the importance of playing matches
by: Mike Sprouse/TennisCT
It’s one thing to hit a lot of tennis balls, or spend hours on the court practicing or doing drills. In fact, these are important components for players who are able to advance through the ranks of tennis locally, nationally or globally. Practicing or drilling create the necessary repetition, or “reps”, which form the foundation of a consistent tennis game. In other words, you won’t have a ton of fun playing points much less matches without having taken some reps on the groundstrokes, volleys and serve.
Once you’re able to develop a level of comfort around your strokes and your fitness, playing points, games, sets and matches is immensely valuable and important in your overall development. A few things happen playing in competitive situations that don’t happen on the practice court:
Critical thinking: Too often, players get into such a routine on the practice court, that they become robotic in their strokes and movements. The same drills, the same court positions, the same everything...there is no “unexpected”. Because the reps become so frequent and ultimately routine, there is less need to think critically about what you’re doing or what your opponent is doing. On the flip side, playing points or matches pushes you to think critically about each and every point in terms of what the score is, what shots the situation calls for, and how your opponent is reacting to your shots. It forces you to not only react, but to think and react.
Pressure: In practice, during even the most intense drills or situations, the only real pressure most players face is self-imposed. If you want to make 50 forehands in a row, you will start to feel pressure when you reach 40 in a row. If the goal is to make 10 first serves in a row and you’ve never done it before, you’ll start to feel pressure when you get to 7. But in match play, when there is something at stake and you’re putting yourself to the test against another competitor, it’s a whole different kind of pressure. This type of pressure comes in the form of self-evaluation and seeing where you stand at that particular moment compared to someone else. This is not easy. It’s also something that every player has to go through in order to advance and it comes only by doing it.
Situational Awareness: Playing competitively is a great check on where you’re at in terms of problem-solving. Nothing in practice can replace the feeling of what to do when you’re serving at 30-40, down 4-5 in a set. Some people get nervous until they’ve been in the situation before. Some people get excited about the challenge. Until you put yourself in those situations, and yes maybe even fail a few times, nothing in practice will train you on what to do on certain points or at certain times in a match.
A Welcome Change: Let’s face it…practice can be tiring physically and emotionally. It can also be boring. Sometimes when you play a match or a tournament, it feels like a great relief. You can finally put all those hours of practice towards a tangible goal. The time on the court competing is just you and your opponent. It’s time away from a tough coach or tough practice drills. Some competitors feel totally at peace when they are able to leave practice sessions in the dust in lieu of actually playing.
It’s Fun: As we said, practice can be monotonous. Necessary, but monotonous. Playing a set, match, or tournament where you have some emotional and physical skin in the game is a lot of fun. You won’t get too far in this sport (or anything in life) if you’re not enjoying it somewhat. So mix up those lessons and practice schedules by having some fun, and seeing where you stack up against other players.
It can be a Team Sport!: Yes, tennis is largely an individual sport. But some of the best times in tennis for people come when they’re part of a team. This could be your high school team, college team, club team, or USTA team. Playing competitively as part of a team can be a true joy that mixes parts of the amazing individual aspects of tennis with the camaraderie that you get from other sports.
There are numerous opportunities to play matches at your local club, through Universal Tennis (UTR), the USTA, and more. There’s a wide variety of formats for singles and doubles. All you have to do is take that first step by contacting your favorite tennis facility.
