In the last eighteen months, A lot of ink has been spilled on the improvement of Djokovic’s game. And to watch his performance in the Sony Ericsson tournament last week in Miami is to get a sense that he has somehow perfected the sport.
But what I find even more striking is the transformation of his mental game. In the past, Djokovic, like the best of them, would beat himself up for the line shot sent wide or the overhead smashed into the net. Now, no longer.
The perfecting of his physical game, has had a similar impact on his inner game. Somehow, the better his shots have become, the more equipped he has become to accept the shots he can’t return (which are exceedingly few and far between).
Errors in tennis can be seen as opportunities for self-chastisement (note Murray’s first instinct) or increasingly for Djokovic (and habitually for Federer) as opportunities for self-collection.
To my mind, with an improved physical game comes the improved knowledge of your own ability. After all, not all shots are returnable. And not every failed attempt is an unforced error.
Knowing what to adjust in your game and what to praise in your opponent’s, is a little like the serenity prayer: changing the things you can in your game, accepting the winners you can’t get, and having the sports sense to know the difference.
Sometimes, I’m a real dog with a bone about things. And sometimes, issues have a funny way of resurfacing in increasingly dramatic ways.
I was all prepared to write a couple of posts about two recent tennis tournaments–the Sony Ericsson in Miami, and the one being held at my tennis club this week.
Instead, as I was reading the paper this morning, I stumbled on a guest column written by Aviva Rubin that took my tennis thinking in a whole other direction.
Turns out, Rubin, a Toronto blogger at nothinginmoderation.ca had written a piece for the New York Times’ Motherlode blog about being naked around her kids called, not surprisingly, “Naked with Children.”
The article has a nostalgic bent that most mothers share. While Rubin still doesn’t bother to cover up when going from bedroom to bathroom, she knows there will come a time soon when maternal nudity (almost a requirement at times when nursing babies) will no longer leave her sons unfazed. The piece highlights the closeness of her family while attempting to ferret out a sense of what other families consider “normal” on the issue of family nudity.
Within hours of its publication, what was written in the vein of a parenting question was being attacked as the musings of a pervert. Needless to say, Rubin in her own words had not prepared herself for “the viral hoo-ha and vitriol that ensued.” As she writes in her Globe and Mail column of April 7, 2012, “more than reading the piece, people read into it–projected onto it their own anxieties, insecurities, shame, fears and moralistic judgement.”
And this of course got me thinking about two posts I had written back in the fall about sexual politics on the tennis court. People read all sorts of things into those posts and some got pretty upset by what I had written. So upset that I felt direct pressure to take the posts down.
At the time, I chided myself for not having fine-tuned the prose sufficiently. That is, I blamed the writing. Now, I’m not so sure.
Also in today’s paper was a piece about the “righteous mind.” Claiming moral superiority can be quite a consolation for many people. And it can serve to censor almost anything, whether your topic is family habits or the joys and pitfalls of playing tennis against guys.
The trick in life, and yes, on the tennis court, is to distinguish between what I would call “forced” and “unforced” errors, between something that comes from the other side of the court from something that comes from your own side.
I’m starting to feel like I’m a better person on than off the tennis court.
I’m more hopeful, more understanding, more forgiving.
Dubious line call? No problem. I won’t question you. It’s bad form and bad karma. Besides, people who fudge on calls tend to lose the next point anyway.
My partner’s play going south? Not to worry. I’m the best “buoyer upper” this side of the Cape. It’s all good, dude. Just get it over the net and we’re laughing.
Down love-40? Piece of cake. I just need to make two killer serves and a sneaky drop shot and we’re out of the hole again.
Off court, not so much.
Though my locker room banter is full of positive comments about my opponent, by the time I get home to my husband, the colour of the match has moved to a darker shade of grey.
I’ve lost again and it sucks.
Big time.
The tug of the drain.
The “coulda, woulda, shouldas” of treacherous hindsight.
The inevitable self-recrimination.
For thoughts I would not dare entertain on court, I’m throwing a full-out cocktail party. Hot hors d’oeuvres. The works.
