Stop Watching Pro Tennis Match Highlights

When you're talking about players who are playing at the elite level on TV, these elite-level players pretty much all play the same. In other words, they know how to do everything. T hey have a big serve, incredible forehands and backhands, great volleys, and they're great movers.

It is very difficult to pinpoint what the difference is between each individual player. Of course, some players will have strengths in certain parts of the game. For example, some will have a huge serve, while others will be very consistent from the baseline. But generally speaking, these players are of a very similar playing level.

One unfortunate trend in this modern world is that a lot of people stop watching matches and they watch highlights. The problem with watching highlights of tennis is that while you might be entertained by watching spectacular shots, you will learn absolutely nothing about a specific player.

Winner After Winner

When you're watching highlights, you're seeing winners, and this is something that any high-level player can do. Even if you go to a Futures tournament, you're going to see the exact same type of winners. So the question is, what makes the players that are playing on TV different from those players who are not playing on TV? The difference lies in a very subtle thing, which is how the best players play in the most important stages of the match.

You might not necessarily learn anything by watching, for example, Federer, Nadal, or Djokovic play incredibly well in the most important stages of the match because their games are individual. It doesn't necessarily mean that if you copy what Federer is doing in the most important stages of a match, it's going to work for you. Tennis is more complex than that.

Mirroring Strengths

Let’s say you are 6’2”, 6’3”, 6’4” etc. Your serve is probably your best shot. Back in the day, it would be a good idea to study Pete Sampras' serve placement and what type of serve he was hitting when he was down break point.

What I noticed, which was later confirmed in interviews that I listened to from Sampras, is that he always went for the ace. This is quite contrary to what a lot of coaches teach, which is to place the serve and go for a percentage shot. But Sampras did it the opposite way; he went for an ace.

The more you do this, the better you will get at it. Would anyone ever learn about this by watching highlights? No, because if you watch Sampras aces’ in a highlight reel, they're completely out of context. Hence, I'm sure you get my point. It is how the best players play when the score is most important that distinguishes them from other players.

Score Mysteries

The scoring difference makes tennis unique in a way that it builds pressure in us. It makes us feel uncomfortable when the score is a certain way, and our game is going to reflect that. There are certain things that you need to do when the score is a certain way in order to perform at your best.

Unfortunately, I can't tell you exactly how you should play under a certain scoreline because, like I already said, every player has their own individual strengths and weaknesses. Like I said, in some cases, if you are a big server, you will use your serve as an advantage in the most important stages of the match. This doesn't mean that this is the right thing to do for another player who doesn't live and die off his serve.

I cannot give you specific tactics for the scoreline because I don't know how you play. Every player has their individual strengths and weaknesses. However, you do have to play important score lines in a match with the right mental attitude, that I can tell you. These score lines are going to be 30-all, deuce, add in, add out, 30-40, 30-love, 40-love.

These are important score lines that cannot be overlooked. You have to play with the right mental attitude, and what is that? Well, you have to play with a lot of intensity, and you have to tell yourself that you're going to try really hard on that particular point.

The Infamous 40-Love

This is one of the most common traps that a lot of players fall into, especially at the recreational level or the junior level. What happens is when you're up 40-love, you think you have won the game, and now all of a sudden, you relax mentally. You might not play that point at 40-love with a lot of intensity. You end up losing it. Now it's 40-15. All of a sudden, you lose this point, and it's 40-30, and the game is extremely tight.

It went from you thinking that you won the game easily to all of a sudden a super tight pressure moment at 40-30. What you've got to tell yourself is that when you're 40-love up, it's just as if it was 40-30. You have to trick yourself; you have to ignore the fact that you're up by a lot. What's going to happen in turn is that you will rarely lose games when you have 40-love. If you're not aware of this mental trap, there are going to be a lot of games where you have 40-love, and you end up losing as a result of relaxation.

Entertaining Clips

Highlights will not teach you about the subtleties of tennis. It will not show you the true quality of a player. I recently listened to an interview with Ivan Ljubicic, one of the greats, number three in the world, and coach of Roger Federer. It was on the Functional Tennis podcast, and Ivan was asked what the difference is between some of the greats, the Grand Slam champions, and somebody like him who was very close.

Ljubicic brought up the example of Gustavo Kuerten, and he said that when he played Kuerten, he had a very easy time holding serve. Now, I'm not exactly sure why that is because in my mind, Kuerten has a phenomenal return. But in any case, Ljubicic also had one of the greatest serves on tour, maybe of all time, and he had an easy time holding serve against Kuerten.

Nevertheless, when the score got tight, for example, 5-all, 30-all, out of nowhere, Kuerten would start hitting down-the-line backhand winners. Ljubicic explains that therein lies the difference between the great players and the greatest players. The greatest players of all time manage to find their absolute best game in the most important moments.

The Ugly Truth

What you should do instead of watching highlights is commit some time and watch a full match. Another problem that you're going to run into when watching highlights is that you're going to think that tennis is all about winners. You're not going to see the errors because even at the elite level, there's a lot of errors that are committed. You can sometimes see when a player is playing phenomenally well, and all of a sudden, it gets close in the score, and that player starts to play poorly.

By spending quality time in front of the TV, you have an insight into this player's psyche, and this could maybe explain why this particular player is struggling at the elite level. Maybe there's a confidence issue. Again, you will never be able to find this out if you watch highlights because it's going to be one winner after the other.

Final Thoughts

So, once again, I'm telling you that you're going to gain a lot by watching full matches. Yes, I know in this modern world, everything is short; we have a short attention span. But tennis cannot live with a short attention span. It requires patience when you play. You're not going to win the match quickly. You have to be patient, and if you want to learn something by watching tennis, it will require patience as well. So, for that reason, stop watching highlights.