Tradeoff Syndrome

This is a particularly pernicious psychopathological practice that is guaranteed to prevent just about anybody from ever coming close to their potential in tennis or any other sport for that matter. Its premise is so specious and so attractive that it is nearly irresistible and I daresay even playing pros fall victim to it from time to time. Stated simply, Tradeoff Syndrome is the belief that one can sacrifice effectiveness for a bump in consistency or trade consistency for a touch more effectiveness. Vis:

  1. You are down 30-40, 4-5 on you serve against a pusher, and you miss your first serve. After careful deliberation, you decide to take all the pace off of your second serve and float it into the box to be sure you don't make an error. Of course, you end up dumping the serve right into the net.
  2. Same scenario except you are serving against a fireball who likes to force-feed you your second serve as a tasty fuzz sandwich. You miss your first serve then decide to hit your second serve exactly like your first serve only harder and flatter. Your second serve is just as hard and just as out.

Trading Effectiveness for Control

First you must understand and accept that control requires power and vice versa. This relationship stems from the role of stored force in generating spin and control. Once you make the synergy between power and control part of your tennis religion, you will realize that an incomplete stroke is no stroke at all, that is, we have no right to expect that it has the "stuff" to put a ball into play. This knowledge informs the rejection of a plethora of nasty habits and futile efforts that we naturally fall into when trying not to make errors, including

These are automatic adjustments that can all be generalized to the self-suggestion "...be more careful!". This illusion arises from the strongly held instinct that slower, simpler and less powerful movement is safer and more precise than one that is fast, complex and powerful. This truism is so deeply held that it is hard to argue against it. Certainly driving down a street at 150 mph is more dangerous than driving 40mph - but try driving ten mph on the highway and tell me if it is safer than driving 55! The actual truth is that your strokes should be designed, practiced and implemented to optimize both consistency and effectiveness - every shot, every time. There is no rational reason to hit harder or softer, closer or further from the lines or with more or less spin on any given point. Sometimes the ball will come off your racket faster or fall closer to the line or with more or less spin than you intended, but these are random chance and should never be the result of conscious intention on your part. Hit the same shot in the same situation every time, and you will optimize both consistency and effectiveness all the time.

All this means that every time you hit the ball, you must do certain fundamental things. Leaving anyone out will make the shot both less effective and less consistent. Those two goals are inseparable and interdependent. Once you have a shot grooved in, you should not monkey around with it especially during a match. The right forehand to hit is your best forehand. Trying to trade effectiveness for consistency or consistency for effectiveness is foolish and is the fastest way out of the Zone - but we all do it all the time. Those less talented tend to fall prey to this practice more often than do A-players because we have less faith in both the effectiveness and consistency of our strokes. There are small variations from stroke to stroke, but if you faithfully include all of the essential components of a stroke every time you address the ball you will live in the Zone forever.

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