Singles Playbook – Do All Points Have Equal Value ?

Singles

You have no on court coach available

No doubles partner for support

The winning and losing is all on you

We know the feeling

And more, we have won an occasional match and not known why, but equally we have lost (perhaps more than a few) matches and not known why

The factors include

  • Managing momentum – Stan Smith on “3 point swings”

  • What does the Second Shot Pass have to do with the Art of Winning?

  • Shot making – What is your opportunity ball?

  • Tactics – Pancho Segura was the teacher and Jimmy Connors the student

  • Emotional Resilience – weathering the ups and downs using Mindset

  • Diagnosing the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses – the most important lesson Jim Courier got from Jose Higueras

  • Playing in the moment – Tom Stow, “Play the ball the winning takes care of itself”

I will go into much more detail in the upcoming days – keep your eye our for my subsequent posts

In the meantime – what are your most pressing needs to fill out your own “Singles Playbook”

Now consider Stan Smith’s perspective – if you do not know his name you must do some research!

9 Comments

  • robert in Hawaii

    Reply Reply March 30, 2018

    Played for the same All-Army team that world #1 Stan Smith was playing for when he was in the Army(1973). A cherished photo was the two of us wearing our All-Army Sports/tennis jackets and receiving my medal from him. A great guy that came out for the Armed Forces Championships on two occasions. It was my honor to know him even briefly in this context. I had the honor of representing the Army in 1986 & 1987, and 1995-1998. Wearing that jacket today at Diamond Head Tennis Center. Thanks Jim and Stan. And Colonel Dick Green and Chaplain Jonathan Etterbeek. TEAM champs 5 out of 6 years!

    • Jim McLennan

      Reply Reply March 30, 2018

      Robert – a great note, an excellent memory you shared – thank you!
      Jim

  • Greg Pierce

    Reply Reply March 28, 2018

    Just read a very interesting book that addressed this very issue, i.e., relative value of the points in a tennis match. The book is called Deconstructing Tennis by Robert Schewior. The author, in addition to being a competitive tennis player and coach, is also a Phd economist and analyzes the question of point importance in a very quantifiable way (as only an economist can). Can’t give his approach explanatory justice in this short space but it made a lot of sense to me. Didn’t know if you had heard of this book, just thought I’d mention it as worth a read.

    • Jim McLennan

      Reply Reply March 28, 2018

      Greg – the momentum concept is about the mental emotional aspect of the game – where a player can become “mentally down” but from a strict mathematical perspective it may be that all points are equal – what was his position?
      best
      Jim

      • Greg Pierce

        Reply Reply April 2, 2018

        Sorry to be slow in replying, was traveling. His basic concept is to assign weights to points based on how much they contribute to winning a game, a set, or the match. In a simple example for a set, with the game score at 0-0, the 40-30 point does not contribute much to winning the set and therefore has a low weight. However, with a game score of 5-4, the 40-30 point contributes a lot towards winning the set and has a correspondingly high weight. Pretty straightforward but he then ties this into 2 (at least) other ideas. First, in terms of tactics, you want to only use your high risk tactics (e.g. drop shot) on low weight points and save your most effective tactics for high weight points. Second, given equal talent, players who seem to win more matches are ones who win more of the critical points. And that these players don’t necessarily play the critical points better but they don’t suffer any drop in performance caused by the pressure of playing a critical point. Again, there is whole lot more to the book than I can effectively explain here but hopefully this makes some sense. He also talks about momentum but I’ll have to save that for another post.

        • Jim McLennan

          Reply Reply April 13, 2018

          Greg
          Thanks for this – I like the idea about critical points and managing risk – and that might really be one of the keys that separate the best players from all the rest
          best
          Jim
          This below that I copied is very good
          “First, in terms of tactics, you want to only use your high risk tactics (e.g. drop shot) on low weight points and save your most effective tactics for high weight points. Second, given equal talent, players who seem to win more matches are ones who win more of the critical points”.

  • Harry Wood

    Reply Reply March 27, 2018

    Excellent tip.Thanks

  • Coach Bob Luby

    Reply Reply March 27, 2018

    Excellent advice – always enjoyed and appreciated your advice over the years. Going for another High School State Championship this year – doesn’t get easier.as you know — eight in a row at this point.

    • Jim McLennan

      Reply Reply March 27, 2018

      Bob
      Thanks for the note – motivating young people with simple messages is an art – if you are going for another championship – you must be doing something (or likely many things) right – GOOD LUCK
      best
      Jim

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