For me, the voice is that of a TV commentator.
How Cliff Drysdale's voice got into my head, and why it thinks it knows how to play tennis so well, I'll never know. Once Cliff starts, though, I'm dead.
I suspect most of us are front-running chokers. I know I am. Once I get in the lead, I start thinking about my shots. I start playing smarter. And smart is bad, very bad.
In football the "smart" thing to do is the "Prevent Defense". A smart football coach puts his team into the Prevent Defense when they are winning, and are willing to give up little victories, so long as they don't give up the touchdown.
The Prevent Defense allows everything, except the big touchdown. Which is as good as to say that it allows lots of little touchdowns. More football games that appear to be won are lost by the Prevent than any other single mistake in the football. More tennis matches, too.
In my head, Cliff's voice tells me to wait for my opponent to make a mistake. But by the time his advice reaches the end of my right hand, what comes out looks more like an unforced error. let's just say I have long arms. Somewhere between my head and hand, my thinking fuddles my mechanics, and I start painting the fence. But bear in mind I already was in safe-mode, so the effect of the error is even more demoralizing than usual. Then the next "smart" move is to back off a little more, and keep waiting for my opponent to make his mistake.
I'm sure Cliff told me my opponent would make a mistake. So, why is he painting lines all the sudden?
I'll call the third type of choke the pressure choke. That's the choke that comes at set point, for or against. At that moment ol' Cliff tells me I should gamble, or is it that I can't gamble? He's never sure. I hate that the commentators never know when to shut up.
I don't worry too much about the pressure choke. I do alright under pressure, all things considered. Everyone chokes under pressure (well not Mr. Federer, but you know what I mean) and I can fight the pressure choke better than the front-runner choke. There's something about knowing that my opponent is definitely coming to my backhand with set point on the line, and that helps me settle down and hit my first decent crosscourt winner of the day.
All in all, though, it's that front-running choke that repeatedly kicks my butt. I've tried all the mental games that are supposed to keep choking at bay in that situation. Tell yourself you're behind - check. Say reinforcing phrases to yourself - check. Pull back your shoulders, and lift your head - check. Worry about the process, not the outcome - check. Just play this point - check. Play the opponent - check. Don't play the opponent, play the ball - check.
Every one one of those ideas works brilliantly until I'm up 4-0 against a competent but beatable opponent. Then, suddenly, it's Cliff repeating them to me. Oddly enough, when spoken in his accent but in my head, the bromides don't seem to help.
So the other Friday, I decided to try a new mental game. The Blitz.
Again for those of you who don't follow football, the Blitz is the opposite of the Prevent Defense. The Blitz is what happens when the defense decides to get offensive. The Blitz says, "You'd better score a touchdown on this play, because I'm gonna make you hurt whether you do or don't. The Blitz risks everything for the chance to hit an opponent with a pre-emptive, first strike. And let's face it. There's no 7-point touchdown play in tennis. So why not Blitz? It just makes more sense.
On Friday, I went up 4-0 on my opponent - a guy who had erased a deficit the last two times we played to come back and beat me. So, when I lost the fifth game, it felt more like I was behind 1-4 than ahead 4-1. It was then the evil Mr. Drysdale started going on about "the ol' momentum shift" and "the last two meetings between...," and "what a career this Knox could have had."
The mind is a funny thing, and the fragile mind is an absolute riot. I swear, if squirrels were this stupid, the whole high-tech bird feeder industry would dry up overnight.
With the serve back on my side, I found myself preparing to lose from a 4-1 advantage. My arm wanted to twist the next 4 services in so badly it hurt. Cliff agreed. He reminded me repeatedly that this would be a horrible place to double-fault -- and that was just during my service motion. You should have heard him between points.
I delivered a big serve anyway. I blitzed.
Nobody was more shocked than me when the score clicked up to 5-1.
I made my opponent work for 2-5, but when the balls came back to my side I STILL wanted to spin my service in. Had I learned nothing? I still wanted to send forehands straight down the middle, and I still wanted to put a little more top on the ball, "just to be sure." Cliff started to say something, but I stuffed that third Wilson 4 tennis ball in his mouth, and kept blitzing.
It took everything I had to really unload on that last crosscourt forehand, but I did it, and it was a clean winner.
Just like Mr. McEnroe, my main feeling was not elation, but relief. I took the tennis ball out of Cliff's mouth, since accolades are actually fun to listen to, but he seemed to be at a loss for words.
Relief can feel pretty good. Maybe I won't quit this game quite yet.
Do y'all have any internal announcer moments? I'd love to hear how P-Mac would handle this..
--Kevin Knox
