Unconscionable (adjective) - synonyms: "extreme, immoderate, unwarranted, inordinate."

Sound familiar? It is that shoulder-high volley you hit into the base of the net. Its that approach shot you never, never miss, except on match point. It's double-faulting in a tiebreaker, returning serve to the net man in doubles - all the ego-destroying gaffs that torture us repeatedly and turn glorious victory to ignominious defeat. A-players also fall victim to these gremlins, but as a jocular exception, not a cruel rule. In general, if an A-player gets a shoulder-high volley, it does not end up in the net. A-players don't squander opportunities; they seize them. So how do they do it? Just A-player mutant neurokinetics? Perhaps they possess a profound inner peace that fends off crippling nervous tension? Or does God just like them best?! If so, the rest of us are pretty much toast since I don't have any idea how to emulate those things.

What characterizes this syndrome are inconsistent inconsistency and inexcusable errors. You may hit five great groundstrokes in a row then dump a sitter volley into the net. Unconscionable errors follow no apparent pattern and defy logical analysis. The sun was behind you. There were are no loud bangs, and you ate your Wheaties that morning. You hit a screaming topspin forehand into the corner, but when your opponent sends back a pathetic half-lob that lands on your service line, you poop it into the net, shove it over the baseline, or hook it into the alley. If this happens once or twice a match, it is lightly comical; eight or nine times in a match, it becomes tragic, and ten or twelve times, it becomes comical again, but not in a good way. The goal then is to quickly identify the syndrome, the pathophysiology, and the best approach to preventing further 'incidents.'

Inadequate Ball Tracking

One day when I was suffering a particularly annoying attack of the Doofus Syndrome, I happened to notice a momentary flash of laziness or arrogance that convinced me that certain balls were unworthy of my most diligent attention and preparation. This 'baditude' prevented me from preparing for the ball, made my feet go quiet, my knees lock-up, and made me forget the basics of how to seize control of a ball. I am more than willing to own up to the sins of laziness and arrogance if that would forestall the misery of the doofus syndrome. Still, after identifying this sickness a few years ago, I found that no matter how chastened I was by these faults, I couldn't make a dent in my unconscionable error rate. I had almost given up when while experimenting with new ways of 'watching the ball,' I noticed that in addition to the obvious benefits of fewer mishits and more solid contact, I was also enjoying a welcome drought of egregious errors. Since I could typically count on encountering eight or ten of these gremlins per match, the difference was quite noticeable. That is when it hit me that there was much more to watching the ball than just 'watching the ball.' The ball is way more than just a target; it is also a trigger.

If you figure out where and when you are going to make contact with the tennis ball as early as the moment that the ball leaves your opponent's racket, you can send a specific request to your thalmus to load and execute the topspin lob procedure. If, as the ball approaches, you track it carefully, you can provide the thalamus with updates and tweaks that it can use to refine the stroking procedure, including wind effects, spin, bounce, pace, and the position of your opponent. The most striking effect of early thalamic triggering is the gift of quick hands. If you aren't waiting for the ball to cross the threshold of the net before starting your volley, you are twice as likely to be able to handle a ball that your opponent is trying to drill into your sternum from 10 feet away.

Tracking versus Watching the Ball

Tracking is a more active process than watching (or looking at, or seeing, or even following). Tracking calls for a lot more involvement and attention. Tracking in tennis is the process of forcing yourself to predict the ultimate point of contact and moment of contact of the tennis ball starting before the ball leaves your opponent's racket. Your initial prediction will be crude, but you must nevertheless begin immediately to act upon it. The thalamus, which is the brain's complex action record-and-playback center, is fully capable of beginning the execution of a tennis stroke based on incomplete and inaccurate initial data and will accept updates and adjustments while it plays back the stroke. The thalamus can thereby compensate for weird spins, gusts of wind, bad bounces, or the machinations of your opponent. What the thalamus cannot do is fully playback a 4-second stroke in 2 seconds. It is just that kind of request that leads to paralysis, lead feet, mishits, and generally spazmagorical play.

