Last weekend, a 12-year-old boy I coach lost a heartbreaking match in the final of a big junior tournament. Leading by a set and 5-4, he had three match points. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to take his chances and eventually lost the set in a tie-break.
Now, if you've been around junior tennis or tennis for as long as I have, invariably, after something like this happens the script usually goes as follows:
Player X who blew their chance generally goes beserk; occasionally breaks a racket; starts crying and completely tanks the third. Heah, their kids and they're just learning. This stuff happens.
What is rare, is to see a junior player lose a set in this manner, forget about it and start competing their tail off on the first point of the third set. But this is exactly what this boy did. He didn't win the match, but he didn't lose the third set 0-6 in a screaming fit of rage either. He held his own and played gritty tennis until 3-3 but ran out of gas at the end losing 3-6.
The most positive thing to come out of this match was the maturity of his attitude in the third set. In tennis you have to have a short memory and also fight, claw and scratch for every point. It's tough to train this attitude but one way to try and ingrain it is to always focus on effort during practice sessions. We miss shots all the time and we can't control the fact our opponent might hit a blazing forehand winner on the dead run.
But what we can control is the effort we give on each point. So, run for every ball and fight for every point and good things will happen. And if you're ever in doubt, just think WWDFD?
What would David Ferrer do?
Now, if you've been around junior tennis or tennis for as long as I have, invariably, after something like this happens the script usually goes as follows:
Player X who blew their chance generally goes beserk; occasionally breaks a racket; starts crying and completely tanks the third. Heah, their kids and they're just learning. This stuff happens.
What is rare, is to see a junior player lose a set in this manner, forget about it and start competing their tail off on the first point of the third set. But this is exactly what this boy did. He didn't win the match, but he didn't lose the third set 0-6 in a screaming fit of rage either. He held his own and played gritty tennis until 3-3 but ran out of gas at the end losing 3-6.
The most positive thing to come out of this match was the maturity of his attitude in the third set. In tennis you have to have a short memory and also fight, claw and scratch for every point. It's tough to train this attitude but one way to try and ingrain it is to always focus on effort during practice sessions. We miss shots all the time and we can't control the fact our opponent might hit a blazing forehand winner on the dead run.
But what we can control is the effort we give on each point. So, run for every ball and fight for every point and good things will happen. And if you're ever in doubt, just think WWDFD?
What would David Ferrer do?
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