When to seek professional help

Jeremy Berlin USPTA Elite Pro

I was surprised to get so many e-mails from readers in response to my last article entitled Interactive Coaching. A lot of people including some of my own students sent me dozens of interesting tales of tournament matches that they had played and had managed to loose for one reason or another. And of course the real question that became very obvious was how to overcome these pesky maladies and start winning tennis matches. Like my old coach was very fond of saying, “who always says it not about winning and loosing.” Well it is the looser of course. 

Playing tennis and not learning how to win tennis matches is not a lot of fun. After all you can run up to 8 miles of sprinting around a tennis court in a tennis match. To do this on a regular basis without having some success is not only not very much fun but it becomes very much like digging ditches. Although in digging ditches you probably at least come away with a few bucks for your efforts. In tennis there is really no pay off if you don’t start winning some matches and the reality is the real pay off is to win the tournament. 

So today I want to talk about some of the syndromes that can plague all tennis players, even the pros. This list of syndromes has been compiled after having played and taught tennis for the last 30 years. I have used some popular song titles and so forth just to have some fun with these. Although I am having some fun with these they are not so much fun if you have suffered or are suffering through a syndrome. And of course the way that I think that you get over these syndromes is with “Interactive coaching”, and we will address that a little later.

When I first became familiar with the complexity of the syndromes I was a young tennis pro in Carmel California. There was an avid tennis player that lived in the area that also was a prominent business man and I am sure most of you would know who he was if I told you his name. Any way his goal was to be win a match against an opponent that he had never won against. He offered me a nice chunk of money to help him get to the point in his game where he could beat this nemesis of his. I immediately accepted the invitation thinking that this would be the easiest money that I would ever make. Lo and behold this turned out to be the hardest money that I have ever earned. I knew I was in trouble when I saw the gentleman play his nemesis in a local charity tournament. My client was obviously a better athlete and a better player and yet at match point for my client with an easy sitter forehand volley he managed to miss hit the ball so badly that the ball rolled the length of his racket down his arm and hit him on the foot. My client never recovered from this unfortunate shot and lost that match and numerous others to this villain. 

This is what I now call the CAN’T STAND PROSPERITY SYNDROME. The name pretty much says it all but for some reason this is a very common ailment. This syndrome is no respecter of tennis players as it can affect the rich, the good looking, the great athlete, even the great tennis player. This is what I have found about this syndrome and keep in mind I am no psychologist. Winning carries with it a certain amount of responsibility, least of which is that you will usually have to play another day. For some reason people with the malady will unconsciously sabotage their own tennis abilities and even their own desires to make sure that they are not around for another day. 

THE WEATHER IS HERE WISH YOU WERE BEAUTIFUL SYNDROME.  Thanks Jimmy Buffet! This is a syndrome that has to do with looking great at the expense of loosing. In other words this player is more interested in looking good for a few shots then winning the match or the tournament. This player will rarely hit the ball softly even if that would be all that he needed to do to win the match!

AS GOOD AS I ONCE WAS SYNDROME. Thanks Toby Keith! In this syndrome the player lives on what has happened in the past. For instance they beat some one that beat some one that won a game off of Andy Roddicks cousin’s maid friend. They are totally living in the past and no matter what happens today they don’t care and all they choose to remember is what happened in years gone by.  Sorry pal you are only as good as your last match!

THE BIG FISH IN A LITTLE POND SYNDROME. In this syndrome your perception of how good you really are is skewed by the fact that there is not many real players in your locality.

A LITTLE LESS TALK ANDA LOT MORE ACTION SYNDROME. Thanks Toby Keith! In this syndrome the player is totally happy as long as they keep the match close and have a good showing. They can loose 72 times in a row to the same person but all they remember is the one set that they took the opponent to a tie breaker. The players that keep on beating them know that unless they change their mind set they will always beat them and they don’t mind at all winning 7-6, 7-6 for the next 72 matches.

GO AHEAD MAKE MY DAY SYNDROME! Thanks Clint Eastwood! In this Syndrome the player has developed some kind of a weapon (usually a serve) almost to the detriment to the rest of his game. He or she plays great as long as the weapon holds up…. but heaven forbid if the serve disappears or some one breaks his serve. Opponents know that all they have to do is get the serve back and eventually they can win.

Well this is a light hearted fun look at some very serous syndromes that I come across daily as a tennis pro. So did you see yourself in any of these syndromes? If you did the way to over come them is to put yourself in those situations over and over again until you no longer fear success, or you may have to change your perception of your game. Once again this is where I believe “Interactive Coaching” and the tennis professional comes into play. 

The only way that I got my student from the beginning of this article to start winning matches against his adversary was to put him in the situation of having that easy volley to win the match over and over and over. 

If all else fails hypnosis is always an option. J

Happy Hitting!

Jerry Berlin

USPTA