Tennis matches are won or lost by the sum total of physical condition, courage, intelligence, experience, and stroke equipment of a player. If your sum total is greater than that of your opponent, you win; if it’s less, you lose. Luck plays practically no part in the results of tennis matches.
There is no game, except chess, where class, or skill if you prefer, tells so consistently. Later I will discuss the value of strokes, and the use of each individually, as well as all those intangible but definitely determining factors of the mind, heart, and body that go to make a champion. But first, there are a few tangible assets that have to be cultivated by any aspirant to tennis excellence, and the outstanding one is to be in good shape.
A healthy mind can exist only in a healthy body. The secret of good physical condition for tennis is moderation. Too much or too little of the natural way of living, excesses or privations, will only result in a condition that most people describe as staleness. Personally, I have always believed that staleness is much more mental and nervous than physical.
If you live so carelessly that you get too much food, too much drink, too many excesses of any kind, too little sleep, and couple it with too much physical strain, you will get a violent physical, mental, and nervous upset. I think that few will dispute this. That type of life will make a person not only unfit for athletics but unfit for anything. However, few people stop to realize the dangers of excess in the simple, normal things of life. Too many work along the old Hollywood theory that if one elephant is good, one thousand elephants are a thousand times better. One thousand elephants are likely to be too many, and too much food, sleep, reading, even too much of tennis itself, can do more harm than good.
It is just as dangerous to go to extremes of training. Too rigid training defeats its own purpose by making you too conscious of the sacrifices entailed, upsetting the natural balance of interest that every person should have in life, and allowing the game to get on top of you and rule you.
You should keep tennis as a sport, no matter how serious you are in your determination to master it and get to the top. I do not approve of the old “training table rules” for a tennis player. If he were preparing for a short, intensive season of, say, six weeks, it might work, but a tennis player today plays twelve months of the year. It is impossible to stay trained to the second all the time. There must be a period of relaxation and letdown. The clever player learns when and how to do this, without weakening his condition when it should be at its best.
Here are certain generalities about training that can be set down as axiomatic, even though every person is a law to himself when it comes to just when and how to relax: No athlete should drink alcoholic beverages at all during competition or for a reasonable period before it starts. He is better off not to touch it at any time, for even moderate amounts of alcohol will keep the vision and reflexes uncertain and slow. I think that a player is wise not to use tobacco, but if he does, he should definitely cut it out one month before the peak of his season. Most people are of the opinion that tobacco affects the wind, which to some extent is true, but what is much more serious to a tennis player is that it slows up the speed of the eye.
Plenty of sleep, at least eight to ten hours’ average, if possible, should be the goal of an athlete during competition, but that sleep should not be taken at varied and strange hours. The logical way to keep in good condition is to be as regular as possible in your routine without being a slave to it. The young player does well to figure on getting to bed anywhere from ten to eleven o’clock, and being up by eight. It will not produce the same refreshing result if every third night he makes it two to twelve.
Do not force yourself to go to bed and try to sleep because the clock strikes ten, if this will make you lie awake and fret over tomorrow’s hard match, but at least get in bed and read, or listen to the radio until you feel sleepy. Above all, do not carry today’s defeat or tomorrow’s battle with you when you go to bed. Today is over. Tomorrow will come soon enough. Brooding over the game at bedtime will get you nothing but worn nerves and slow muscles tomorrow.
Food is another very definite problem for the competitive player. I disagree violently with the old training table idea of rigid diet, little to eat before playing, etc. That is deadly over a long period and often results only in rebellion against the whole game. Eat with intelligence -that is the only restriction I would put on a player. Do not stuff yourself with rich, highly seasoned foods or sloppy indigestible desserts before play.
Eat as much as you want at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but do not eat between meals and do not fill yourself up with pop and soft drinks either before, during, or immediately after play. If you must drink soft drinks after play, do it only after you are completely showered and cooled off. The meal before play, usually luncheon, is the most important from the standpoint of your game. Do not fall for the idea that you should not eat a full meal before playing.
That’s all bunk. You should have plenty of fuel in you. You will burn up a lot of energy in your match. It is better to be slow for a few games at the start because you are full than it is to be weak-kneed and shaky at the climax because you are hungry! The only thing I advise is, try to allow at least an hour from the end of the meal until you play. I’ve seen so many juniors fill themselves full of hot dogs and pop and go right out and play, and then wonder why they felt badly and got licked.
