This blog began on the final day of Wimbledon with Roger Federer completing a magnificent performance of winning Wimbledon without the loss of a set. It is amazing how fast the summer has sped by. To me the US Open has always been the signpost that the summer is coming to an end. With Labor Day weekend coming the middle of the tournament, kids heading back to school and the NFL beginning regular season games on Finals day, there is no ignoring that the summer is ending and the autumn is almost upon us. But for the next 13 days the best tennis players in the world are gathered in New York to contest the final major of the year. This is the time when there is the most interest in tennis in the United States. There is lots of tennis on TV, the weather is still nice and there is great coverage by all media of this not so little tennis competition in the Big Apple.

An example of this is August 28 issue of “Sports Illustrated” magazine with a great picture of Roger Federer preparing to hit his beautiful backhand on the cover. SI is the most read sports magazine in the United States.

The Sports Illustrated article is entitled “Artist in Residence” and I highly recommend it to all the Fed Fans out there.

My favorite part of the article is where they talk about the way that Federer has affected the entire tennis culture. Let me quote “Note how many players today sign autographs as they leave the court, even after defeat. Note how few act cantankerously. The message is clear: If the guy at the top discharges his duties with not just professionalism but with JOY (emphasis is mine), and he’s generous with time and refreshingly candid, what excuse is there for a lesser player not to do the same?”

For those of you who love the game of tennis and love to see it being played with JOY, watch Federer during the next two weeks. My predictions for the champions are

Men’s Singles Champion – Roger Federer (who is surprised???)
Women’s Singles Champion – Maria Sharapova (who is opening with a tough match against #2 seed Simone Halep)

Enjoy watching the pros in New York and I hope it inspires you to get out on the courts and experience…

THE JOY OF TENNIS

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

Joy is the emotion evoked by well-being, success or good fortune or by the prospect of getting something you desire. It can be described as a source of great satisfaction. Some related words are fun, recreation, comfort, gratification, exhilaration, and exultation. There are many other words that the dictionary gives as a synonym or word related to Joy.

This blog is a bit different. In this blog I really want to know what is it about tennis that you get joy from. Everyone is different. As a tennis professional I have found that one of the most important parts of my job is to find out what my student wants to get out of their tennis lesson. My dear friend Jill is an accomplished player and loves to learn and improve but what Jill wants MOST of all is a great workout. If I tell too many stories or talk too much about learning theory I can see Jill’s eyes glaze over and I have to get back to work and get her moving. Other students want to stop and talk and understand what is going on in the learning process. Every student is different and unique. My mentor and teacher, Peter Burwash used to always say to me and all the PBI professionals that “we do not teach a system, we teach individuals.”

There is so many ways to have fun on a tennis court. Do you love to just hit and enjoy the rhythm and exercise of hitting ground strokes? Do you love the battle of singles competition? Do you love the teamwork and strategy of doubles? What shot in tennis brings you the most Joy? Do you love to crush a big forehand? Does the flow of a great serve thrill you? Or maybe finishing the point with a crisp volley gets you going.

Please leave a brief comment below telling me what it is about tennis that you find especially fun and joyful. Thanks so much for your help and reading my blog.

Keep heading out to the courts to experience

THE JOY OF TENNIS

There are many people with ideas about how to promote and increase the amount of people who play tennis. There are programs designed around promoting the fitness aspect of tennis. There are numerous programs aimed at children. There are team tennis programs and tournament formats of all types. Every one of these programs can be great based upon how they are delivered. There are lots of reasons people play tennis and many of them are addressed by the programs that are offered by tennis clubs and tennis associations. It seems to me that one aspect that can bring more players to the game of tennis than anything else is being overlooked…FUN!

I started tennis in a public park and kept with it because it was FUN. There was an interesting group of characters who played in this park and they welcomed a teen age kid who loved to play. Over the years the best tennis environments that I have participated in as a player or teacher have always included a great deal of fun. Tennis can be competitive and frustrating and demanding in many ways. But it can also be great fun. It is a great way to meet people. You can continue to learn and improve your game for your entire life. Tennis can be played against one player (singles) or as part of a doubles team. If you want to get a little bit out of the box give triples a try. It can be a fun, fast paced and interesting way to play tennis.

So what are the obstacles for new players to experiencing the fun of tennis. There seems to be 2 main challenges for new players. Number 1 is that tennis is not an easy sport to learn. The skills can be difficult to master and it is easy to learn strokes and habits that are not fundamentally sound and can limit the success of a player. The second challenge is that it can be difficult to find players of a similar ability level to play with.

Both of these problems can be solved by skilled and caring tennis professionals. A tennis professional should be concerned with getting a player “hooked” on tennis. The best way to do that is to make sure that the new player can play with other people as soon as possible. I spent a year teaching tennis in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia when I was with Peter Burwash International (PBI). The sports club at one of the top hotels in the city had only two tennis courts on the roof of the parking structure but it had a large membership of families from many different countries who were working in Malaysia. One of the largest segments of my lesson business was beginning women players. Many of them were looking for something new to do in a new city. I enjoyed these students a great deal and they were all learning how to play a very decent game. But a few months into my time there I realized that these women would greatly benefit from playing games with other players. So I made a rule that you could not take a lesson unless you played with another player before the lesson. Brilliant idea…not exactly, soon I found that my lesson income had taken a serious dip because my new students were too shy and too inexperienced to set up their own games. So with some pressure on my income I either had to rescind my new rule or come up with another solution. The idea that I came up with was to call and gather all the new women together for a free doubles clinic. At this event I introduced all the players to each other and had them play doubles together with a little bit of instruction. It was a great success. Soon I had my beginners coming back for lessons with a purpose of how they could get better for their games with their new friends. With this one event I solved both of the challenges to new players. They had learned the fundamental skills of hitting the ball in lessons. At our doubles event they learned how to play a game and they also met other players that gave them a chance to start really having fun on the court.

One of the hottest sports in the United States right now is Pickleball. Pickleball is experiencing a boom that reminds me of the tennis boom of the 1970’s. People are playing pickleball in record numbers for a couple of reasons. First of all it is an incredibly easy game to learn. Anyone can learn pickleball in just 30 minutes or less! It is also a great social activity. I know many players who enjoy the sitting and talking (and maybe a little eating or drinking) as much as they do the time on the courts. This game is played on a much smaller court area than tennis so it is less demanding physically. I know many tennis professionals who are playing and promoting pickleball at their clubs.

So why am I writing about pickleball in a blog named The Joy of Tennis? Because I think tennis is a far superior sport and recreational activity but we can learn a lot from our friends with the little paddles. If we want to spur the growth of tennis we have to make it as fun and easy as pickleball. I know there are many tennis professionals and instructors who read this blog. I ask you to look at your teaching and find ways to make it easier for new players to learn to play the game faster. Can you get new players into a game after a few lessons? Once after I did a speaking session at a tennis conference a young professional came to me and told me he really liked my ideas about teaching but he was concerned that if he taught what I was suggesting that his students would improve too fast and he would not have enough lessons!!!! I appreciated his honesty and I explained to him that the exact opposite would happen. That once his students saw how fast they were improving that they would be eager to take more lessons and to improve other parts of their game.

Pickleball is fun, social and easy to learn. I hope those of us who love tennis will take a good look at our programs and find ways to make tennis easier to learn and create social environments where tennis is the center of the event, Tennis is a game for a lifetime and if we can attract players to the Joy of Tennis we will be giving them gift for a lifetime.

Thanks for reading and please head out to the courts to experience

THE JOY OF TENNIS