I Actually Enjoyed Myself

Haters, I played my first league match of the season, and I didn't throw up.  I didn't throw a tantrum.  I didn't lose.  And I didn't cry.

I actually enjoyed myself.

Worthy Opponent Lori and I celebrate our awesome tie at the USTA National Tennis Center in Queens.That was my goal.  The fact that my USTA women's 3.0 Queens league match with Worthy Opponent Lori ended in a tie, with me winning the first set, 6-4, and Lori to serve for the second set at 5-3, was an afterthought. Maybe it shouldn't have been.  Perhaps I should have really buckled down and made holding my serve in that eighth game my brass ring, but I was too busy focusing on more important matters, like breathing.

My goals were simple.  Stay calm, see the hit, get to every ball

Seriously, have you ever paid attention to your breath in the middle of a match?  I found I hold mine throughout the point.  No wonder I get tight.  Even my lungs are clenched.

I started the match on the way there, repeating to myself in the car my Tennis Story:

• I get to every ball.  
• I improve every time I play.  
• I play with confidence and gusto. 
• I relish testing my limits and seeing if I can expand them. 
• I am a Worthy Opponent, respecting my opponent and the game through a positive attitude and good sportsmanship.  
• I love to compete more than I love to win.

 Yes, Haters, repeat after me: I love to compete more than I love to win.

I was so nervous.  I was filled with dread.  Tennis Hate was yammering away in my head.  I haven't practiced enough.  I don't have a put-away shot.  I shouldn't play in a league until I'm really good.  I'm going to let my teammates down!

I sat in the car for ten minutes, breathing nice big belly breaths, the kind I often don't take because, well, it's just wrong to deliberately push OUT what you've been spending a lifetime sucking IN.  I remembered another part of my story: I convert nervous energy into excitement.  I'm excited every time I take the court.  I thought of Rafael Nadal, jumping around at the net during the coin toss, doing that zig-zag sprint back to the baseline to start the warm-up.  He wants to play.  I was wanting to hide.

By the time my fellow Ball Busters walked onto our assigned courts at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center with the iron smell of rain in the air, I was calm.  I thought of how cool it was to be playing on Court 8, the same court that the top tennis players in the world will be sweating and grunting on in a few weeks.  During last year's US Open, Court 8 hosted Simona Halep, Roberta Vinci and Daniela Hantuchova.

I was cheered by the exclusive welcome extended to me and my profession by the court itself: Media Only.  The message was spray-painted on the court surface at the gate.  

They knew I was coming, so they sprayed a gate. Photo: yours truly.My goals were simple.  Stay calm, see the hit, get to every ball.  I caught myself at times wishing it were over, wishing I was home watching somebody else putting it all out there on the court.  I didn't want to face this pressure.  It reminded me of practicing zazen, Zen sitting meditation, where you sit on a cushion looking at a white wall and counting your breath to three, over and over, fighting off the urge to leap up and demand that somebody turn on a TV to The Housewives of Orange County.  

Tennis is my practice, I thought, standing there on the baseline, getting ready to receive Lori's serve. This is my Zen, my spiritual practice.  I live every moment fully.  I want this moment to go on and on and on, because it's the only one I am living.

I got jammed up when I became a spectator of my own game.  I noticed my Worthy Opponent was winning with cross-court forehand angles near the service line of the deuce court, so I started defending against them by putting more shots to her backhand.  I saw that I was putting a lot of balls short.  She gobbled many of them up, hitting short, angled winners to whichever side she wanted.  Lori made it look easy, like it wasn't tennis. I tried to adjust, and got a few more balls back deep, including some that bounced high and gave her trouble.

 I told myself, I love these pressure points.  These are the sweetest moments of the match. 

My best moments were when I came to net.  I move up to net about 3 or 4 times, not much, but enough to be a big deal for me.  When I got there, I won the point. My biggest triumph was when I went against my deeply-held sense of fair play and courtesy, and hit a forehand volley winner for the break at 15-40, deep into the opposite corner, away from my Worthy Opponent.  I had to stop myself from apologizing: Sorry, Lori, I forgot, I usually hit those back TO you. Oops.  

