The hard-hitting, erratic, net-rushing player is a creature of impulse. There is no real strategy to his/her game, no understanding of your game. He will make brilliant coups on the spur of the moment, largely by instinct; but there is no, mental power of consistent thinking. It is an interesting type of character.

The really dangerous player is the one who mixes his/her strategy from back to fore court at the direction of an ever-alert mind. This/her is the player to study and learn from. He is a player with a definite intention. A player who has an answer to every query you present him in your game. He is the most subtle antagonist in the world of tennis. He is from the school of Brookes. Second only to him is the player of dogged determination that sets his/her mind on one strategy and sticks to it, bitterly, fiercely fighting to the end, with never a thought of changing.

He is the player whose psychology is rather easy to work out, but whose mental viewpoint is hard to upset, because he never permits himself to think of anything but his game. This/her player is your Johnston or your Wilding. I respect the mental capacity of Brookes more, but I admire the tenacity of purpose of Johnston.

Choose your type from your own mental pattern, and then work out your game along the lines most suited to you. When two men are in the same class as regards stroke, strength and equipment, the deciding factor in any game is the mental viewpoint. Luck, so-called, is usually just grasping the psychological value of a change of flow in the game, and turning it to your own account. We hear a lot about the “shots he has made.” Few understand the importance of the “shots he has missed.”

The psychology of missing shots is just as important as that of making them, and at times a miss by an inch is of more value than a return that is killed by your opponent. Let me tell you why. A player drives you far out of court with an angle-shot. You run hard to it, and having reached it, you smash it hard and fast down the side-line, missing it by an inch. Your opponent is surprised and put off his stride, realizing that your shot could just as well have gone in as out. He will expect you to try it again and he will not take the risk next time. He will try to play the ball, and may make an error. You have thus stolen some of your opponent’s confidence, and increased his/her chance of error, just because of a miss.

If you had merely tapped back that ball, and it had been killed, your opponent would have felt increasingly confident of your inability to get the ball out of his/her reach, while you would merely have been winded without result.

Let’s just say that you had made that shot down the sideline. It was a seemingly impossible get. First it amounts to TWO points, in that it took one away from your opponent that should have been his/her and gave you one that you ought never to have had. Second it also worries your opponent, as he feels that he has thrown away a big chance.

The psychology involved in a tennis match is very interesting, but readily understood. Both men begin with equal chances. Once one player establishes a real lead, his/her confidence goes up, while his/her opponent worries, and his/her mental standpoint becomes poor. The only objective of the first player is to hold his/her lead, thereby maintaining his/her confidence.

If the second player pulls even or pulls ahead, the inevitable reaction occurs with an even greater contrast in psychology. There is the natural confidence of the leader, but coupled with the great stimulus of having turned a seemingly inevitable defeat into a probable victory. The reverse is the case of the other player, who is apt to lose confidence and play worse. The collapse of his game plan soon follows.

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