passing shots

blog archive

Our Passing Shots blog is written by Mike Sprouse, a CT-born and raised former college player and ATP pro. We also provide the opportunity for outside writers to contribute articles through our Viewpoints section of the website. Just email us if you’re interested.

For our latest blogs related to the mental side of tennis, click here.

For our latest blogs related to the physical side of tennis, click here.

For the latest pro tips, click here.

For tips on playing better doubles, click here.

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The Importance of Staying Connected through Tennis

BY: Mike/TennisCT

This post was written as of March 17, 2020

These are uncertain times for everyone. Social gatherings are being severely limited if not cancelled. Life as we knew it before COVID-19 is not likely to return to what we previously thought was “normal” for quite some time. This is an opponent the world hasn’t seen before, and it has extended its formidable reach to the world of tennis. Tournaments have been cancelled or postponed, leagues and lessons have been put on hold, and clubs and facilities have been temporarily closed. Now what?

Your safety is the most important thing, and every closing, cancellation or postponement has been done for the sake of the public good. Even if you’re feeling healthy or relatively unscathed by the Coronavirus doesn’t mean that you haven’t been exposed to it or won’t be exposed to it. In short, it doesn’t mean you’re “in the clear” and so businesses, workplaces and other places where people gather are taking an abundance of caution. The most important thing is to make sure you, your loved ones and friends are safe and doing all you can to beat this opponent.

When everyone and everything seems to shut down, the tendency is to isolate. After all, that is a main consideration given to us in promoting this concept called social distancing – as a means to minimize the spread of the virus. Tennis, however, has been and always will be an outlet for millions of people, and a social outlet at that! This website and many others tout the benefits of tennis physically, mentally and socially. The essence of the sport won’t change, and even if you are told you can’t play the sport right this minute, there are ways to stay connected. It’s so important to do so. With a lot of people in the tennis industry temporarily working from home, stay connected with your favorite clubs on social media. Check out old tennis matches on ESPN Classic. Look at tennis videos on YouTube and TennisTV. Many of you keep in touch with those in your tennis circle off the courts through texting, email and the like. It’s important to continue that. Why?

Because when there becomes more certainty about the virus and the extent of it becomes clearer, the sport of tennis will be there for you as a healthy lifestyle choice. There is even a chance the sport will be stronger as people appreciate it more than ever. So, there are things you can do in the meantime:

1)      Work on your flexibility – stretch!

2)      Continuing education - plug into the best of tennis’ social media and YouTube!

3)      Do strengthening exercises – crunches, pushups and sit-ups all get the body moving and keep you in shape when you return to the court

4)      Rest that nagging injury – the obvious thing to do!

5)      Read and meditate – tennis is a mental game. Dust off a book (recommended reading: “The Inner Game of Tennis”)

The great thing about the items on this list are that you can do them yourself or alone, and you can even do them as a family if you’re hunkered down together. Depending on where you live, you can likely get outside and take a walk or run, or visit a park as long as you’re practicing social distancing. There may even be a backboard in your neighborhood. In short, there are ways to be socially responsible and mindful of your tennis game so that you’re even better when the sport does formally return.

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preventing tennis injuries

BY: LEO ROSENBERG

You can play tennis for as long as you can move and hold a racquet. But that sport can also cause serious health problems if you're not disciplined and careful. The good news is that tennis injuries are rarely accidental. Unless your opponent jumps over the net to attack you, most of your injuries can be traced back to a cause under your control. Physical traumas may happen from overuse, bad form, poor nutrition, lack of sleep, excessive stress, beginning practice without a proper warm-up, and not enough fitness. So, it's important to understand your body and what may cause an injury. I address below the most common causes of injuries I have seen in my tennis career.

Form and technique: People can play with bad form and survive for years without an injury. But bad form means you're isolating and straining one or two parts in your body. Some players don't use their legs and thus rely on strength from their back or arms. A few years ago, I predicted a player would get a back injury if they don't improve their form by using their legs and changing their contact-point. A year following my prediction, the player's parent came up to me said I was right. That player suffered from a stress fracture in the lower back because of the overuse of the lower back as compensation for not getting power from the legs. So, take the time to perfect your form, or an injury will catch-up to you.

The warm-up: My rule was to start sweating before I hit my first shot. Your body needs time to prepare before you can safely move on the court. Tennis is a sport with a lot of random shots and thus requires you to adapt quickly to get to a ball. If you're not properly warmed-up, a ligament or muscle might tear from an unexpected lunge or bounce.

