One of the main factors in playing winning tennis is in managing your game, meaning knowing what you want to happen and what needs to be done in order to win.  If you don’t have a plan, and it doesn’t need to be complicated, it is much harder to win because there is no path to follow.  One characteristic of winning tennis players is that they believe in their plans.  This lets them hang on through the ups and downs of a match and focus on execution.  Having complete faith in the plan allows a player to put aside their doubts and continue trying to execute properly, knowing that if they execute well enough that they will win.  A player who loses faith in their plan will generally lose unless they can formulate a better plan, which is very seldom accomplished.  You can often see when a player loses their belief.

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I said the plan could be simple and I’ll give you two examples of extremely simple formulas for winning that can be successful, depending on the circumstances.  While plans are usually somewhat more involved, I have experienced success at times with each of them.  One plan is having the knowledge that if my first serve percentage is high I’ll win my service games.  That increases the pressure on my opponent’s service game and lets me know that one break wins the set.  Another simple and successful plan is to just hit everything in and force the other player to make mistakes.  If you are correct in choosing one of these strategies you can feel the match turn in your direction, which reinforces the idea of following a plan.

 

So if you can have faith in a playing plan and execute it well, there is a great chance to come out on top.  Sometimes even a very simple plan can pay dividends and at any rate a plan never needs to be too complicated, because it is ultimately determined by its execution.   If you can execute a very complicated plan you can probably disregard everything I’ve written.  If you’re more like me it’s a good idea to keep things simple and able to accomplish.  Plus it does work.​