The retired British star got the most out of his game. You can, too.
1. Know your strengths.
When I started working with Tim Henman before the Paris Masters in 2003, I asked him, “Why don’t you tell me what you think your assets are?” While it might sound odd to say something like that to a world-class player, this simple question can lead to deeper discussions. Tim was one of the best volleyers in the world, he moved well, and he had solid ground strokes. But what we found out was that he didn’t spend much time thinking about how to use these strengths or how to avoid his weaknesses. On the serve, for instance, Tim often just started the point rather than concentrating on serving to a speci? c location each time. We worked on serving to targets, keeping score in practice (if he missed too much, he’d have to buy me dinner). We talked about using his serve to set up his strengths and to help him get to the net. No matter what level you are, you want to play to your strengths as early in a point as possible.
2. Commit to a style.
No player can succeed without what I call the three Cs: commitment, clarity, and con?dence. Tim had a terri?c year in 2004—he made the semi? nals at Roland Garros and the U.S. Open, and the quarter? nals at Wimbledon—largely because he had a good understanding of his game and was committed to it. He was going to play his style, and that was that. Recreational players don’t usually have this kind of con?dence, but there’s no reason why you can’t. If you know what you’re best at, whether it’s attacking or grinding from the baseline, stick to it and try to perfect it. Don’t ignore your weaknesses, of course, but don’t do what I once did in my playing days, when I spent six months working just on my ground strokes and neglecting my chip-and-charge game. My ranking dropped, and as my brother (and coach) said at the time, “You look much better losing now than you did before.” You need to work on what you do best.
3. Think about tactics, not results.
As I found out early on with Tim, the score can get in the way of your tennis. Tim and I used to talk a lot about being process-oriented rather than results-oriented. If you go into a match ready to ? ght and win points, you just might forget to think about what it is you should do to win those points. Tim really latched onto thinking more about tactics than the score. He learned to put patterns together in his mind for how he wanted to play points, rather than focusing on whether he won them or not. Perhaps the biggest bene?t to learning to think like Tim: When you’ve committed to a strategy and tried your best to execute it, you’ll have no regrets.