Fitness, nutrition, and sleep: Tennis requires you to use your body. So, eating plenty of healthy and nutritious food is essential to keep the engine running well. Then you need to get adequate sleep so your body can use all that nutrition to repair the damage you've done from practicing hard. For example, Roger Federer aims for ten hours of sleep each night. Finally, you have to get stronger, fitter, and more flexible through fitness and stretching.  If your body is not flexible, you weaken your muscles, and they're more likely to get injured. And if you don't have adequate strength and endurance, you're at a higher risk of getting injured from overuse.

Mental and emotional health: Most coaches talk about the mental game from the standpoint of toughness and overcoming your opponent. These are important. But there's also dealing with anxiousness, anxiety from losing, and general stress. While I do not have expertise in this arena, I want you to be aware that you can get physically injured when you don't take care of your mental and emotional well-being. Emotional imbalance affects the chemistry in your brain, which in turn affects the types of hormones your body releases. Stress weakens your body and puts you at a higher risk of getting sick or injured.

One could write several volumes on tennis traumas; so, I will end this post with one last piece of advice. If you get injured, make sure to recover properly. When out because of an injury, there is a feeling of missing out on practice and lagging behind your peers. People often get impatient and rush back to training before healing completely. Trying to play catch-up, players also rush back to practicing at 100% force, which may cause that player to get injured quickly again. So, make sure also to ease back into practice. Take a week of light practices after getting back from an injury.

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what your racquet says about you

BY: MIKE SPROUSE

A friend of mine and I were talking about racquets, and the conversation shifted to how racquets have evolved over time and tend to reflect where one is at on their tennis journey. Not only has racquet technology evolved, but each of us as players do too. Our individual tennis journeys might differ on where or when they start, but they all share one thing in common: a desire to embrace the sport, get good at it, and have fun!

One of the first things anyone does is choose what kind of racquet to use. Ah, the choices! Deciding which racquet to use is deeply personal and will be based on how the racquet feels to you when you hold it. Of course, some of your preferences might have to do with how the racquet frame looks, how much it costs, and what color it is. But as your game evolves, so too does your racquet. To give you an idea, let’s take a trip down memory lane and I can share examples of how one person’s (mine) racquet evolution has gone up to present day and what it says.

1. Donnay - aka “The Bjorn Borg Special” (early 1980’s)

This wooden racquet from the early 1980’s when I used it was arguably one of the most popular racquets of all time. The player who made it famous, Borg, was a legend of the sport. As a little kid just learning tennis, Borg was an athlete to aspire towards. He meant “cool”. He, along with a few others like McEnroe, Lendl and Connors, were the reasons I wanted to play tennis. So I completely chose this racquet because of him being just so cool without knowing a thing about a tennis racquet other than it had strings. My perspective now is that the sweet spot - the area on the racquet face where you are able to hit the ball back with the most force and “crispness” - was relatively nonexistent compared to today’s models. It was fairly light and easy to wield. My first instructor referred to it as a gardening tool as a matter of fact. To hit the ball with any pace, the flatter strokes the better. This meant eastern or continental grips with flat powerful shots, as opposed to western grips and heavy topspin - and without knowing it, this became the blueprint of my own game for decades.

2. The Prince Comp 90 (1980’s)

My first venture into using a graphite racquet, away from a wooden model. This was in my Advanced Beginner to Intermediate stage, and when I started competing in smaller, junior tournaments. I now know that this racquet was a knockoff of several other Prince models that were quite popular - the Prince Graphite, the Prince Pro and if you had beau-coup bucks, the Prince Boron. The sweet spot seemed extra forgiving and the racquet was so light in comparison to wood. It was still slightly head-heavy though. I loved this racquet and when they got old and Prince stopped making them, I remember hanging on probably several months too long to them. My parents called stores everywhere to find any that were in stock. This was before Amazon or Ebay. I am still convinced that I might have been the last one on the planet to be actively using this racquet in competition. But some good things come to an end - enter the:

