Saturday, June 25, 2016

The Art of Persuasion in Tennis



“Persuasion:” “The art of getting others to see things as you see them.”

 Surely there is something more to persuasion than that.  If not, answer me this!
 
Say for example, you’re in a tennis match with players of reasonably equally skill level, and you would assume equal mental capacity.  Since Tennis is a competition between you and your opponents, if you’re playing doubles. “Getting you to see what needs to be done, if you’re losing shouldn’t be all that hard.

Maybe, we’re not as good as we think we are.  We hit the ball crisp, and hard in the warm-up, but the court appears to be too short for those shots during play. What do you do?

If you’re making a number of errors: say double faults, hitting balls into the net, when players are standing at the net, it’s time to assess what you can do to decrease the errors you’re making.” If we both have a goal of wanting to win, the solution to our errors shouldn’t be that hard to correct, right?  Maybe we should try a lob next time, maybe a soft angle?

Repetition they say is one of the ways to get a person’s attention.  Ok, so if you’re making the same error, shouldn’t that trigger something mentally that you need to become critical of your behavior, or action?

If you’re employed, and you are continually short when the receipts are tallied, you start looking for solutions.  When you’re constantly missing your plane, your bus, or subway, you might set your alarm earlier, get up earlier, leave the house earlier, so you are at the point of departure earlier.

Relating this to tennis is not that difficult. If your balls are going into the net, maybe should aim a
little higher, and when you aim higher, and they go long, maybe you should use more control, by slowing down.

More matches are lost on errors, than are won with winning shots, but how do you persuade your partner this is so?

I tried humor by asking: “Are you used to playing on longer courts? I tried reasoning: “Let them make the errors.  That’s Ok!  “You got that out of your system.” Sarcasm doesn’t work either “Maybe they will let us play without the net to make it even.”

Ok, Tennis Gurus let’s hear from you.  What's your solution?

 

 

 

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