My Tennis Philosophy

As an active tennis player, I have developed a kind of my philosophy toward this sport. If you play tennis long enough, you may think of tennis differently. Here I like to share some of my experience and understanding of tennis games.

Happy to Lose!

Like all sports, competition is part of tennis games. When I started to play tennis, my only goal was to beat my opponents, winning and winning every point. After playing tennis for a few years, I kind of mastered some basic skills and became a pretty good player. This time, I cared more about losing than anything else, especially when I played against not-so-good players, I sometimes, even went out the extra mile to argue about a point, in or out of court lines. Because I called loudly, a couple of times I had arguments on my way which saved me from the loss of close matches. I thought I became better at tennis, so went to challenge some good players outside the area I usually played. No matter how hard I tried, I was still beaten by the younger and stronger players, which taught me lessons. I was not so good. There was always someone out there better than me. I realized that calling a ball out that I could not return was not helping me to get better in tennis, and in a way, it is making me weaker and giving a self-excuse to avoid being defeated. For a while, I felt that sometimes winning was like losing, and sometimes losing as long as giving out what I have was like winning. Finding out what you cannot do and all you can do is a kind of wisdom.

Luckily, where I live has a group of tennis lovers and we can play tennis regularly. I started to change my attitude toward playing tennis, focusing more on my shortages and better position when I hit the ball, trying to improve my tennis skills like serves, volleys, backhand, and forehand strokes, etc. Such efforts soon pay off and I magically win more games than before, which has been recognized by my tennis peers. Many times, I have been asked to partner with a relatively weak player like a lady against men’s double players to balance the play. I happily accept the challenge because I have switched my goal to tennis. Playing tennis is not only for physical exercise but also can be a personal improvement, mentally and intelligently. The most exciting match is when I team up with a left-hand player to play against the tournament champion TJ, they are better than us in skills and experience, but our kind different combination gives them a lot of challenges. Although we win less than we lose the matches, I am happy to lose after each exhausting fight because I can find out the area in which my tennis skills need to be enhanced.

Success is Becoming the Success

Winning tennis games are always the focus for players when stepping into the tennis court.  It seems that tennis fans pay more attention to the results than the tennis match play. Grant Slam champions get far more recognition than any other players. However, as an amateur tennis player, playing tennis is just a pastime or a sport for routine exercise. In a certain way, winning just is a measurement of progression or skill improvement. The fun comes from the competition and pushing each other to the limits. Think about this, if a good player beats a novice player, how this good player feels about the match? Not much excitement. Only competitive matches can bring true enjoyment to the players, maybe this is the beauty of tennis. In a tennis tournament, players have to fight each point against each other, and end of the day, the winner gets the tournament recognition. To the winner, the real enjoyment is the course of reaching the match points because the champion has to go through many challenges and return or make many difficult shots. It is the effort the player puts in that produces the success, and the success itself is the outcome measuring how good the effort is. By putting effort to play tennis, everyone can be a better player and advance their tennis skills. To become a tournament champion, you must become a better player first.

Consistency is the Key

I like to play tennis because it can teach me a lot of wisdom besides training my physical body. When you play, it is hard to control the ball at a very fast pace. On many occasions, we unconsciously hit an ace serve or an excellent return but we may still lose the game or match. The tennis scoring system is very different from any other sport, for example, each game or set has a win-by-two rule implemented, therefore, it makes tennis unique. Having a big shot or winning a point usually does not help much in winning a game under the tennis rules. It works at the critical or determining point situation, but it is difficult to master it. In other words, each point is not equal in terms of game weight. This requires the player to be consistent more than explosive. We often see a younger play hit powerful shots and still lose the game or match in a tournament. Tennis has its way of progressing games by calling the score, such as breakpoint or game point, set point, match point, and championship point. This is a cumulative progression, and the final victory is built upon the previous ones, without a game point, there is no set point. Very like our life success, a great success must start with a task, and then a project, etc. step by step buildup. The similarity here is consistency, continuously marching towards the goal of ultimate success. Probably this is the secret to why tennis attracts so many people to play. If you have not found out, think about the game when you grab your tennis racquet.