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Patience
What is patience? We all know about it and we all think it’s important, but how many of us exercise patience in our lives? Not just patience on the tennis courts, but every aspect of our life; whether it’s driving your car, shopping, or trying to hit that down the line forehand, a little bit of patience will make every situation more manageable.
Often times during a match we have a tendency to rush ourselves. We rush between points, on second serves, on change over’s and even during the point. No matter what level you play, patience is a virtue that should not be overlooked. A little bit of patience can take us a long way.The only time during a tennis match that you are in complete control is on the serve. There’s nothing your opponent can do while you are serving. This is the best time to exercise your patience. Take a few extra seconds to think about where you are hitting the serve, how you are hitting it, your opponent’s response to the serve and your follow up shot after the serve. We want to try and have the first three shots planned out. By doing this, we are attempting to put the pressure completely on the other side of the net. Patience is even more evident on the second serve. Often time’s players of lower levels will just step up and hit the second serve two seconds after they missed the first one. They don’t take any time to think about where they are serving or how they are serving. They hit the serve right in the middle of the box, with no direction or spin and give away the chance to control the point. A lack of patience has now put the server on the defense, and that’s not where anyone wants to be. Of course we will some times play someone with a great return, and that will neutralize the affectedness of the serve. However, if we exercise more patience we are usually able to hit a second serve good enough that they can’t attack it and we start the rally from a 60-40 position rather than a 30-70 position. Change over’s, is where we often see a lack of patience. We see one player sitting down relaxing, toweling off and contemplating the next few games while the other player is waiting at the baseline. Who here is being hurt? I’d say the person standing in the sun sweating as opposed to the person sitting down having a drink. Remember the 1994 Wimbledon Championships, first round match between the iconic Steffi Graf and the journeyman Lori McNeil. McNeil wasn’t expected to win 4 games against Graf, yet she won the entire match. How did she do it?
Besides attacking Graf’s weaker side, her biggest weapon became her patience and her stubbornness to not allow Graf the chance to hurry through the match. Graf was always known as a quick player. She would speed through change over’s, take 5 seconds (instead of the allowed 24) between points, and she would stand there taping her foot while waiting. Most players always tried to speed up and play to her pace. As a result they were often rushed and played points when they weren’t ready. Controlling the tempo of a match is a huge benefit. However, on this day McNeil made Graf wait. She made her wait between points and on the change over’s. She never allowed Graf to rush her. The result was that Graf became increasingly frustrated and impatient. She hit error after error, and McNeil stayed calm, relaxed and most of all, patient. 2 hours after the match began, McNeil was on her way to the semis of Wimbledon and Graf was packing her bags and heading home.
This was McNeil’s best performance in a Grand Slam event. Like I stated earlier, a little bit of patience can go a long way.
Coach Tommie
Capital City Tennis
October 2008
FROM THE PRO
