When I was working, watching Wimbledon always seemed like a bit of a guilty pleasure, fitted in when I really ought to have been doing something more productive! This year, not only did I allow myself to follow Wimbledon pretty closely, I also gave myself the pleasure of watching a few days of the tennis at Eastbourne the week before. It’s all been wonderful! But this week? There’s nothing – not even an England football match to cheer me up!! I remember sports commentator, John Inverdale saying that, every year, he gets a post-Wimbledon downer so I know I’m not alone!
My knowledge of the technical part of tennis is fairly intuitive. I am interested in all the different ways players have of getting the ball over the net and the body postures that make it all look so easy. But I would be challenged to explain the difference between a swing volley. a drive volley and a drop volley! I wish I understood better how the great players use the scoring system to their advantage, giving themselves freedom to lose a game and move on to score later.
What probably interests me most is the temperaments of the different players. I’m glad so many of the journalists interviewing players after the game also want to know, ‘When you were so far behind in the second set and you went on to win it, what was going on in your head?’ As so many of the commentators say, ‘the most important space on the tennis court is the space between the player’s ears.’
One of my antidotes for my post-Wimbledon downer has been to explore a bit about tennis psychology online. Clearly there are various kinds of approach. The psychometric test which claims to measure resilience, motivation and engagement seems to be a useful tool. Some people are talking about the 4C model of control, commitment, challenge and confidence. Control of one’s emotions, clear commitment to goals, attitudes to challenge and, the hidden subversion that undermines so much human activity: confidence and/or self-doubt.
I particularly liked what seemed like the more personal approach of Matt Thompson, one of the psychologists working with LTA players. He asserts the importance of remembering that everyone is different. “Each person is a jigsaw puzzle. They’ve got all the pieces, but we don’t know where they go.’ He talks about the importance of players having a ‘secure base’ especially at times when they tend to lose confidence. Obviously, the attitudes of coaches and family members are crucial – those powerful and influential voices in everyone’s heads which can make or break a player’s performance.
Crucial to it all is the player’s attitude to failure. Novak Djokovic told CBS in 2023: “The difference, I guess, between the guys who are able to be the biggest champions, and the ones that are struggling to get to the highest level is the ability to not stay in those emotions for too long.” After his thrashing by Carlos Alcaraz last Sunday, I hope Djoko could remember this!
The wisdom to deal with self-doubt and failure, to discern the value of the various voices in our heads, to give emotions their appropriate place in our lives...who has this wisdom and can pass it on to their children and grandchildren? Wimbledon is an annual reminder that the space between our ears is probably the most influential place not just on the tennis court but in all our lives. The price of being strangers to that wisdom is high.
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