The truth is, I’ve taken a year off to improve my tennis and to write about how I did it.
But on a cold Monday morning in a pretty cold town, I’m waking up to a double whammy.
My score card is dismal and I feel more and more like Amy Adams in “Julie and Julia.” Especially that scene where she wonders at her cubicle if anyone is reading her blog. Wondrously, up pops a comment message. But when she clicks on it, it’s from her mother asking her why she’s still writing her blog.
So I do more internet trolling to see if anyone out there is
a) writing anything remotely along the lines of Zen and Tennis
b) remotely interested in anything I’m writing about at Zen and Tennis
And under the key words “tennis and life” I land on this site where I find, to my mind, the most hilarious instructional video yet on improving your groundstroke.
Sometimes, in tennis and in life, you just gotta laugh. Enjoy.
“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”
–Confucius
Remember my New Year’s post when I said few lives require a total about-face? That in most cases all we needed to do was fine-tune things we were already doing?
Well, I took some of my own advice today and it paid off, I think.
As I mentioned three posts back, I’ve been in the midst of a fairly protracted losing streak. Never fun–especially when your lot is going home to write about it.
Today, at team practice, I could feel the familiar tug and pull of my game going south. Easy shots muffed or out wide. Floater overheads smashed into the net.
And then I said, enough.
Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. Figured it was about time to do things differently.
So this is what I did.
I went back to ABSOLUTE BASICS and decided to LOOK AT THE BALL. Really LOOK AT IT. And, guess what? When you actually look at something hard and fast, up close and personal, you stand a very good chance of not missing it.
Instantly, I started to hit better and feel better as a consequence. Which of course led me to hit even better. Serving: cold hard look at yellow ball. Wham. Forehand: eye the little sucker. Bounce and smack!
Hitting a ball well in tennis is like all good connections in life. There’s a shape, a sound, and a feel to it. Not by accident do people call it the sweet spot.
And yet, here’s the really heartbreaking thing: the difference between a wow winner and a shot that’s out wide is sometimes as small as an eighth of an inch.
Sometimes it’s the smallest of adjustments that have the greatest impact on and off the court. The difference between really looking and letting your attention flag for even a second.
Sometimes you really need the words of the masters to reinforce your thoughts on a matter.
Came across this video of Agassi at Tennis Mind Game, explaining what is so compelling about tennis. Please don’t mind the sound/image lag. If I could fix it, I would.
Yesterday, I played a ladder match and got creamed. Slaughter-House Fived. Blood on the court.
At change over, my opponent said words to this effect: “Don’t worry. It’s only tennis.”
I know he was trying to be nice but really, what is the response to that? When was it ever “only tennis.” That is, when has ANY human activity been “only anything.”
That’s like saying to the average Canadian male, “heh, it’s only hockey.” See if you get out of the bar alive with that one.
Nothing is ever just one thing. We all know that, though we may pretend otherwise. And tennis is no exception.
A tennis match is first and foremost a struggle. After all, there can only be one winner so someone is going home the loser.
It’s a battle of wits; a battle of wills; and a battle of ability. And for me, lately, in the midst of a losing streak, a measure of tenacity.
I’ve been picking myself up and brushing myself off pretty regularly lately. So much so that I’ve been sweeping har-tru clay from my shoulders.
But I also know that the only way forward, the only way out of the hole, is by continuing to battle it out. By continuing to show up, racquet in hand, ready to play, regardless of the outcome.
Games matter to us. It’s in their forum that we can test our mettle, settle our scores, work out our issues without being perceived (for most of us at least) as sociopathic.
It’s the open competitiveness of sports that actually allows us to saw off the rougher competitive edges of our natures. I’m almost prepared to say, that without them, that inherent competitiveness becomes a toxic brew.
Mind you, I didn’t always feel this way. And a part of me still resists the idea of competitive sports being morally beneficial. After all, I married a guy who won his student council election in high school on the platform that “sports leads to fascism.”
So you can imagine dinner conversations at our table recently.