They deserve to lose if they take no layoff of about three days to a week will cure you of the jitters and send you back, racquet in hand, raving to go and playing better than you’ve played for months. Do not throw your condition to the winds by going on a big bust to break training; you don’t need to. A late night or two, a mild party, a lot of laughs, will do it. Once more, moderation and intelligence will solve your problem.
I have always believed that the greatest training and conditioner for any sport is that sport itself. I know that tennis, tennis, and more tennis is the only way I ever reached perfect condition, and I have seen many other players use the same formula. The young players today not only dislike practising shots, as I have already pointed out. They seem to think they are conditioning if they go out and play a couple of lackadaisical practice sets two or three times a week.
I think this accounts for the amazing number who crack wide open in the third set of many of their matches. I cannot see why young men in their middle twenties should show any sign of wear and tear in a five-set match at top speed. I never saw such stars as Henri Cochet, Donald Budge, Frank Kovacs, Fred J. Perry, Bobby Riggs, Gottfried von Cramm, Frank Parker, and Jack Kramer seem in dire danger of physical collapse when they were playing championship tennis in their mid-twenties.
Kramer and Kovacs, of course, still are young, but it has only been in the last few years that the others have slipped, even a little bit. Yet Cochet is fortyseven, Perry and von Cramm forty, and Parker, Budge, and Riggs in their thirties. The reason for this is that, as youngsters, all these great stars became match-tough and never lost that quality. The only way to become match-tough is by hard play in practice until it becomes second nature to play and play at top speed. I know what it’s worth.
In 1927 during the European tour that Frank Hunter and I made, we played five sets of singles in the morning and five sets in the afternoon, every clear day when we didn’t have a team match. That practice made Hunter the number 2 singles player in the world and conditioned me so I still owe it a debt of gratitude. One thing that I insist on with my protege, Arthur Anderson, with whom I have been working for the past five years, is that he play or practise several hours at least six days a week. For two weeks before any important tournament, he plays five sets of singles every day, up to two days before the event starts, and then lays off except for light practice. He is the only junior I know in California who can go at top speed for five sets of singles.
There are very few exercises that really help a tennis player get in shape and stay there. One form of exercise that I strongly urge on a player, particularly if he is inclined to be sluggish or slow in starting, is to skip. It is wonderful for the wind and the legs. if it is to do you any good at all, it must be done systematically, and not just now and again. Start slowly for your first week or so. Jump a normal “two-foot” skip, not over ten times without resting, but repeat five separate tens and, if possible, do it morning and evening.
Take the ten up to twenty after two days, then in a week to fifty. Once you can do that, begin to vary the type of skipping. Skip ten times on one foot, then ten times on the other. Add a fifty at just double your normal speed. Once that is all mastered, then simply take ten minutes in the evening and skip hard, any way you want and at any speed. Let your own intelligence direct you to what gives you the best results. Remember always that stamina is one of the deciding factors in all long, closely contested tennis matches, so work to attain the peak of physical conditioning when you need it most.
Closely allied to physical condition are the equipment you use and the clothes you wear. I am a great believer in comfort in clothes. I like to see the traditional white on the court, with colour sometimes used judiciously, but no matter what style clothes, they must be comfortable if you are to play your best. Do not wear too tight things, no matter how much you may want to look trim. Trimness can be achieved with clothes that give you enough room to move without feeling any binding. While I think long trousers on men and skirts on women make the best court appearance, I am of the opinion that sports shorts are the most sensible attire for both. Wear light, cool clothing, using a sweater that can be discarded once you are warmed up.
The most important single item is the feet. Be sure to use large enough shoes to give you plenty of room. Cramped toes are not conducive to comfort or speed. Wear heavy wool socks, even in hot weather, since they will take up much of the shock of your running. On hard courts, concrete, cement, asphalt, and wood, I use two pairs of socks and have found that they save my feet very much. Be sure you have a thick rubber sole to your shoe that will protect your foot. Do not use shoes after they start to wear thin or crack. it is foolish economy, for bad feet will beat any tennis player.
I am not going into the matter of the individual make of racquets or balls, beyond the sincere statement that the best racquets, and the balls of all the leading manufacturers, are equally good, and your personal preference for the feel of the racquet should decide which one you use. Mine is a Dunlop Maxply, although I have no connection at this time with the Dunlop Company. Tennis is one game where the little extra spent to get the best pays off with added results, and I urge that all players use the best they can afford.