Saturday, April 14, 2012

We lost! Why? Now what?

Well, our team lost!  Why?  So, what do we do?  These are important questions, if a team is to turn around a losing point, a losing game,  a losing set, or a losing match, to prevent a losing season.

These are questions that each member of a team should ask after each point, each game, each set, each match. 

But you can only ask these questions if you are comfortable with your partner.  This is one of the reasons members of a team should warm up together with the partner with whom they will be playing. 

And, of course, ideally, players should be recruited that are amendable to playing the style, the type of system of the sport that the coach teaches.  Football teams do it: ground game or aerial game;   Basketball teams do it: pressing man to man, or pick and cut.  Why not tennis?

Excuses are just that: "Excuses."  They don't instill confidence; and thus excuses will program you mentally to play poorly.

I've heard so many excuses, I've written them into a Poem.  If you don't mind reading further:

"My opponent too lucky, too young, too quick.

My racquet too heavy, too  small too new.

The Courts too dirty, too crack, too soft to play;

and, I'm too old, too blind, too cold, too hot, too tired to win."

So you didn't win.  During the match, did you change your style of play?  Did you try any different formation?  Did you have a strategy before starting your match?  If you don't start out with a game plan, you  won't know what to do to try and maybe win.


C. 2010 Dan Young, Sr. "The rock in your shoe;  The thorn in your side; The splinter under your nail."