Tennis Rules
And how they affect the mental part of the game...
Tennis can be a mentally very challenging sport, but do tennis rules have anything to do with it? These basic rules for playing tennis are making it such an interesting and demanding sport let's see which are they:
Tennis is one of those sports where when you miss a shot your opponent wins the point. This is mentally very tough. It's not like soccer, basketball or similar sports where your miss is not automatically a point for your opponent.
This of course puts a lot of pressure on you. Here is one thought to ponder on when you hit a good shot in, it's not necessarily a point for you. But when you hit a bad shot out it's immediately a point for your opponent!
So if you hit 20 good shots in the court and 20 bad shots out the score isn't equal! You've surely lost 20 points and maybe won 4 or 5 from those 20 good shots in.
Think about it.
Tennis has no time limit that means that the game is not over until it's over. You can't be saved by the bell.
This especially comes into play when you are ahead. When you play soccer and you are 3:0 and there are 5 minutes till the end you are almost 100% sure that you'll win unless some miracle happens. But when you play tennis and you are 5:3 up in the third set no external situation can win the match for you. You have to finish it yourself (or if your opponent surrenders
)
There is so little time in tennis to make a decision. Because of the tennis rules that say that the court is 78 feet (23, 77 m) long it takes a normal groundstroke shot to travel around 1,5 to 2 seconds from one side to another.
And in this short time you have to get there and decide what to do. From my experience I know that wrong decisions often lead to errors. What is more, you have to make around 1000 decisions during the play in one match.
Tennis is an individual sport you cannot be substituted, you can't take time out when things go against you (unless you fake a bathroom break), no one encourages you except maybe some of your supporters from the stands,
There is no coaching except for some team competition - you are not allowed to have a coach on the court. Coaches are extremely valuable in other sports where they can see the game from outside and the good ones are very calm and collected. They are able to think clearly in tough times and their judgment is not emotionally clouded.
That is a very difficult feat to achieve for a player since he is in the match and these tennis game rules that don't allow a coach are making tennis matches mentally very demanding.
The official tennis rules which define the deuce and advantage part of the game make it very difficult for two equal players to win by luck. You need to win two points in a row against a player who is at your level. There have been games with many deuces in the past. It's all about mental toughness and who can stand the pressure longer.
Playing sets even when you win a set 6:1 or 7:6 it's still only 1:0. Your opponent starts from 0 and so do you. When you have a lead in basketball it doesnt go away at the half time. Its still there. Even when the score is 1:0 in sets, you still start the second set at the same score as your opponent 0:0.
Tie-break is also a mentally tough part of the game where you may lose a whole set in just one or two bad shots.
These tennis rules and scoring system are unique and demand special mental approach to the match play.
Two serves for one service point when you're returning against a good server this tennis rule allows him to go for all or nothing on his first serves and make them almost non returnable for you.
This mental battle was always obvious on Agassi's face when he played Sampras in his prime. Sampras served an ace or a winner serve very often when Agassi got a chance to break him. This seemed very unfair to Andre who had to work very hard to earn a point.
20 seconds between points this tennis rule seems to help the player to collect himself but that rarely happens except at the professional level.
What that time does is that enables the player to start thinking. He/she will often start thinking negatively what went wrong, what might go wrong,
This way of thinking makes the player lose his composure and focus and his level of play drops. He may also go into an over-analysis of the match strokes tactics opponent and this also affects negatively his level of play.
Knockout system of competition when you lose you go home. There can be some comforting tournament for the losers of the first round, but that's not the case in the real game.
In Grand Slams 128 players enter the tournament and only 1 wins. 127 players lose sooner or later. So tennis is basically a game of losing.
Even the best players in the world (except some very rare exceptions) win only a couple of tournaments per year. They all lose the rest of them sooner or later. This puts players under a lot of pressure since they may have traveled long distances, spent a lot of money to get there and now they can lose in the first round and fly for big bucks to the next tournament. This part of the game is very very tough.
Do you have any other ideas how tennis rules make this game so mentally challenging? Let me know and I'll update the page.
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