There is a huge difference between playing defense and playing defensively. The former is a smart tactic; the later is a tragic mistake. You play defense when your opponent hits a lucky shot and has you on the ropes. Faced with a ball that is harder, deeper or better placed than you expect, you hit a shot in response that, while it has little chance of winning the point outright or forcing your opponent into error, is easy to perform and gives you time and opportunity to get back into the point. Defense is smart.

Defensive play happens when you are nervous or down on your own game and don't want to "take any unnecessary chances." You don't hit the ball firmly, follow through or even get your feet ready for the shot. The result is not pretty. Notwithstanding an overwhelming desire to play cautiously and conservatively, you start to make more errors. These new errors strengthen your resolve to avoid all taint of risk-taking or boldness and compel you to play even more defensively. You can see where this is leading - it is called Tennis Hell aka the Pit of Despair.

Lets back this up a bit and see if we can figure out where it all went wrong. Errors in tennis are inevitable. They are the very reason why tennis is still a thing after hundreds of years. If you sometimes feel that the damnable game was invented to frustrate and confound you, you are mostly correct. If errors could be avoided, tennis would be pointless. It would be like tic-tack-toe - a big fat waste of time. Instead, the vicissitudes of the game fascinate and enthrall us. It is classic human nature. People are masochistic.

All of this is pretty easy to take when you are staring at a computer screen, but when you are on the court and need the point but blow the easy volley over the baseline, this kind of nihilism is intolerable. There must be a way to avoid these unacceptable errors! After all, the pros do it!

Do they? Federer dumps his gorgeous backhand into the net all the time. Both of the Williams sisters double fault occasionally, and even Nadal shanks his two-hander over the fence from time-to-time. The trick is not caring. Granted, it might be easier to accept that dumping your forehand into the net is OK if you are already number 1 or 2 in the world, or is it?. If you found yourself in that position, wouldn't that make such egregious errors that much more poignant and unacceptable? The greatest champions seem to be immune to that kind of embarrassment. Somehow, over the years, A-players learn to embrace errors. To see errors as allies. Just like wind or bad bounces - they bite your opponent just as they bite you. They shape the game, creating drama and unpredictability. You can mitigate them through practice, experience, knowledge, fitness, energy, and effort but they cannot, should not be eliminated. Efforts to eliminate errors, especially during a game, are futile and destructive to overall performance. These efforts encourage us to abandon the strokes that we have practiced, that we understand, that we have experienced, and that favor our fitness (or lack of it). Error avoidance is the root cause of Defensiveness Syndrome. It is an attempt to construct an entirely new game out of whole cloth in the middle of a match. A game designed to prevent the errors that have become intolerable to us. The solution and prevention are simplicity itself. Embrace errors. Play your game come what may. If you are more effective on defense, play that. If you prefer offense, play that. If it isn't working for some reason, then it is just not your day. If you can't accept that, it will never be your day.