The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
Available through most online retailers!
LOSING VERSUS GETTING BEAT
For every 64 talented juniors that enter a six round tournament draw- all 64 have the same outcome goal: “I want to win!” Unfortunately 63 of those players go home losers. Although the nature of the draw format dictates only one champion, not all 63 lose- some of them get beat. There’s a big difference between getting beat and losing a match. Being defeated should be viewed from a new perspective.
“Attempting to never make a bad shot stops your athlete’s flow of great shots. Great winners and correct errors come from the same relaxed, free zone.”
Let’s look deeper into the cause of the loss:
In my book, being outplayed by someone is getting beat. It is absolutely fine to get beat by someone who is:
- Executing their best style of play.
- Performing their best strategies & tactics.
- Working harder.
- Controlling the mega points.
- Choosing to utilize the rituals they’ve developed.
In the above situation, the opponent may actually deserved the victory. On the other side of getting beat, is losing. It is much more painful to lose a match when:
- Your child is more talented but their opponent is a harder worker.
- Your child chooses not to employ their best style of play or falls into their opponent’s style of play.
- Your child makes too many reckless, unforced errors.
- Your child is too passive to compete at crunch time.
- Your child doesn’t bother to spot and attack the opponent’s weaknesses.
Making your opponent beat you while applying your best style of play is actually a win-win situation. It’s what I call a mental and emotional commitment. When your player is confident and committed to playing their patterns and tactics, they often beat even the top seeds. But even if they don’t win the match, they’ll have no regrets. They will have attempted their best systems and that is all that can be expected.
Parents, please promote that learning to win or getting beat by confidently playing their best style of play is learning to “compete” correctly.
“There is a difference between missing the actual shot the moment demands and missing random, reckless shots.”
Parents and coaches must acknowledge that by taking the risk to compete, your child will likely lose in almost every high level tennis tournament. Parents must reinforce that losing the correct way, playing the game systems they have been trained, is their best shot at beating the best players.