The ball is way more than just a target; it is also a trigger.

Starting with the sound of the ball striking your opponent's racket, you must begin moving your feet, bending your knees, turning, setting a pose, committing to a stroke, and starting the backswing. You do all of this by convincing yourself that you already know where in time and space you are going to intercept the ball. Now, I know this sounds like pretty advanced tennis stuff, but it isn't. It is the most fundamental of all skills, and practicing it can benefit any player from rank beginner to playing pro. It should be the first thing you learn and the first place you go if your strokes start to break down, whether during a match or as part of an ongoing slump. Tracking should be practiced, but it cannot; repeat cannot be grooved. There is never going to be a time when you say to yourself, "I've got this tracking thing down. Time to start thinking about breathing in on the backswing!" You must make tracking your mantra and repeat it frequently during matches. Some days will be easier than others, and on any given day, you may find yourself unable to track the ball to your racket. That will be a bad day on the court. The pros are pros at tracking the ball, yet even they perpetrate the odd unconscionable error. Those errors come from distractions - either external or internal. We all slip back into our heads from time to time. A constant struggle against our tendency to be distracted by our own ego fears is the only effective means of minimizing this type of unconscionable error.

Muscles-No-Work!

Some days, no matter how intently you try to track the ball, you can do nothing with it. The easiest, slowest, shortest balls are seemingly too much for you to handle. Nothing works - not even your feet. If you are making repeated unconscionable errors on every attempt, then the problem is more fundamental than inattention to the tracking the ball. When unconscionable errors come in flocks, think 'Cellular Metabolic Collapse (CMC)'. CMC is a state of profound but temporary muscle un-fitness usually caused by a failure of the cardiovascular system to meet the muscle's demand for oxygen. Runners call this 'hitting the wall' or 'oxygen debt.' It can be completely painless and asymptomatic except, of course, for the catastrophic effects on your footwork and coordination. The truly talented take for granted that this state must be physical because they are not otherwise troubled with lapses of basic hand-eye coordination. For us, the situation is confusing. We don't feel tired, weak, or sore, and the type of errors we are making are very reminiscent of the typical gaffs we make due to, say, not watching the ball or forgetting to snap the wrist. It is also difficult to back-trace cause and effect from symptoms, such as repeatedly hitting your forehand 4 inches long, back to the weakness of a few key muscles. Therefore the diagnosis of CMC must be presumptive, based on global game collapse characterized by otherwise inexplicable errors.

Treating CMC is also challenging. Once the muscles have been contracting anaerobically for a while, they accumulate lactic acid. Lactic acid affects the muscles locally inducing soreness, cramping, and weakness. Lactic acidosis can also affect the entire body resulting in irritability, exhaustion, weakness, headache, and a raft of other wonderful symptoms. Thus, simply restoring blood flow to the muscles may not immediately reverse the effects of CMC. Speedy recognition of the condition and effective intervention is thus vital. The easiest way to deal with global muscle hypoxia is to decrease oxygen demand. For runners, this is quite easy; just run slower. Tennis players must change weapons and tactics to minimize the oxygen demand of all the muscles of the body. Switching from topspin to slice on groundstrokes, for instance. Slice shots do not depend on developing wicked spin to keep the ball in play, so they are less affected by CMC. They also require much less energy to hit. Moving forward into no-man's-land - to about one step behind the 'T,' exposes you to passing shots and shots at your feet, but puts any gettable ball only two steps from your position and is a more offensive spot to hit from than behind the baseline. That position also opens up the drop shot as a weapon to perhaps drag your opponent into CMC with you. Don't try to end points early unless you have the clear winner. The goal is not to give the muscles a complete rest, only to bring them back into aerobic metabolism, so long, easy points are better than short, difficult ones. Finally lob, lob, lob.

Prevention of CMC involves all of the fitness stuff enjoyed by the pros; aerobic exercise, weight control, upper body strength training, nutrition, and sleep.