Tournament Thoughts

I watched quite a bit of pickleball in person this past weekend, primarily at a local tournament. It gave me a chance to see how some of my students were progressing, as well as to have a look at some players that I see regularly on the local "rec" circuit.

It is a pretty well-known fact that people tend to react to the pressures of a tournament in a much different manner than in your everyday rec games. More specifically, how do they handle and recover from making unforced errors?

So to put things in perspective, I am reminded of a Commencement speech delivered at Dartmouth a few months ago by one Roger Federer. Now you might think that advice from Federer on how to handle losing a point might not be the first thing that comes to mind, but the statistics suggest otherwise.

In his career, Federer played 1526 singles matches, winning almost 80% of those matches. Simply amazing - no wonder he is always included in tennis GOAT discussions.

However, if you dig into those matches, you will see that he won approximately 54% of the POINTS in those matches. In other words, he made his fair share of errors and was on the receiving end of lots of winners. In pickleball terms, he won a lot of 11-9 games (55% of the game points).

In his speech, Federer used his tennis experience to talk about life experiences, and he delivered some golden nuggets to the crowd:

You must consider every shot you take as the most important one you will ever take.
But when it is behind you, you must keep it behind you.
Do not dwell over the past. Doubt and feeling sorry for yourself is negative energy and wasted time.
The true sign of a champion is overcoming the difficult times.

And if I may be so bold as to package this advice up a little bit for pickleball:
Get your skills to a high confidence level.
Good consistent mechanics is the best recipe for gaining confidence.
Accept the fact that you (and your partners) will make some errors.
Obviously strive to minimize your errors (again, good mechanics will help).
Learn from your errors, put them behind you, and carry on.

See you on the podium!

​Michael Gauthier