New Club, New Team
Shortly after I landed my first full-time tennis pro gig, I made my debut for their open-level men’s team. My partner was a guy who is more of a singles player overall (He has a big game off the forehand side, and doesn’t really like to come forward.). I’ll call him Randy.
Randy and I started out fine. Our opponents were a solid team, and their club had been the league champions the year before, so I knew I had to be on my toes. What I didn’t know was that Randy had a reputation as a bad line-caller. He has a bit of a belligerent personality, and I think that plays into how a lot of people react to line calls. At any rate, the first set was bumping along, and we were at 3-all when my partner called a first serve out on his sideline. I didn’t see it well, but the opponents, apparently reacting to my partner's reputation, went a little ballistic. The server fired a ball into the net and said the call was BS. Here’s the thing: my partner had returned the serve anyway, it was a first serve, and the other team won the point on the second serve. Nonetheless, the server was a wreck for 20 minutes. They went up 40-30 on that point, but we broke them and the guy was steaming. We took the set, and I think it was largely because my partner called a first serve out on a point we lost!
Another interesting dynamic was that in the second set, I started to miss a few returns. At some point, my partner started “coaching me” to “just get the ball in play, get it back and we’ll win the point, etc.” Sounds like good advice, and I started to try it, but it didn’t help. I still missed returns, and gave up relatively easy volleys on the ones that went in. We lost the second. Nonetheless, his advice remained the same. Finally, I got so annoyed with my partner that I decided to hit the next return as hard as I could. Winner. Hmmm. Next return: aggressive, maybe not quite as good, but enough to win the point. At this point, I realized that "just getting the ball back," was the problem. Instead, I started to fire up my feet and try to rip a few. I didn’t play perfectly the rest of the way, but my percentage on returns went up, and the ones that were in were much more effective. My game in general came to life and I had a lot more fun.
I took a couple of things from this match. First, for myself as a player, I need to be sure that I don’t fear mistakes to the extent that it cripples my game. For me, and a lot of other players, trying to be careful is too inhibiting, and I tend to make more mistakes with this kind of mindset than an aggressive one. It also got me thinking about how to get on the same page as my doubles partner. In this case, what my partner was telling me was well intentioned, but it wasn’t helpful (until it made me really mad, which I don’t think was the intention). The annoyance I felt at my partner was enough to snap me out of my doldrums. Nowadays, I’m less likely to get mad while playing, mostly because I’ve gotten better at taking the necessary steps to avoid needing to get mad.
The other side of the coin is our opponent who lost his temper. He got angry at my partner too, and it really helped us. I think when he exploded, after a relatively insignificant call, it was a signal that he was nervous and vulnerable. Someone who is confident about holding their serve is not going to worry about a close call on a first serve, especially if the serve was returnable, and especially especially if they end up winning the point. But that call, and losing the game a few points later stuck with this guy much longer than necessary.
With evenly matched teams, momentum swings are often on something goofy: a lucky net cord, a ball that comes from another court, a broken string, or a bad call. You never can prepare for everything, but I think this guys mindset was more like, “He better not try to rip me off. I can’t beat him if he's cheating,” than, “He’s probably going to rip me off on a couple of calls today. I’ll just play my game, which is good enough, and I’ll probably hold serve all day.” I try to carry the second attitude against known cheaters or bad sports.