How a 2 minutes break turned my match

by Lennart
(Amsterdam, the Netherlands)

Last summer we had the club-championships at the local tennis-club I play. In the semi-finals I won of a guy of whom I’ve lost 2 times before. He’s a pusher and always tries to make me hit a lot of errors, that’s why he has won before. This year I was very self-confident, didn’t let him play his own game and didn’t let him confuse my mind (all thanks to this great site!!!).

In the final I played very well till 6-1, 5-2…in the end I lost with 6-1, 5-7, 2-6. I played against a player, who is supposed to be better than me, but he didn’t play well while I played my best tennis. I was very concentrated, actually in a trance, and won the first set (6-1).

The second set started the same way as I ended the first set. I played very well and didn’t let him find his rhythm. In the past I tend to slow down a bit of I had won the first set, but not this time.

At 4-2 in the second set I started thinking about winning and what it would mean, but I realized that I needed to focus on the match, on every point, on every ball and better not to think about almost winning. That helped and I won that game.

It was very hot that day and at 5-2, during the break, a lady entered the court with some wet towels for us, which was very nice to cool my face down a bit. She stayed with us on the court during that break and made a little chat about the spectators who wanted to see a nice match and didn’t want the match to end so quickly. But at the same time I had to concentrate on hopefully the last game, on my own service. She left the court and we went on to play.

I kept thinking about how I much I wanted to win this game and how I needed to keep concentrated, but that game turned the match. Suddenly I made errors; I couldn’t hit the same balls. And my opponent started to slow down a bit so he didn’t make the same errors he made before. I lost the game and lost the set with 5-7.

My concentration trance was gone. I couldn’t get into it anymore. My opponent played a lot better all of a sudden and started to put me under pressure and he hit a lot of winners. I kept saying to myself that I could still win the third set and the match, but I kept making mistakes and he kept playing better and better. I didn’t stand a change in the third set and lost 6-2.

At that moment I wasn’t very down, because he played so well in the end. But I was so close in the second set. Of course it’s easy to blame the woman for distracting me and getting me out of my trance, but I think that I shouldn’t have let that happen.

Do you have any tips for this situation? By now I know that I only can play my best tennis when I’m in some sort of trance: I don’t pay attention to my surroundings, I’m very concentrated on the match.

I had a good pre-match preparation so I immediately was very concentrated from the first point, but I suddenly lost it during that break at 5-2 second set.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have some tips,

Lennart