Oh, yes, service breaks.  Lori and I played it just like some of the pros of the WTA, trading them like cards in a game of Old Maid.  I didn't hold until my third service game in the first set.  Then, the next game, I broke her! Wow!  Then she broke me back!  Shit!  Then I broke her with the aforementioned put-away volley winner.  YAY! And then -- let loose the pigeons -- I held serve at 40-30 to take the first set, 6-4.  

I was pushed to deuce many times during my service games.  I told myself, I love these pressure points.  These are the sweetest moments of the match.  I love facing break points, because I get to see what I'm made of. Lori and I must have reached deuce about 6 times in the second set, me serving at 2-3.  She ended up breaking me, but, Haters, I didn't fizz into a fury.  Instead, I thought, I fought off 3 or 4 break points in that game. Cool.

And then I broke her back.  

I didn't consolidate the break, though.  As was our way on this night, Lori, my Worthy Opponent, broke me back, easily, 0-40.  She was to serve for the set at 5-3 when it was time to stop.   We had been playing for two hours.

In the end, my story came true.  I got to most every ball.  Now, I have to add to my story a clause that says, "and I hit the appropriate shot once I get to it."  I stayed calm.  And, the happiest ending of all, I loved competing on this night more than I loved winning that first set.  

French Open: Serena, Defending Champ, Ousted in 2nd Round

If there's any reason for women's world number one Serena Williams to succumb to Tennis Hate, retire and open her own nail salon, it was her listless, straight-set loss to unseeded Garbine Muguruza.  It took just over an hour, 64 minutes, for the 35th seeded 20-year-old from Spain to demolish the defending champ.

Winning just four games against the 35th seed leaves a sour taste in Serena's mouth. Photo, me.Williams won just four games in the entire match.  That's not like her.  She couldn't find any rhythm on her serve, winning just 55 percent of her points on her first serve.  Her second serve point percentage was in the basement, 27 percent, compared to Muguruza's 68 percent.  The vaunted slugger hit only 8 winners.  EIGHT.  That's one for every other game.  That's just not like her.

Serena's Tennis Hate was visible on the court, according to The Guardian:

She moved sluggishly throughout and, although fighting to the end, was clearly distraught at her inability to keep the ball in play and racked up 28 unforced errors. At one point in the penultimate game, she shook visibly before serving and seemed on the point of collapse, but she gathered her composure to finish.

Finish the game, but not the tournament.  Muguruza made sure of that.  

"It’s amazing,” Muguruza said of her victory over Williams, by far the biggest win of her young career.  It's her sixth Grand Slam ever and only her second appearance at Roland Garros.  “I didn’t expect that. But I played very, very good. I am really happy. My plan was to be very aggressive and I think I did it very well."

Moment of victory: Muguruza in disbelief as world number one dumps a match point return into the net. Photo, me.Williams, who had to withdraw from Madrid earlier this season because of left thigh trouble, said nothing was physically wrong with her.  A journalist pressed her on this point, saying she had overheard Williams muttering that she couldn't serve.

"No, I just couldn't serve," Serena said, in a rare, publicly critical self-assessment.  She never talks about her game like that.   It's just not like her.  

"It was one of those days, you can't be on every day," Serena said.  "Gosh, I hate to be off during a Grand Slam, but it happens.  It's not the end of the world.  It is what it is."

"I honestly never saw her play like this," Williams said of her opponent.  "We'll see if she can keep it up."

Ahhhh.  That's my girl.  Show me some of your characteristic bravado.  That means you're on your way back from this super ugly loss.

But Williams said something different to Muguruza at the net, when it was all over.  "She said, if I continue to play like this, I could win the tournament," Garbine told reporters in her post-match interview.  

Muguruza's mug shows nothing but pride and pleasure. Photo, moi.She'll play Anna Schmiedlova, another unknown, who triumphed in three sets over Williams' sister, Venus, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4.  

Just to keep the American Tennis Hate going, Sam Querry is also simmering on the sidelines.  The 26-year-old, who's been struggling to regain the confidence and form that had him as high as 17th in the world in 2011, lost to 31-year-old veteran Dmitry Tursenov, 6-4, 7-5, 6-1.  

