Mental toughness in tennis

Roger Federer is one of the all-time great tennis players. Here’s an interesting statistic about his career, provided by the man himself at a recent graduation speech:

He won only 54% of the points he played.

Barely better than half! Obviously, there’s a fine line between winning and losing in tennis. Here’s what Federer said about the mental state that allowed him to stay on the winning side of the line:

When you lose every second point on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot. You teach yourself to think: 'Okay, I double faulted...it's only a point.' 'Okay, I came to the net and I got passed again...it's only a point.' Even a great shot, an overhead backhand smash that ends up on ESPN's top 10 playlist – that too is just a point. Here's why I'm telling you this. When you're playing a point, it has to be the most important thing in the world. And it is. But when it's behind you, it's behind you. This mindset is crucial – because it frees you to fully commit to the next point with intensity, clarity, and focus."

As a former competitive tennis and squash player, I found myself thinking about this a lot over the last few weeks. Following are some thoughts about the mental game in tennis.

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Balancing arousal and fear

Competing well in tennis demands that you genuinely care about the outcome. You can’t fully mobilize your energetic and attentional resources without an intense desire to win. Physiologically speaking, you need to perceive an emergency to release the stress hormones that will make you ready to fight and focus at the highest level.

But there’s a tradeoff here: an intense desire to win creates fear of loss, and this fear generates anxiety that feels awful. It might manifest as butterflies in the stomach, tightness in the chest, or vivid imaginings of public humiliation. Simply tolerating this awfulness and continuing to fight is a significant part of what “mental toughness” means in tennis.

Another huge problem created by fear is impaired technique. Fear might cause shakiness in your hands, or a general sense of inhibition and tentativeness throughout your body. This can restrict range of motion, and the smooth naturalness needed for fluid and powerful movements. The result is often a short and stiff swing. We used to describe this as "pushing" the ball. The accepted cure was to "hit out", which meant trusting your stroke and letting it fly. There’s a similar concept in pocket billiards - stress tends to make your stroke short and poky, and the remedy is to “let your stroke out.” You need to let go of the tight control that prevents flow. But that’s hard when you’re afraid of a bad outcome.

Trying to relax can be helpful, but you don't want to relax so much that you lose your intensity. A very natural reaction to the fear of losing is to emotionally withdraw from the fight. Which is pretty easy to do, because this isn't a real fight, and you can choose to stop taking the match seriously at any time. Voices in your head might start saying things like: "it's just a game" or "it doesn't really matter.” These points might be true, but are they motivated by wisdom or fear?

I am reminded of something I've noticed about kids competing at games on the playground. Some of them will avoid simple competitions like foot races, and when asked why they will explain that they don’t care about who wins. This may be true in some cases, but in other cases, it's the opposite – the problem is not that they don't care who wins, it’s that they care too much. They can't tolerate the pain of a loss, and this is why they avoid the race.

On the tennis court, it's easy to lie to yourself about this kind of thing. You might tell yourself that you don't really care about winning, but the reality is that you are only saying this to reduce the pain of a potential loss. A loss might be tolerable if you don’t really try, and this allows you to maintain the fiction that you might have won if you had fought harder. But if you try your hardest and lose, then you must accept the reality that you aren’t as good as you think you are. That's painful, and part of the mental toughness in tennis is putting yourself in that vulnerable position.

Another way out of the stress of competition is to start making excuses: "This match doesn't count because I was sick last week," or "I'm out of practice," or “the other guy is getting lucky.” Another trap is becoming satisfied with something less than a win, like a good performance against a better player. You might use this as form of permission to relax before the end of the match. My mind generates all of these kinds of thoughts almost every minute during a tense match. I need to do a lot of mental/emotional work to do make sure they don't cause me to stop fighting for a win.

In summary, playing your best requires that you somehow maximize arousal and intensity while minimizing fear and anxiety. Maintaining this balance involves constantly processing inner thoughts and managing them through self-talk. There are some philosophical approaches to finding this balance. These might involve trying to “stay in the moment” (mentioned by Federer above), or maybe to become strongly attached to the process but not the outcome. I'm sure there is some wisdom to these philosophies, but I also know that applying them in practice is far harder than simply saying them, and that finding what actually works for you is extremely difficult.

One of the mental challenges inherent to tennis is the break in the action between each point. Unlike sports like basketball or soccer, where the play is continuous, tennis provides ample time between points for thinking and overthinking. It's an opportunity to dwell on the past or worry about the future. This takes you out of the present moment and creates a perfect environment for choking.

There will be some rare times when you're competing when you get into some kind of Zen state, or flow state, where you have maximum arousal and focus, combined with minimal anxiety and a sense of calm. You somehow remain completely present without worrying about the future or the past. I think these states are real (I have occasionally felt them myself), and that we can attain them more often with the right mindset and self-talk. However, there will always be times in a match when competing simply sucks, and all you can do is try your best to tolerate the suckiness and keep going.

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Strategy: balancing risk and reward

I think the strategic aspect of tennis is somewhat overrated, and I would argue that there isn't that much thinking involved in shot selection. Unlike football, where coaches can choose from hundreds of different plays, tennis players typically operate within a narrower range of shot selections - primarily cross-court or down the line.

Good decision-making in tennis is less about shot selection and more about how aggressively to execute the shot. For each stroke, a player must have some intention about how fast, how high over the net, how deep, how close to the sideline to aim the ball. A more offensive shot provides a better chance for a winner, but increased risk for an error. Smart tennis means accurately calibrating these risk-reward probabilities over and over and over again. The player who makes slightly better judgments throughout the match eventually develops an overwhelming advantage.

Making good choices in this regard is an emotional skill that parallels the balance between arousal and calmness discussed above. A fearful mind tends to make you defensive, and excitement can make you too offensive. Players need to engage in constant self-talk to maintain the right level of aggression and patience.

The repetitive nature of this process can be challenging for people who easily get bored or want to express their creativity. In sports like soccer or basketball, the complexity of the game means you are constantly presented with new problems that invite novel solutions. In American football, there's the chance for one big play to break the game wide open. In tennis …. not so much. It's the same thing over and over again, and every point counts as just one point. Winning comes from doing the smart, high-percentage thing repeatedly. You can never win the match on one point. Therefore, it tends to favor the workman-like grinder over the creative genius.

All of this mental and emotional work is draining. Have you ever noticed how difficult it can be to watch a sporting event on TV when you really care about the outcome? The suspense, the frustration over missed opportunities, the rollercoaster of ups and downs can be exhausting after a few hours. Imagine how much harder it is for the players! And then also consider that they do this every workday.

My personal experience playing tennis (and squash) was that I was a good competitor for two or three matches, but found it difficult to keep up the level of intensity over longer periods of time. And we never played five set matches! When I see guys like Federer or Djokovic playing at the top of their game day after day, week after week, and year after year, beating off challenges from hungry youngsters, I find it quite amazing. I think it’s possible that their mental/emotional skills are just as rare as their physical abilities.