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DON’T TALK ABOUT YOUR WINS OR HOW GOOD YOU ARE
Rafael Nadal was beautiful in his interview after his semi-final win at the U.S. Open. He gave credit to his opponent, said he was happy with his game and improvement, and convincingly downplayed any talk about his overtaking Federer’s Slam record and/or being the best player of all time. He was modest, even humble, (as [...]
GREAT CHAMPIONS CAN MAINTAIN INTENSITY FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME
Some years ago I was chatting with all-time great Bobby Riggs and asked him how he would rank the great players, since he competed against many of them. Who were the greatest champions of all time? His answer was interesting. He said, “It depends on how you define ‘great.’” Elaborating he said, “If you define [...]
ACCELERATE YOUR EFFORTS AFTER WINNING A CLOSE FIRST SET
Doing what comes naturally is not always a great idea when it comes to winning tennis matches. Case in point – what to do after you win a closely contested first set. Here you have expended a great deal of mental and physical energy getting the set under your belt. You have felt the mounting [...]
RELAXATION HELPS POWER AND SPEED
I was watching a show on ESPN about famed pro football coach, Bill Walsh, who was particularly notable for his success in producing great quarterbacks (Joe Montana, San Francisco 49er Hall of Famer, amongst others). In describing Walsh’s techniques, one young quarterback told of how Walsh stood directly behind him in an early practice session and [...]
Intelligent Strategy Can Lead to Victory
Intelligent strategies can often overcome stroke deficiencies and enable a player with inferior tennis weapons to defeat a physically superior opponent. In matches where the contestants are closely matched physically, strategy is often the deciding factor. I believe that this was the case in the 2002 US Open final where Pete Sampras beat Andre Agassi [...]