Every picture tells a story, and this one sums up Serena's match. In control of the point, she dumps an overhead into the net. Photo, moi.

A User's Manual of the Mind

Imagine if you could just turn the volume down on your Tennis Hate.  Imagine if you could reach up to your forehead -- or maybe have your doubles partner do it -- and turn a knob, the one that's over your third eye, to silence that voice that's hissing like a tea kettle, "That shot sucked, you've got the worst forehand in the league, you are never going to succeed at this sport, go take up basketweaving, it suits you better." 

My Tennis Hate is at 11 dB. One louder. Photo, artistry: Me.

Worthy Pro Jeff Greenwald wants us Tennis Haters to do just that when we're playing, to think about dials instead of how sucky and freaked out we are that we're blowing easy volleys.  Rather than standing at the service line, thinking of how I'm serving, 0-5, his "mental game changer" method would have me think of a different set of numbers, ones that indicate the level I'm playing at when it comes to intensity, looseness and focus.

"You don't try to relax," he told me in a recent telephone interview from his base in Marin County, California.  "That doesn't work."

Haters, don't we know this to be true?  The more I tell myself to relax, the more I tighten up.  I have whiffed plenty of shots, especially second serve returns, immediately after exhorting myself to focus on this next shot, get this next shot, nail it.  My tennis game is like a 16-year-old.  The more I command it to be a certain way, the more it rebels and does exactly the opposite.

Imagine if you could reach up to your forehead -- or maybe have your doubls partner do it -- and turn a knob to silence that voice that's hissing like a tea kettle, "You Hate Tennis."

Greenwald, a former touring pro, a national and international senior circuit world number one, sports psychology consultant and licensed therapist, has a two-hour downloadable Tennis Hate reduction method called, "Play Out of Your Mind: The Mental Game Changer." It combines some of the stress reduction strategies he outlined ten years ago in his audio course, Fearless Tennis, with his recent work with performance "dials." 

Jeff Greenwald: Feet Intensity, 8; Looseness, 4: Focusing cue, stay down. Photo: Jeff Greenwald.The work begins, Greenwald said, with becoming aware of what's going on in your body and your head on the court and accepting it.  Yes, Haters, embrace the Hate.  It's what I've been encouraging you to do all along!

"The first thing is accepting the reality of the moment, and that offers you options and perspective," he said. Acceptance begins with awareness.  Greenwald advises scanning your body for tension, and just noticing it.  That's all. Hello, my neck feels like rebar and my service arm feels like a 2x4.

 I remember working with Greenwald on this at the US Tennis Congress last fall.  He had me and several other participants do this mental scan before serving or returning serve.  "Just observe how you're feeling, where your muscles are tight, don't try to relax them," he instructed.  "Now, think about your feet.  Notice your toes, wiggle them around in your shoes." I fluttered my toes, noticing how sweaty they were.  Yuck.  

Uh oh, a judgmental thought.  Okay, Amy, so they're sweaty.  Duly noted, let's move on.... 

"Now bring your attention to the ball," he told us.  He was giving us a pathway, a trail of breadcrumbs, out of our heads, into our bodies and back onto the court.

With Play Out of Your Mind, he offers additional tools to get Tennis Haters into their optimum performance state while in the middle of the on court drama.  After becoming aware of the tension I'm holding in my body, and accepting it, I can now take a course of action to dial up....or down....a deeper level of Focus, Looseness and Intensity.

"Say that you are at an 8," Greenwald said about Looseness.  "You're really nervous, really tight." (Man, I'm this way even in practice, let alone matches.)  "If you can go from 8 to 6, you have good chance to win the match."

He offers a PDF file with his audio course with tips on how to find and drill with this concept of dials and numbers.

Hit down the middle with low tension (1) and move up scale to (10), spending 30 seconds or 1 to 2 good rallies to connect level of tension with ball striking.  Stop after you reach (6) on the dial to see/assess and observe tension level. Discuss with partner or coach.

