Notes from the world of pro tennis

“Truly great teachers and coaches have a . . . Zen-like blend of focus and calm developed by people who have to spend inordinate amounts of time sitting in one place watching closely while someone else does something.” - David Foster Wallace

I spent a few minutes recently with Peter Ayers at a pro tournament in Charleston, SC. Peter coaches Emma Navarro who is presently among the best female players in the world. Here are a few takeaways from our conversation . . .

Focus on processes over outcomes - Peter has been coaching Emma since she was in her early teens, she is now 24. At each stage of development, they’ve set small goals and tried to get better at something every day, trusting the results will come. For a brief anecdote on how Peter embodied this principle as a teenager, see Chapter 4 of my book, ‘Sports Parenting’.

Pay attention to the details – The day I visited I was surprised to see they were working on small technical details, even though it was the day before a major tournament. But in Peter’s words . . . ‘Emma is a middleweight who often competes against heavyweights; therefore, she needs to get everything she can out of her body’ and ‘most matches come down to just 3 or 4 key points’. Therefore, attention to detail is a necessity, not an option.

How to stay in the present – Peter mentioned two sayings he likes a lot. The first he calls ‘get to the 15’, which is another way of saying play each point as it comes. The second he calls ‘focus on the bounce back’, which refers to how well an athlete recovers from setbacks during a match. Both are powerful mental hooks designed to help Emma stay focused competing on the world’s biggest tennis stages, which must be no easy task.

What is your ‘why’? – Recently, due to her success, Emma has been the hunted not the hunter, so to speak. But when you’re climbing the mountain, you sometimes don’t think about what to do once you get to the top. The question now, in Peter’s words, is, ‘what is the why?’ One of Emma’s answers to this question is that she’d like to use her platform to impact other people. That’s a pretty good answer for anyone, particularly a 24-year old.

Never look back – The week before Charleston Emma had played in a tournament where she had a tough loss. Peter mentioned that the way they frame their approach to the mental rigors of pro tennis is that they ‘never look back’. They concentrate on their future goals and strive for daily improvement. In pro tennis the margins are small, and you rarely win the tournament, so I think that perspective must be essential.

Final thoughts . . .

Leaving it all on the field - When I got back home, I watched an interview on the tennis channel with Ben Navarro, Emma’s dad. The interviewer suggested that it must be hard to watch his daughter play on such a big stage with so much on the line. Mr. Navarro responded that his main concern, regardless of outcome, was that she ‘leave it all on the field’. That’s a powerful trait to pass down to your children. The result in their family speaks for itself.

Impacting others - Just the other day I was talking with Mariah, a 12-year-old girl from Charlotte, who also attended the Charleston tournament. She said the highlight was meeting Emma Navarro. Knowing that one of Emma’s goals is to impact those outside her direct circle of influence, I found this interesting. BTW: Mariah and her parents made no mention of whether Emma won or lost, only that she was ‘so nice’ and a great role model.

bouncing back – Two weeks after returning from Charleston, I watched the Master’s golf tournament where Rory McElroy missed a few shots that almost cost him the tournament. In the post-game analysis, I heard the term ‘bounce back’ used numerous times by the commentators and McElroy himself. I immediately thought of Peter sharing that same term with me as a core principle in working with Emma. Which leads to my last thought . . .

Nothing new under the sun – The principles I’ve mentioned here would be a good formula for success in any field of endeavor. But there is nothing new here, the power is in the ability to live them out. For Peter and Emma, the day I visited was just another day of practice during the grind of the pro tennis tour. For me, it was testimony to many of the timeless principles we could all benefit from implementing in our own lives.