In tennis, too much attention to detail is a recipe for disaster.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympic games, U.S. gymnast Alicia Sacramone stepped up to compete on the balance beam. The U.S. and Chinese teams were vying for the gold in the all-around team finals, and the pressure was on for Alicia to nail her routine. Although Sacramone was ready to go, the judges were not. She had to wait a while before she was given the green light to mount the beam. Once she started, it didn’t go well. Sacramone fell on her initial jump onto the beam and had to start from the floor. The deductions helped cost her team the gold.
Unlike gymnastics, tennis is not a sport where judges routinely put the brakes on an athlete who is ready to go. But it turns out that tennis players don’t need anyone else to slow them down. We often do it to ourselves. When the game or match is on the line, we routinely take our time getting to the service line. This extra time not only provides us with the opportunity to worry about screwing up. It may prompt us to think too much.
Simply put, scrutinizing our actions can get in the way of what we are doing, especially if we are performing, say, a serve practiced to perfection. When we unpack every detail of what we are about to do, we alter our normal routine, which can lead to a botched service toss, a misaligned foot, poor ball contact or all of the above.
Researchers using brain scans have found that when people start thinking about movements they have mastered, the prefrontal cortex (the very front part of the brain that sits over our eyes and is the seed of our conscious awareness) starts trying to run the show. The prefrontal cortex doesn’t do the lion’s share of the work when we are performing well-practiced activities; instead these activities normally happen outside of consciousness. When we give ourselves a lot of time to think, the prefrontal cortex can take over and muck up what should be left alone.
The good news is that there are countermeasures you can take to keep prevent these kinds of lapses. For example, limiting the time between points can help. My research team and I have shown that skilled golfers tend to putt better when we push them to take their putts a bit faster. Of course, new players need plenty of time to think about what they want to do, because attending to the details is important when you are just learning the tools of your trade. But once a skill is well practiced, too much time—if it allows for too much attention to detail—can be a bad thing.
It also helps to have a relatively short pre-serve routine. Golfer Aaron Baddeley, for example, uses a four count from the moment he grounds the putter to the moment he strikes the ball. Baddeley is consistently rated as one of the best putters on the PGA tour. Ensuring that your pre-serve routine is on the short side may help you ace that important serve.
We have all heard that “haste makes waste.” But sometimes, haste actually prevents waste. So, next time you are at a pivotal point, don’t spend too much time agonizing over your serve. Instead, push yourself to play like it is any other point and simply get it done.
Sian Beilock, Ph.D., is a psychology professor at The University of Chicago and the author of Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To.
Illustration by Larry Jost
Originally published in the June 2011 issue of TENNIS.