During the Tennis Congress, Jeff had us start with a level of 8.  Some in the group started really nailing the ball well, interpreting Greenwald's instructions as Intensity rather than Looseness or tension.  "I want you to think of how your body feels when you're really tense and scared on court, really nervous."  

 Crank 'em up. Or down, depending. From Jeff Greenwald's Play Out of Your Mind's Quick Start Guide.

Oh, that dial!  My buddies and I started recalibrating.  I tensed my arm up as hard as I could, pulled my shoulders up toward my ears, where they usually reside, clenched my jaw.  You know, my natural on court state.  I couldn't clear the net.  My fellow Congressmembers were getting the same, pushy results.

Greenwald congratulated us on how tight we were.  "Those are great 8's," he said.  Now he had us dial it down to a 2 or 3.  "What does that feel like?  What's your 3?"  

It took a few passes before I could hone in on the feeling.  I wanted to go all spaghetti, but you can't hit a ball that way.  There has to be some flexing of the muscles of the shoulder, arm and wrist as it pulls the racquet into the ball.  But there it was, a feeling of release, of flow, an uncharacteristic smoothness and fluidity to my forehand that I savored in the experiencing of it.  I couldn't wait to hit the ball again.  It was pleasurable.  It was clean and unobstructed by mental chatter or extra, unnecessary clenching. My balls sailed easy and deep into the opposite court.  

Wow.

But my Tennis Hate immediately seizes on a conundrum: How do you play Loose without playing Careless?  How do you play with Intensity while staying Loose?  I'm a Type A overdrive kind of player.  I've told myself, in the midst of a match, when I'm losing and wanting to cry or smash my racquet or just check out, let them win, who cares, thinking that that will take off the pressure.  Thinking that that's "letting go" and being "loose."

No, that's playing LOSE.

"You're hitting the heart of the challenge for many," Greenwald told me.  "You're thinking that the solution is by not caring.  You need to care a little bit about winning and losing…but not so much."

Greenwald says the performance states of careless, carefee and careful are on a continuum.  "You don't want to play careful."  That'd be playing at a (10) on your Looseness dial.  "You don't want to play careless, reckless." That'd be, perhaps, a 1 on the Intensity dial.  "You want to find a way to be more carefree, carefree about the results [of a match or a point], which we only have partial control over, anyhow."  

He said working with his dials of Intensity, Focus and Looseness, identifying what my optmium settings are, and learning to conceptualize getting to those levels while in the thick of things in a match, will help me inch further along the path toward...well, if not Rafa Nadal-like mental toughness, then improvement.  One less expletive rant after my forehand down the line sails long...so long, it's over the chain link fence and into the neighboring softball field at the Prospect Park Parade Grounds.

"The best in the game, they want to win badly," Greenwald said of the pros.  "Rafa wants the ninth French Open title, they want it as bad as anybody else, or more." But rather than focus on a result that is not in their control, Greenwald said the pros have learned how to shift their attention away from results and onto their optimum performance state.  Their own little forehead dials.  

Nobody gives us a user's manual of our mind."

"Rafa takes a freezing shower to get out of his head," Greenwald said.  "[The pros] are like a finely-tuned instrument.  Their anxiety is not so much about losing the match as it is performing less than they can and being in a state that they know won't contribute to best tennis. It's the difference between wanting a particular state or winning or losing that match."

His hope for Play Out of Your Mind is to help Tennis Haters like me find that performance state more often.

"Nobody gives us a user's manual of our mind," he said.  "I have made a great effort to take what we all experience at every level and be as human and practical in remembering how the brain works [as possible], to give people tools where they can adjust what's happening in the moment in an effective way. The zone happens two times a year, or whatever.  Mostly, what we're trying to do is have our worst day be better and our best day happen more often.  I think these dials speak to the experience we all have and can help."

A Roland Garros Umbrella Sighting: It Must Be Spring

Better than the flowering pink trees, better than sandals and short sleeves. -- a Roland Garros umbrella! Proof of Tennis Love and springtime, after a long, crusty winter. Bring on the May showers, I wanna see more French Open rain gear.