3. Spalding Assault 95 (early 1990’s)

This racquet was slightly larger in terms of square inches of the racquet face (95 versus 90 from my earlier model). This racquet also coincided with my improvement as a player, as I had just entered high school, knew the end was near with my Prince model, and wanted something with more power and punch. I also could sense the level of competition was increasing and the extra head size was helpful (similar to what Roger Federer did in the 2010’s moving to a larger racquet to better compete with Nadal’s dizzying spins). What set this racquet apart was that it made a statement: the throat of the racquet was unique in that it was extra wide. Instead of looking like a “V” it looked more like a perfect triangle. It was also surprisingly light. I was in high school, competing in sectional and national tournaments, and this racquet was bold. My personality was not bold - I was a teenager who was a little shy - and so for me the racquet was what did the talking for me. Until…

4. Wilson Profile Hammer 90 (1993-1994)

My Spalding’s got me through much of high school. Until, one cracked. Not out of me getting frustrated at it, but the throat had a knick that then became a crack that then became a problem. I saw that the racquet material inside was almost like styrofoam! No wonder it was so mysteriously light! I remember feeling like someone had gut punched me. Like this racquet was a farce, a shell of what I thought it was! All kidding and drama aside, I really knew almost immediately I had to get a new racquet. So I went back to a very traditional-looking Wilson racquet with 90 square inches. This was light, and I put lead-tape strips on the side to give it a little extra weight. In retrospect, I wasn’t “gaga” or crazy over this racquet and it kind of showed in my game. I lacked faith in the racquet and therefore lacked confidence to up my game another level. The racquet served well enough and carried me through through two years of high-level competition at the University of Notre Dame. BUT - something was missing. I wasn’t quite winning the matches I knew I was capable of. I didn’t know why. I felt powerful but not like I was overwhelming opponents. My junior year, I was home in CT during Christmas break for a few weeks and hitting with my high school coach. He was trying out new Dunlop’s that the Dunlop rep had sent the club I played at (Trumbull Racquet Club). And…

5. Dunlop Revelation Braided XL 90 (1995-2015)

This racquet completely changed the trajectory of my life. I picked it up and my old coach told me what the XL meant. It meant that the racquet was one inch longer than usual. It was legal, obviously, but a somewhat untested thing especially for an elite player. The second I picked it up, I knew I had to have it. It was heavy! He phoned my college coach and told him what was happening, and I think my college coach was skeptical but went along with it. He agreed to order the racquets for me sight unseen since I was home on vacation and not in Indiana. I was 5’11” and so I wasn’t considered “short”, but the extra length on the racquet was a night and day impact especially on serves. The only time it was an issue was at the net with reflex shots, which I had to train extra for, but eventually that wasn’t an issue. The extra “pop” was what I needed. Most importantly, the extra confidence I had was a revelation - no pun intended with the actual racquet name. My college coach, once I returned to school, literally could not believe the difference in me. My first competitive match that January was against the #1 player for Ohio State, and I beat him 6-0, 6-0. I went on to have one of the best individual season’s in the school’s history and I played with it the next 3 years and onto the ATP Tour where I achieved my world ranking. I hung onto as many of these as I could until…

6. The Head Graphene Speed 90 (2016-2020)

Old(ish) age and retirement. Though I don’t compete beyond the occasional league or club matches, I do play competitive practice matches a lot and train with competitive juniors who hit the ball a ton. Now in my 40’s, this lighter-weight racquet has really helped me keep up and given me some longevity in playing this game. I haven’t had any arm or elbow issues to speak of, and the racquet is technologically superior to any I have played with before. I know I will switch sometime in the next few years, but these racquets are great for what I need: something that is easy on the arm, still with plenty of pop, and still pretty cool to look at. The most important thing is that I am comfortable using them. Getting the right racquet is such a personal choice. At this stage, these are a perfect fit for me.

I hope you can fondly remember all your racquets from your own tennis journey, and to adding a few new racquets along the way! Remember that sometimes change is good!

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RETURN OF SERVE

BY: LEO ROSENBERG

In 2005, at a USTA high-performance camp, I watched former number 1 in the world Andre Agassi practice a day before his Davis Cup match. As Agassi was returning serves he said "say hello to my little friend." Indeed, his return was a friend. Probably the best in tennis history. In this blog post, you will learn the essentials of a good return of serve. 

The serve return is the second most important shot in the game. If you have a great return, you can neutralize your opponent's serve and prevent them from taking control of points. Against slower or weaker servers, you could become the attacker. 

