Are you playing the score or the point?

Have you ever been leading comfortably by 3 or 4 games, like 4-1 or 5-2, only to have your opponent suddenly catch up in about two minutes?

What happened?

One possible explanation is that you had a simple letdown. This is a natural response to the stress experienced moments ago, and your organism is just trying to relax and regain energy. Read an excellent article by Kathy Krajco on this topic here - Tennis Letdowns. (And then come back here!)

But one of the symptoms or consequences of doing that is that you start playing the score. You see that you have big lead and start…

experimenting with shots and tactics
trying to show off to spectators
trying to toy with your opponent so as to demonstrate your superiority (ego)
trying to practice some tactical or technical elements
… or whatever.

You are now playing the score, which means Even if I miss a couple of times, I will still have a big lead and not have to worry.

Let's consider an analogy from auto racing. Imagine that you have a lead over another driver so that you can slow down a little without him catching up to you before the finish line. I think that's how most players feel when they have a lead in a tennis match.

But there is a big difference between a race and a tennis match. In a race, when you have a lead and slow down, you are STILL MOVING. But when you start experimenting in tennis and stop winning points, you DON'T MOVE AHEAD. Your score stands still at 5-something. Unless you win points, you don't advance. But your opponent continuously advances toward match point.

So forget about having a lead and relaxing.

Ask yourself this question: Do those options - experimenting, displaying superiority, practicing, showing off - increase or decrease your chances of winning the match?

Because that's why we are playing a match, right? To win it.

Yet we always want more. We want to win comfortably, to demonstrate our superiority - and at the same time - to experiment and show off how good we are.

Doing any of that is asking for trouble. You might get away with it once or twice a year, but the rest of the time you just complicate things.

There are two approaches to this problem.

One is to simply play the point. Forget the score, play point by point, and try to win every point by giving 100%. This is the approach of great players like Monica Seles, Rafael Nadal and others. They fight for every ball, regardless of the score, and give their best all the time.

There is another approach, but it requires lots of experience, good judgment of the abilities and mental qualities of both you and your opponent, and readiness to accept that sometimes you won't choose the right method at the right time.

This approach is playing the score but in a masterful way.

Here are some examples how top players use playing the score at the right moment:

1. Andre Agassi was known to be the best front runner. This means that when he got ahead by a break or a set, he started playing better and better. For him, that was playing more aggressive and slightly riskier tennis.

The previous set he'd won gave him confidence, and now he was going for more. This approach worked very well for him, and he often finished matches quickly after winning the first set. I believe that his US-Open stats in the last few years were something like 54:1 when he won the first set. That is, he lost only one match in which he won the first set.

2. Roger Federer and other top players often play a risky down-the-line service return, even on a first serve, when down 40-0 in a game. They do this mostly on faster courts and not so much on clay.

They do this because they feel that winning a return game from that score is very unlikely, so they might as well try a risky winning return. If it does score, they have surprised their opponent and perhaps unsettled him. Plus, they have boosted their own confidence.

3. Some players raise the risk of their whole game. The most recent example of this I saw was in the match between James Blake and Roger Federer at the Championships in Shanghai. Blake played well in the first set but lost 6-0. In the second set, he raised his risk factor, playing much closer to the baseline, hitting the balls on the rise, counter-attacking when in trouble, and playing more down-the-line shots.

He played the score and had nothing to lose. He had played tactically correct tennis in the first set, but Roger was just too good. So Blake decided to go for it and managed to win 3 games in the second set.

Another example of this go-for-it tactic was when Andre Agassi won the French Open in 1999. He was a set and two breaks down against Carlos Moya and realized that he couldn't play a sensible clay-court tennis match with one of the best clay courters. So, Andre started taking chances and went for big shots. He won that match and eventually the French Open title.

4. Big servers like Pete Sampras, Boris Becker and Goran Ivanisevic almost always went for big second serves when up 40-0. They played the score, and they knew that if that big second serve (which was actually the same as their first serve) went in, they had an excellent chance of winning the point.

In summary, you must get clear with yourself about why are you playing and what you really want. If you want to have it all - the showing off, the experimenting, the practice, and the win - you are very likely to fail. Be more realistic. How about just winning the match? Is that good enough?

Then decide whether you are going to choose the "fight for every point" approach or the "play the score" approach. If you are going to play the score, it may take quite some time to correctly judge the situation and play accordingly with success.

And be aware that all these decisions are part of the overall tennis strategy that you are going to adopt in your play. When you are crystal clear on which approach you are going to take, it's time to prepare yourself with more detailed tennis strategies and tactics.