Tennis psychology is nothing more than understanding the make-up of your opponent’s mind and gauging the effect of your own strategy on his/her mental viewpoint and also understanding the mental effects resulting from the various external causes on your own mind.
However, it is also true that you no one can be a successful psychologist of others without first understanding his own mental processes. Therefore, you must study the effect on yourself of the same thing happening under various circumstances. This is because you react differently in different moods and under different circumstances.
You have to realize the effect on your game of the resulting annoyance, joy, bewilderment, or whatever other form your reaction takes. Does it improve your efficiency? If so, strive for it, but never offer it to your opponent. Does it deprive you of concentration? If so, either remove the reason, but if that isn’t possible, try to ignore it.
Once you have correctly measured your own reaction to conditions, study your opponents in order to determine their temperaments. Like characters react similarly, and you can judge men of your own kind by yourself. Other temperaments you have to try to liken with those whose reactions you already know.
A person who can regulate his/her own mental processes has an great chance of reading those of another for the mind works along certain lines of thought and can be studied. One can only control one’s own mental processes after carefully examining them.
The regular, unemotional baseline player is rarely a keen thinker. If he were, he would not adhere to the baseline. The physical appearance of a player is usually a pretty clear indication of his/her type of mind. The stolid, easy-going player, who normally advocates the baseline game, does it because he does not want to stir up his/her slow mind to think out a reliably safe method of reaching the net.
Then there is the other sort of baseline player, who would rather remain on the back of the court while directing an attack intending to break up your game. He is a much more dangerous player, and a deep, keen thinking antagonist. He achieves his/her results by mixing up his/her length and direction and worrying you with the variety of his/her game. He is a good psychologist.
The first type of player mentioned above simply strikes the ball with little idea of what he is actually doing, while the latter always has a definite strategy and adheres to it.
If you are a beginner tennis player or want to know more about the general psychology of tennis, please go to our site entitled Tennis Tips for Beginners This article, Tennis Psychology (Part 1) has free reprint rights.