On the other hand, if you don't have a good return of serve, you'll always feel insecure about your game. There's added pressure to perform better in your service games, which makes it more likely that you'll perform worse. If you slip up and lose a service game, you'll probably lose that set because your returns are not good enough to break back. 

Here are the essentials to work on:

1. On average, the serve shots are faster and come at you quicker than groundstrokes. The technique for your return needs to be compact. So, avoid taking large backswings. 

2. You need stability to control the ball, especially against fast serves. So, stay low at all times. Keep your legs far apart and knees bent.

3. Always split-step and do that when your opponent is about to strike the ball.

4. After you split-step, move forward into the court. Control and direction of the ball depends on where you body is going.

5. Attack the second serve. This will place more pressure on your opponent.

Bonus tip: When returning really fast serves, use an Eastern grip on the forehand return. This is advanced, but worth learning if you come across big hitters. With an Eastern grip, you'll have an easier time making a clean contact with the ball because the racquet face is naturally in a good position without requiring you to make adjustments.

Finally, make sure to practice your returns frequently. Very few players spend the extra time to practice their returns. Usually, insufficient repetition is why they're not confident returning serves. So, make sure to get plenty of reps while working on the above tips!

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HOW TO HANDLE CONFLICTING ADVICE

BY: LEO ROSENBERG

Reconciling conflicting advice is the most challenging thing to do. Most students want to follow advice from every coach. I bet, if you have worked with different coaches, you must have received different advice from each of them. At best, they have given you something new or focused on another part of your game. Or, as it often happens, coaches give you conflicting advice on the same problem. Then your head explodes with frustration.

Imagine you program a computer to think up is up but then someone else adds another line of code saying it's also down. I've had students tell me their coach would say they should hit hard. Then I come and tell them to slow it down, be consistent first. But they trust their coach and me. Suddenly, that student is riddled with anxiety. Unsure where to stand, how to stand, their game implodes. Hitting hard can be correct advice and slowing it down can be incorrect at times. What should that student do? Listen to me obviously!

So, here's what you should really do when you hear two different solutions to the same problem.

First, listen to everyone, try what they suggest, then figure out whether it works. The best way to develop is to become a problem solver. So, treat the conflicting advice as an experiment. Conflicting advice gives you the opportunity to figure out which one is the right one. In cases where both tips are sound, like hitting hard and hitting slow, you need to figure out when hitting hard will help you and when hitting slow is appropriate. A piece of advice on that, make sure you structure that experiment. Some things take time for its usefulness to come to fruition. A structure will keeping you from discarding something too soon just because it's not working immediately. For example, spend a half-hour hitting hard and another thirty minutes hitting slow doing the same drill.

Second, address the conflicting advice directly and talk your coaches about it. Many students go along without ever mentioning that they were told to do something else by Coach X. But you don't want to stay silent because you're unlikely to figure out what you need if you keep it to yourself. Realize that coaches don't know everything, no matter how confident they appear. Every coach has blind spots. Talking it over gives your coach the opportunity to explain why this can help you. It will help the coach as well.

The gist of this blog post is that you shouldn't follow or reject every suggestion blindly. You are your own master. You decide where to move and how to hit the ball. Coaches offer advice and it's your job to accept or reject it. Having an inquisitive method is your best chance of accepting advice that is useful to you and weeding out the ones that are not.

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Dealing with pressure

BY: LEO ROSENBERG

As a junior, I was invited to a few camps run by Billie Jean King, a winner of 39 Grand Slam titles. Each time my friends and I worked with her, she would give us two coaching tips, one related to staying in the moment and, the other, dealing with pressure. Billie Jean would tell us to "play one ball at a time" so that we focus on the moment and not think of the past or future. And she would tell us that "pressure is a privilege." Tennis can feel like a high stakes game because it's a game of many errors and you're usually dealing with that on your own. You don't get the teammate helping you set up for a score (doubles is the exception). If you don't know how to deal with that kind of pressure, you'll probably lose most of your matches against players with similar or better playing levels. So, in this blog post, I want to discuss how pressure can be used to your advantage rather than demise.

Billie Jean taught us to see pressure as a privilege because she wanted us to think of it as an opportunity. Instead of worrying about when you feel the pressure, you can realize that your opponent is also feeling similar anxieties. That thought can give you the fuel to overcome your own feeling of insecurity, and redirect your attention towards your opponent. Focusing on your opponent is critical to winning. When you do that, you're more likely to be action-oriented and thus you'll play with purpose.

