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Every once in a while you’ll come up against a player with a big reputation. This opponent might be the champ at your club or in your league, or a Division I college player home from school. While the player doesn’t compare to Roger Federer, he might as well be No. 1 in the world as far as you’re concerned. What should you do? Be respectful and take your licking, or try to take your game up a notch and hit harder and closer to the lines?The answer is neither. Both responses are apt to get you beaten. It’s important to remember tennis mind games of percentages. There are no guarantees, only probabilities. Your task is to give yourself the best odds you can. That’s not going to happen if you’re preoccupied with your opponent’s intimidating reputation. Instead, concentrate on your game plan and assume that your normal shots are good enough. It’s OK to make small adjustments to your tactics and style as necessary, but keep them within your capabilities. Pushing your game to unsustainable limits will lead to disaster. At the same time, playing only for a respectable score and worrying about what the opponent or spectators are thinking will be equally damaging. The bottom line is that you must play your tennis mind games and believe that it will be good enough. If you can get past your early jitters and keep the match close, you’ll have a chance. At that stage, don’t worry that your normally superior opponent is bound to do something special to beat you. If you think your opponent has a secret weapon, you’ll likely try shots you shouldn’t and make fatal errors. More than anything else, this is why higher-ranked players usually win crucial tiebreakers. It’s not because they do something amazing, but rather because the lower-ranked players try to step up their games in the fear that their opponents will either hit winners or never miss. Don’t give the match away or allow your opponent to bluff you out of it. If the score is close, the better player is, on this day at least, no better than you.
Find Excellent collection of best recommended rackets by yocto-tennis-club.com at the link below. Tennis Mind Games: Dominating Your Opponent
What do I mean by dominance? It has to do with the feeling that inferior players get when they face better opposition. High-ranking or successful players have a way of making their opponents feel ineffectual. Take Roger Federer. His simple presence across the net is intimidating. And as a consequence, opponents miss shots against him that they routinely make against other players. They’re also more likely to become nervous against him or get discouraged when they’re behind. This psychological tennis mind games weaponry makes Federer’s job easier. It can also help you in competitive matches. To establish this dominance, start by recognizing that all of your actions, not just your forehands and backhands, have an effect on your opponent’s mental state. Since human beings are social, we instinctively react emotionally to the way other people treat us. If you show your opponents that you fear them, they’ll feel strong; if you dismiss their efforts, they’ll feel weak. We com-municate this, in part, through gestures and body language. Much of Federer’s psychological dominance comes from the way he carries himself on court—erect, confident, and unresponsive to his opponent’s winners or his own er-rors. The same is true, in a different way, for Serena Williams. She dares her opponents to match her intensity; usually they can’t and that gives her an im-mediate psychological tennis mind games advantage. You can do the same as these champions. If your opponent hits a great shot, make it appear that you don’t notice. Walk back into position with your head up, your stride steady, looking as if you are confident and know exactly what you’re doing. If you make an error, no matter how egregious, act as if nothing happened. Displays of frustration or discouragement are signs of weakness that serve only to strengthen your op-ponent’s resolve. They’re submissive gestures, not actions of a dominant competitor, so lose them. Another method of establishing dominance is to control the pace of the match. Even if you’re behind, you can still dominate the tempo of play. Between points, walk into position at your own pace. If it’s slower than your opponent wishes, make him wait; if it’s faster, let him feel rushed. Don’t break the rules or try to be irritating. Just be determined to play at your own pace. Finally, you can dominate with your match strategy. Clear game plans can be intimidating. They indicate that you think you have found a weakness and intend to exploit it. Thoughtful, purposeful people frighten those who are uncertain (which most of us are). Also, don’t allow your opponent to think that you fear any part of his game. For example, if you serve to your opponent’s forehand and he hits a great return, indicate that it didn’t impress you by serving there again. If you play a long baseline point and he outlasts you, don’t immediately begin to hit harder or rush the net. Go right back at him and force him to do it again. After you win one of these long points you can decide to adjust your approach, but you don’t want him to feel that you have conceded this part of the game to him. Dominant players change their strategies because they choose to, not because their opponents make them. These are the two of the best tennis mind games.
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