In all of the previous posts we have discussed the fun part of tennis…The Joy of Tennis. But anyone who has played tennis on a competitive level knows the feeling of FRUSTRATION. And frustration is anything but fun.
Let’s look at some ways that frustration can manifest itself on the tennis court. We have seen players yell and scream and use profanity. We have seen players smash balls into the fence and out of stadiums. Players will break rackets and do all sorts of things to act out their frustrations. Recently a player on the professional circuit struck a ball in anger that hit the chair umpire in the eye causing an injury that required surgery and earned the player a 6 month suspension from play. One of my favorite stories is a player in the late 1980’s calmly taking each of his 18 rackets from his bag and smashing them on the ground at the US Open. There is a story that young Bjorn Borg broke a racket in a tennis match in anger and his parents would not let him play for a period of time. Supposedly this was a start of the icy calm persona that Borg projected throughout his professional career. Borg is often contrasted with his great rival John McEnroe who was famous for his angry rants against tennis officials, opponents, and even the spectators. He Cannot Be Serious…
There are many overt and extreme demonstrations of emotional outbursts that are examples of frustration, but there are many other ways that frustration can manifest itself on the tennis court. Sometimes a player will give up. The player continues to play the match but their heart is no longer in it and they do not play with the effort necessary to win. Another manifestation of frustration is when a player plays too fast. They rush between points and go for shots in an effort to end it as soon as possible. I have seen players become frustrated to the point where they freeze up and can barely move their feet or swing the racket. Sometimes the frustration will manifest itself after the match is over. My first time traveling on the professional tour saw a classic example of this. In a first round match in Cairo Egypt, my player, the young and very talented Andrew Sznajder was playing the experienced veteran Pablo Arraya. Andrew started the match on fire. He raced through the first set and a break of serve lead in the second. Pablo was frustrated as he screamed a profanity filled tirade at the sky. But Pablo overcame his frustration and made a brilliant change of tactics, slowing the pace of the ball down and making Andrew adjust to a completely different type of ball. Unfortunately Andrew did not adjust well to this and his game slowly unraveled and Pablo earned a well played three set victory. On his way out of the stadium Andrew expressed his frustration by throwing all his rackets into a trash can and saying “I guess I better get a real job”. I was too busy fighting off the young Egyptian boys trying to get Andrew’s rackets to explain the interesting reactions to frustration. Thankfully I was big enough and quick enough to rescue Andrew’s rackets but I have never forgotten that match. So we can see how frustration can lead to emotional outbursts or breakdowns. Let’s now look at what frustration really is and how we can overcome it in tennis and maybe in life.
Allen Fox is one of the most interesting and brilliant minds in tennis. Allen was a top player, then became a psychologist, and then returned to tennis as one of the very best college tennis coaches of all time. Allen has also written some of the best books on the mental side of the game. He has a regular column in Tennis magazine on the mental side of the game. I have read Allen’s books and since he was the college coach of Andrew Sznajder, I was lucky to talk to Allen and get his advice on how to publish my upcoming tennis book. One of the most valuable things I learned from Allen was the definition of frustration. To paraphrase Allen, frustration is the gap between expectation and reality. I love this definition because it completely explains the reasons for the vast amount of frustrations that tennis players experience. Let’s look back at the match in Egypt. Pablo Arraya was an experienced player with wins over many top 10 ranked players. He had played a very young Andrew in a Davis Cup match in the past so his expectation was that this would be an easy match. Andrew played brilliantly to start the match and the reality of Andrew’s play did not match Pablo’s expectation…this big gap created frustration that Pablo expressed with some colorful language. I will leave out the expletives but Pablo basically shouted that this was crazy, he was playing Andrew Sznajder and not Jimmy Connors. After that outburst Pablo seemed to accept the reality of the situation and was able to come up with a strategy that allowed him to come back and win the match. Andrew expected to win the match with a big lead and the reality of losing caused him to act with frustration by throwing his rackets into the trash can and expressing his desire to get a real job. If you examine any emotional expression of frustration you can tie it back to the difference between the expectations of the player and the reality of the situation.
My coach and mentor, Peter Burwash used to always tell us that “Knowledge eliminates frustration”. Peter was right, but it is not always technical knowledge, but often times it is knowledge of what is the reality of the situation. One of the most frustrating times in a tennis match is when a player misses an “easy” shot. We have all been there, how could we have missed that EASY shot. The first step is to really analyze what caused the miss. Once we have figured out the cause we automatically know the solution. Just this recognition will often be enough to ease the frustration.
For players reading this article I would encourage you to use these feelings of frustration as an opportunity to learn. Often our expectations are not something we are aware of, so that makes it easy for frustrations to pop up. If you have a clear picture of your expectations then you can look at the reality of the situation and see if your expectations were realistic. Many times the biggest impediment to our making progress is unrealistic expectations. Maybe you have just learned a new shot and it doesn’t hold up in a match. Have you practiced it enough? Did you really understand what your coach was teaching you? For the tennis teachers reading this I challenge you to not only teach your students the strokes but also teach them what to expect as the learning process takes place. The more that you can help align the players expectations with the reality of their experience the less frustration they will experience.
As always I hope you will head out to the courts. Appreciate the reality of where you are in your tennis journey and then you can truly experience
THE JOY OF TENNIS
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