Suppose you get stuck feeling pressure. What normally happens is you get in tunnel vision, your reaction gets delayed, your footwork slows down, and your shots land short. That weakens your game and it gives your opponent some breathing room. They will notice that you are not dictating. At that moment, if they had felt any pressure, it's greatly reduced by your passivity. But, if you keep the pressure on your opponent, the best-case scenario is they cave under it and the worst is they don't dictate points. If you want to win then, put pressure on your opponent and seize the moment.

Here are some rules for you to follow to both reduce the impact of pressure on you and to use it well against your opponent.

(1) Move your feet more. When you're nervous or feeling under pressure, your footwork slows down. You may not even feel the change but I can assure you, you get slower. So, you should exaggerate your movement. That will counter the slowdown coming from anxiety.

(2) Take your time between points. Under pressure, things might get hectic. It may happen because you're trying to get the match over with. But rushing leads to carelessness. I've had plenty of matches that I gave away because I rushed my service games. So, take more time between points and collect yourself. Going to a towel between points will give you the excuse to take more time to prepare adequately for the next point.

(3) Be aggressive and consistent. You want to put pressure on your opponent. Do not give them relief. But you also need to remain steady. So, avoid taking unnecessary risk. Keep the ball deep, cross-court at least 80 percent of the time, and attack balls that land short. I used to tell myself, attack but don't try hitting winners or ending the point.

Follow these tips and you may find yourself winning the tough matches.

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practice?! You talking about practice?!

BY: MIKE SPROUSE

Like a lot of young and impressionable kids, I used to watch my idols play sports on TV, and then go outside and pretend I was them. I would practice making the winning free throw in basketball, or kicking the winning goal in the World Cup or hitting the final ace to win the U.S. Open an hour down the road in Flushing. As I got older, most of my replays and my very own highlight videos were of tennis as my interest in other sports started to dwindle.

Tennis in particular I was fascinated by because of several things: I thought it was cool; I thought the players themselves had a lot of guts for competing individually on such a big stage; I liked that there was nothing to hide behind in competition, it was all out there; and I thought the guys playing it were tough, smart, athletic, and generally held that line between competing their heart out against the other guy and then shaking hands respectfully with them at the end. Naturally, my thinking progressed to “how in the world can I get to do what they do?”

It started and ended with the practice court. In my case, the practice driveway. My father had put up a backboard made of wooden plywood on the edge of my driveway. He painted it green with a horizontal white line and everything. The neighbors thought it was hideous, and I’m pretty sure told my parents something about surrounding property values or some such nonsense. I loved it. I was out there all the time. As I got older and hit harder, I eventually outgrew it - or, rather, I outgrew the space on the driveway. But my love for practice started right there very humbly and without fanfare. No one outside of my family members knew that i was practicing on my own sometimes for like 3 hours. I didn’t have professional instruction but I guarantee I was hitting more tennis balls than anyone my age at the time. That dedication and ethic I learned on a makeshift court with a shoddy old racquet served me well for many years in sectionals, high school, college and the tour.

There are three quotes that I wish I could put up on a bulletin board in every tennis player’s home because they apply so much to the value of practice:

“It is what you do when no one is looking that matters most.” When the camera is off, your instructor isn’t around, you don’t have to practice, you don’t have to eat well, you don’t have to sleep…what do you do? The habits you form when no one is looking, when there is no one who knows the work you’re doing except for you, is so crucial to building self-confidence and your own positive identity. It’s your own form of validation that you’re doing everything you can to be a better tennis player which can’t come from anyone else but you…this has to come from within.

“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, develop the habit in little matters first.” All the habits you develop in practice transfer over to playing a high school tennis match, a 3.5 league match or Wimbledon. If you develop lazy or bad habits or poor mental images in practice, that next match might not turn out so great. If you use practice to develop strong habits and a positive frame of mind, you might still get beat by someone playing better that day, but you will feel a lot better about it.

“If you learn to live for and be all about practice, then competition and pressure will seem like a breeze.” Even at his ripe old age, Roger Federer still talks about loving practice. He has a well-balanced routine. Often, he hits with high school kids or does an exhibition event. Sometimes, he will devote an entire practice to hitting one shot over and over. But that’s the point: practice doesn’t have to be the same routine day in and day out. Keep it fresh, mix it up. The sport of tennis demands on the fly decision-making and spontaneity during competition; your practice sessions can and should mirror that. Have fun. Learn to fall in love with practice and simply spending time on a tennis court, and who knows what might be possible for you!