Madrid: Nishikori Beats Ferrer, Wooden Arm, to Reach Final vs. Nadal

It was painful to watch Kei Nishikori claw out his 7-6 (5), 5-7, 6-3 upset of David Ferrer, heart-clutchingly so.  I can still feel the tension in my chest, long after Nishikori's exhausted, relieved walk to the net to shake Ferrer's hand.

For Nishikori, it was the agony of victory at Madrid. Photo: yours truly.

That final game in the third set?  It lasted more than seventeen minutes.  Nishikori, serving for the match, had had a match point when serving 5-4 in the second set. But a blown call erased that opportunity, and here Kei was, in the ninth game of the third set, with another chance.  And another.  And another.

The look of Tennis Hate leaving the body of Kei Nishikori. Photo, mine.

It all started with match point #2 for Nishikori at 40-0.  The kid kept stoning the ball into the net.  The 24-year-old from Japan, who had been so fearless and aggressive, now had a right arm that you could light for kindling, it was so wooden and dead.  He blows all three match points, to the increasing delight of the crowd.  

Now I'm hurting because I lost a really tough match."

Fast forward to match point #7, when I start taking notes.  Nishikori drives a forehand into Ferrer's backhand, a pattern he was working throughout the match, but there's no topspin and he pushes it long.  

During the deuce point, Kei seemed to relax into what turned out to be a 33-shot rally with Fancy Feet Ferrer, who was scurrying back and forth along the baseline like the needle of a metronome set to presto.  But Kei's coffin arm blew a forehand down the line wide, and it was break point #3 for Ferrer.  The Spaniard was shouting with delight at every mistake Nishikori made.  The partisan crowd in Madrid was applauding the Japanese player's double faults.  I admired how cool Nishikori was being, how slowly and deliberately he set up for his next serve.

BAM.  Down the T in the ad court for an ace. Where'd he been hiding that shot?  They were sorely needed, those easy points, because every time Nishikori got into a rally with Ferrer, he was hitting unforced errors.  Here he was, at deuce again, and again, he pushed it long to Ferrer's backhand, setting up break point #4.

Another clutch serve from Nishikori draws a high, loopy return from Ferrer, one that barely drops outside the baseline.  Ferrer was now catching Tennis Hate, shouting at retired Spanish clay court great Carlos Moya and others in his box.  Carlos, we're Spanish, we're in Spain, we're in Madrid, even, home of bullfighting and the Spanish Inquisition, we're born with red clay on our feet.  So, tell me, why isn't Nishikori folding like origami!?

Ferrer's backhand errors cost him aplenty against Nishikori. Photo, courtesy newsobserver.com. It goes on like this, Ferrer hitting backhands long to ruin break point opportunities, Nishikori blowing match points because he's slowly turning into a tree, rooted to the red clay, moving his right arm like a branch in the wind.  

On match point #10, he hit several rally balls into Ferrer's backhand, finally inducing Ferrer to go wide crosscourt. There was no fist pump of triumph from Nishikori.  He threw his head back and winced.  It took a few moments before he even mustered a smile.  Pinocchio was turning back into a boy.

Nishikori has reached his first final in Madrid, an achievement that will move him to Number 9 in the world when next week's rankings come out.  He's the first Japanese player to hit the top ten. If he beats two-time defending champion Rafael Nadal -- and that's a big if, because he's 0-6 against Rafa -- it'll be his second clay-court title.  He won Barcelona two weeks ago.  

 

Lessons learned watching Nishikori?  Stay calm.  Be deliberate and focused in your between-points routine. Nishikori took deep breaths and wiped his mind clean.  His eyes, his face, betrayed no sense of panic, though I know his stomach must've been churning like a hamster wheel.  Whatever he was thinking, he wasn't verbalizing it or externalizing it in any way except in his unforced errors.  He didn't pile on.

Lesson learned from Ferrer?  Time heals all wounds, even this one.

"Now I'm hurting because I've lost a really tough match," said Ferrer. "Tomorrow I'll see it another way. I'll be more positive. Not because I've been there, because I made to the to the semi-finals and had good feelings here. It hurts me not being able to be in the final tomorrow."