Paul Annacone was calling a match from Cincy the other night. Rafa shanked a ball on a break point. He stared at it like it was disgusting mess for a second, his expression changed and he did his little Rafa hop to the baseline. Annacone said, "Well that's gone. He already cleared that bad memory out." The co-announcer asked him if the same holds true of the good memories. Annacone said, absolutely not. The best have an ability to hang onto those good memories and just dump the bad ones. He's a guy that has worked with some mental tennis giants. I learned from what he said.
Halep laughed at herself yesterday when she hit three straight match point FH's all over the place. Net, long by 5, long by 7. She just laughed a little bit and shrugged. The announcer said, "Gotta laugh or the demons really get a hold of you." She made her next one.
Selective memory. Learned optimism. You gotta have it in this sport.
I've been going through a very strange period with my daughter's game. She's ten and can hit a ton and clean. Laying waste to kids 5-6 years older at practice. Couldnt play a match to save her life. Getting bageled and breadsticked by people that just picked up a racket. It was painful. On a deep level. Lately we just sort of clicked into "Play like you don't care." And it works. She went overnight to winning tourneys and racking up wins in 14U's. She still plays kind of tight and is still getting it done. But you can see it. This week in dubs she went ballistic. Carried her partner to the Finals when they had no biz being there. Playing on a whole other level. I asked her what was up. She said in doubles she wasn't "trying" not to care. She legitimately didn't care about the results of the shots. She just hit it. And she double faulted to lose in a third set tiebreaker. LOL. But completely shrugged it off. " I hit it. I missed it." There's something to it. But of course you WILL care. You just gotta play like you don't in the moment.
As long as you get back on a court....you'll figure it out.
