The Trap of Judgment

Let's say you played a good crosscourt and made your opponent chase the ball out to the doubles alley. He returns it back but is totally out of position.

He is a fighter though and is racing back to the other side where it is obvious that you'll play your next shot – to the open space. You prepare for the shot and hit it… wide!

You had the whole court open, the opponent was running across and would probably barely reach the ball if you played it in, but no, you hit it wide. Why? You kick yourself and can't believe it how that happened.

You were tricked by your brain.

Yep. Your brain is a fantastic computer and it did what you told it to do. And what was your purpose?

Most players cannot resist the urge or the desire to hit a clean winner. That is one of the best feelings hitting the ball and seeing it hit the back fence without your opponent making contact. Or hitting it hard in the open space and seeing your opponent stretching for it and never reaching it.

So when you are presented with an open space and your opponent is running over and your goal is to hit a clean winner, your brain just listens to your command.

It judges the speed of your opponent and makes a very good calculation how far away from him you have to aim in order to make the ball unreachable for him. It even calculates the speed of your shot to follow your command.

And that is exactly what happens. You hit a great shot which was unreachable for your opponent. Unfortunately, you didn't tell your brain that the shot must land inside the court.

And even if you did, that was not your main objective. Your main objective was that the opponent doesn't reach it.

Club players don't have rocket shots and hitting clean winners is rare opportunity. This was a golden one and you're not about to miss this one. Go for it! Hit a winner. That will show him!

Your brain just follows orders. It doesn't know the rules of tennis and it doesn't argue with your commands.

In order to be successful in this situation two things must happen:

• You must resist the urge for the super winner and you must give you brain a new target.
• You must stay within your knowledge and skills and choose a smart target – a few feet from the side and baseline.

Regardless of what your opponent is doing. If he was in the doubles alley and is now running across, he will probably run 8 to 10 meters before hitting the ball.

If you close in on the net after your shot and he just ran 10 meters and is hitting a shot in the run – what else can you wish? Your percentage of winning the point is well above 50%. I'd say it's about 80%. You'll probably get an easy volley or he'll be forced into error. Nothing spectacular and yet deadly effective.

Again the solution lies in the mind. You need to discipline yourself to forget your opponent, decide early for a shot in the open court, hold your target firmly in your mind and put all your attention into execution of the stroke. The rest they say is history…

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