Tennis psychology is nothing more than understanding the make-up of your opponent’s mind and assessing the effect of your own game on his/her mental viewpoint and also understanding the psychological effects resulting from the various external causes on your own mind.
Nevertheless, it is also true that you no one can be a successful psychologist of others without first understanding his own mental processes. So, you have to study the effect on yourself of the same thing happening under different conditions. This is because you react differently in different moods and under different conditions.
You have to realize the effect on your game of the resulting irritation, joy, bewilderment, or whatever other form your reaction takes. Does it increase your prowess? If so, try for it, but never give it to your opponent. Does it rob you of concentration? If so, either remove the cause, but if that isn’t possible, try to ignore it.
Once you have accurately measured your own reaction to circumstances, observe your opponents in order to decide their characters. Similar temperaments react similarly, and you can judge men of your own kind by yourself. Opposite characters you must seek to compare with people whose reactions you know.
A person who can regulate his/her own mental processes has an great chance of reading those of someone else for the mind works along definite lines of thought and can be examined. One can only control one’s own mental processes after carefully studying them.
The regular, unemotional baseline player is rarely a keen thinker. If he were, he would not adhere to the baseline. The physical appearance of a player is often a fairly clear indication of his/her kind of mind. The impassive, easy-going player, who normally advocates the baseline strategy, does it because he does not want to activate up his/her torpid mind to work out a reliably safe strategy of getting to the net.
Then there is the other type of baseline player, who would prefer to remain on the back of the court while directing an attack intended to disrupt up your game. He is a much more dangerous player, and a deep, keen thinking opponent. He achieves his/her results by mixing up his/her length and direction and worrying you with the variety of his/her game. He is a good psychologist.
The first type of player mentioned above merely hits the ball with little idea of what he is actually doing, while the latter always has a definite strategy and adheres to it.
If you are a beginner tennis player or are interested in the general psychology of tennis, please go to our website called Tennis Tips for Beginners. This article, Basic Tennis Psychology (Part 1) has free reprint rights.