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mental preparation

BY: LEO ROSENBERG

In the summer of 2001, I played my first European Tennis Association tournament in Germany. I didn’t know any of the players, and so I did not feel the pressure I would typically get playing tournaments in the U.S. I competed without expecting to win or lose and thus reached the finals without dropping a set. My game was so steady that, in the finals, I took the first set 6-0. During an early changeover in the second set, however, I began thinking about what I would say for my post-match interview (there was a local news crew filming the match). At that moment, unbeknownst to my opponent, I handed him the tournament title.  I cashed in before finishing the job. I signaled my mind that I had won after only reaching the halfway point and thus lost sight of my game.

Many players do not know how or what to think before a match and consequently resort to imagining themselves losing or winning. Sometimes, players don’t feel in control of their thoughts and emotions before a match, making it seem like those thoughts are prescient to what’s about to happen. So, here I introduce rules to help guide your mental preparation before a match.

Rule 1: Do not be for or against winning or losing. Being neutral towards outcomes gives you the space to focus on strategy and what you need to do to perform.

Rule 2: Do not judge your opponent. Thinking your opponent within good, bad, and like terms takes the mind away from thinking about the specifics. Two common mistakes are to presume the opponent is great if their ranking is high or to believe they're not great by observing how they hit in the warm-up. That kind of thinking takes away from objective analysis of your opponent’s actual strengths and weaknesses.

Rule 3: Do not assume you will win or lose. Thinking you’re probably going to lose will lower your morale. On the flip side, thinking you’re going to win might prevent you from working as hard if the opponent turns out to be tough. Either way, you have no control over the outcome. You can only control your actions, so it’s best to always focus on what you need to do. Then the result is more likely to play in your favor.

Rule 4: Visualize actual point scenarios. Instead of thinking about the outcome of the match, you should think about what kind of points will be played out during the match. Mentally go over the things you need to take care of. And, if you’ve seen your opponent play, then visualize points where you get yourself out of trouble and where you exploit their weaknesses.

The goal of rules 1 and 2 is to help you remove bias and thus get close to reality. Rules 3 and 4 are designed to clear you from daydreaming about the outcome and to redirect your mind to prepare for what you’ll do during the match. Write these rules down and use them for every practice and match.

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mental exercise: make seedings meaningless

BY: MIKE SPROUSE

For any tournament player, you know that seedings are an important part in setting up the draw. Draws are put together to try and ensure balance; prior to a tournament oftentimes seedings are used to reward higher-rated players with a “bye” or to predict where the highest rated players should finish taking into account their record, experience, the surface, recent form or other factors. If you are a great player who hasn’t played a tournament in quite some time, you will often enter a tournament unseeded based on that factor alone.

Seedings are important, but inexact. In other words, they don’t predict outcomes in tennis much like they don’t predict outcomes in your NCAA March Madness bracket. They are pre-tournament guidelines used to position players in the draw. Once the first ball is served, anything can happen and often does.

An exercise I used in tournament play that I wish I put to use earlier is to mentally make seedings totally meaningless. In other words, don’t even look at them. Whenever a draw got posted, I would ask someone else to tell me who my opponent was - and only my next opponent - so that I had time to prepare. This is especially important if I had a history against that particular player and could go back and draw upon prior matches to prepare me for the current one. If I won that match, I would do the same thing for the next one - ask someone else to tell me who my next opponent was and what time we were playing. Rinse and repeat, over and over until the tournament was done. By the end, I wouldn’t even know what seed I was or what seeds I had played until I checked the draw myself.

Using this exercise does two things: 1) it takes out any anxiety about being the higher-seeded player and the expectations your mind automatically creates; 2) it takes out any anxiety about being the lower-seeded player and fighting back a lack of confidence.

In the former case, there is a tendency to put pressure on yourself when somebody else (the person doing the seeding for the tournament) has already said you should win by virtue of your seed. In the latter case, there is a tendency to be intimidated by another player by virtue of his or her seed without having even hit a tennis ball. By rendering seedings - an artificial value anyway - meaningless in your mind, you steer clear of outside influences on your tennis match and are able to focus solely on playing the match and your opponent.

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