Have you ever tried to keep track of what goes through your head during a tennis match? It’s pretty remarkable what happens in there. Something about testing yourself in competition, while at the same time not being able to communicate with anyone, must heighten and quicken the thought process—all you can do is talk to yourself. We played one set and I spent much of it trying to figure out where I had copied various parts of my game. I decided my service motion had come from fellow lefty Goran Ivanisevic, but the setup must have been Ivan Lendl's (I still flick my racquet wrist just a bit before I begin the tossing motion). My Western forehand grip was inspired by Bjorn Borg’s, but the way I think of the shot and hit it now owes a lot to Rafael Nadal. I’m a baseliner, and Nadal may be the first lefty to create an attacking, power-baseline game around the inside-out forehand. That’s helped me use my forehand more aggressively, the way right-handers typically do. It’s true, we can be taught new tricks! And, in my case at least, the best way to learn them is to watch and internalize what the pros do.
Alongside the above catalog were my usual pre-game thoughts: i.e., wondering why I’m so much looser, stronger, better in warm-ups and practices than I am when the points begin. I know this is true of everyone—even the pros; ever see how good they are in practice?—but I’ve had a phobia about this since college. On our team, great-practice/bad-match players were known as “3:30 All Americans” (practice started at 3:30 every afternoon). It was hard to imagine a more devastating insult.
The result of this is that I go out of my way not to start missing shots at the beginning of a match that I had just been making in the warm-up. This means I start a little tight, playing safe and short until I can loosen up. But this time everything was clicking from the start. I broke in the first game, hit two aces in the next, and finished it with two forehand winners. I had that feeling you get every once in a great while where the rallies seem to slow down and give you all the time in the world to measure the shot you want—this is the standard definition of the “zone.”
Then it all fell apart, as it so often does, with one shot. I had a break point at 2-0 and was still playing well. Another point and I could totally relax. (Of course, there was no reason not to be completely relaxed anyway, since this set mattered to exactly no one, including the two players involved; but you know what I mean—nerves are a kind of habit for a tennis player). I took control of a rally and ended up at the net, where I had a fairly easy overhead. I hit it well, but my opponent reflexed back a short, fat, sitting duck right in the middle of the court, head high. I moved forward and decided to go for a short-angle volley. But the ball was moving with just slightly less pace than I anticipated. Like a change-up in baseball, I caught it a little in front and didn’t have enough have behind my volley, which hit the tape. After that, it goes without saying, I missed my next two returns of serve and the score was 2-1 rather than 3-0.
What a difference a shot makes! I told myself to forget about it. On the changeover I even came up with a dopey slogan in my head: “Embrace reality!” But my unconscious wasn’t listening. I missed three forehands badly to go down 0-40. I got out of it with my serve, but my time in the zone was over. Now it was a different match, a struggle. I kept making inroads on his serve, but a strange, invisible barrier had been erected in my head. I had been on the verge of breaking once and blown it. My botched volley had sealed my fate.
Holding serve got progressively more difficult. My opponent moved as far back as he could for his returns, which messed with my head. No matter how hard I hit my serve, he would have time to get it back. I didn’t like this idea. With my confidence gradually ebbing, I stopped going after my shots and began scrambling and hoping for errors instead. I'd lost control of the rallies. As darkness rolled in, I struggled to 5-4, 40-15, and thought maybe I would escape. I should have known better; I was really just treading water, fighting a losing battle against the tides of tennis fate. I double-faulted and eventually lost the game.
That was it, we had to call it at 5-5. It was too dark, and the party was really getting started in the apartment above. I walked off slightly frustrated, shadow-hitting my missed volley and imagining it going in. I still was secretly hoping I could go back in time and hit it for the winner it should have been! But I didn’t feel too bad. That’s one beauty of a friendly tennis match: It can matter and not matter at the same time. It’s fun—but it isn’t just fun.
