first understanding his own mental processes. So, you have to study the effect on yourself of the same thing occurring under various conditions. This is because you react differently in different moods and under different conditions.

You must understand the effect on your game of the resulting annoyance, pleasure, bewilderment, or whatever other form your reaction takes. Does it improve your efficiency? If so, try for it, but never offer it to your opponent. Does it deprive you of concentration? If so, either remove the reason, or if that is not possible, try to ignore it.

After you have properly judged your own reaction to circumstances, observe your opponents to decide their characters. Like characters react in a like manner, and you may judge people of your own type by yourself. Other temperaments you have to seek to compare with those people, whose reactions you are already familiar with.

Someone who can regulate his/her own mental processes stands an great chance of reading those of another for the mind works along definite lines of thought and can be examined. One can only control one’s own mental processes after carefully studying them.

A regular, unemotional baseline player is seldom a keen thinker. If he were, he would not adhere to the baseline. The physical appearance of a player is often a pretty clear indication of his/her kind of mind. The stolid, easy-going player, who normally displays the baseline strategy, does it because he does not want to stir up his/her slow mind to work out a reliably safe method of getting to the net.

However, then there is the other sort of baseline player, who would rather stay on the rear of the court while supervising an attack intending to break up your game. He is a very dangerous player and a deep, keen thinking antagonist. He achieves his/her results by mixing up his/her length and direction and worrying you with the variance of his/her game. This player is a very good psychologist.

The first type of player mentioned above merely strikes the ball with little thought about what he is actually doing, while the latter always has a definite strategy and sticks to it.

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I expect that this initial effort of mine into the world of writing will find a place with both novices and experts in the tennis world. I am striving to interest the student of the game by a somewhat lengthy discussion of match play, which I trust will cast a new light on the game of tennis.

I will address the novice in my opening and write of certain matters which are second nature to the skilled player. The best tennis equipment is not much good for the beginner even if he really is trying to succeed. However, one has to buy good quality; it is a saving in the end, as good quality material far outlasts poor quality gear.

It is important to always dress in tennis attire when playing tennis. The question of selecting a tennis racquet is a much more serious matter. I do not advocate forcing a certain make of racquet upon any player, since all the famous makes are excellent. However, it is on the weight, balance, and size of handle that the real value of a racquet frame depends, while good stringing is essential to get the best results.

After having acquired your racquet, make a firm decision to use only good tennis balls, as a regular bounce is a great aid to advancement, while a “dead” ball is of no use at all. If you really desire to succeed at the game and progress rapidly, I strongly advise you to see all the good tennis you can. Study the play of the best players and strive to emulate their strokes. Read all the tennis instruction manuals you can find. They are a great assistance.

Much more tennis can be picked up off the tennis court in the study of theory and in watching the top players in action, than can ever be learned in one’s own actual play. I do not mean that you should miss opportunities to play tennis, far from it. Play tennis whenever you can, but strive when playing to put into practice the theories you have read about or the strokes you have watched.

Never become discouraged by slow progress. The trick of playing some stroke you have worked on over weeks unsuccessfully, will suddenly come to you when least expected. Good tennis players are the product of hard work. Very few players are born geniuses at the game. Tennis is a game that pays you dividends all your life. A tennis racquet is a letter of introduction in any town.

The brotherhood of the game is universal, since none but a fit sportsman can succeed in the game for any long period of time. Tennis provides relaxation, excitement, exercise, and pure enjoyment to the player who is bound hard to his business until late afternoon.

The following order of development produces the quickest and most lasting results: 1. Concentration on the game. 2. Keep the eye on the ball. 3. Foot-work and weight-control. 4. Strokes. 5. Court position. 6. Court generalship or match play. 7. Tennis psychology.

Concentration. Tennis is played first with the mind. The most perfect racquet technique in the world will not be enough if the directing mind is wandering. There are many reasons for a distracted mind in a tennis match. The chief one is loss of interest in the game. No one should play tennis with any expectation of real success unless he cares enough about the game to be willing to do the practice necessary to learn the game properly.

Give it up at once unless you are willing to work hard. Conditions of play or the noises in the gallery often confuse and bewilder experienced match-players playing in new surroundings. Complete concentration on the matter in hand is the only remedy for a wandering mind, and the sooner the lesson is learned the quicker the improvement of the player.

The best way to keep a match in mind is to play for every set, every game in the set, every point in the game and, finally, every shot in the point. A set is merely a collection of made and missed shots, and the man who misses the least is the ultimate victor.

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The hard-hitting, erratic, net-rushing player is a person of impulse. There is no real system to his/her game, no understanding of your game. He will make brilliant coups on the spur of the moment, largely by instinct; but there is no, mental power of consistent thinking. It is an interesting sort of character.

The most unnerving player is the one who mixes his/her style from back to fore court at the direction of an ever-alert mind. This/her is the player to study and learn from. He is a player with a definite purpose. A player who has an answer to every query you present him in your game. He is the most subtle opponent in the world of tennis. He is from the school of Brookes. Second only to him is the player of dogged determination that sets his/her mind on one plan and sticks to it, bitterly, fiercely fighting to the end, with no thought of changing.

He is the player whose psychology is rather easy to understand, but whose mental viewpoint is difficult to derail, for he never allows himself to think about anything except his game. This/her player is your Johnston or your Wilding. I respect the intelligence of Brookes more, but I admire the tenacity of purpose of Johnston.

Pick out your kind from your own mental processes, and then plan your game along the lines most suited to you. When two men are in the same class as regards stroke and equipment, the determining factor in any given match is the mental standpoint. Luck, so-called, is often seizing the psychological advantage of a break in the game, and turning it to your own account. We hear a great deal about the “shots players have made.” Few realize the importance of the “shots players have missed.”

The psychology of missing shots is just as important as that of making them, and at times a miss by an inch is of more value than a return that is killed by your opponent. Allow me to explain. A player drives you far out of court with an angle-shot. You run hard to it, and having reached it, you drive it hard and fast down the side-line, missing it by an inch. Your opponent is shocked and put off his stride, realizing that your shot might just as well have gone in as out. He will expect you to try it again and he will not take the risk next time. He will strive to play the ball, and may make an error. You have thus taken some of your opponent’s confidence, and increased his/her chance of error, all because of a miss.

If you had just tapped back that ball, and it had been killed, your opponent would have felt increasingly confident of your inability to get the ball out of his/her reach, while you would merely have been winded without result.

Let’s suppose that you had succeeded with that shot down the sideline. It was a seemingly impossible get. First it amounts to TWO points, because it stole one away from your opponent that should have been his/her and gave you one that you should never have had. Second it also worries your opponent, because he feels that he has lost a big opportunity.

The psychology involved in a tennis match is fascinating, but easily understood. Both men begin with equal opportunities. Once one player establishes a real lead, his/her confidence rises, while his/her opponent worries, and his/her mental standpoint becomes weaker. The only objective of the first player is to hold his/her lead, thereby holding his/her confidence.

If the second player pulls even or draws ahead, the inevitable reaction is an even greater contrast in psychology. There is the natural confidence of the leader, but coupled with the great stimulus of having turned a seemingly inevitable defeat into a probable victory. The situation of the other player is the reverse. He is apt to lose confidence and play worse. The breakdown of his game plan will be the result.

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