Murray's Mid-Match Mistake
In his round robin match win today over Fernando Verdasco at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena in London, local British favorite, Andy Murray, asked an ATP official during a changeover between games in the third set about how the semifinalists
would be determined. Clearly, Murray realized that he was in danger of not making the semis. However, the last thing Murray should have been thinking about was just that!
A tennis player needs to focus on playing each match point by point. Once a player starts to calculate ranking points or prize money or how many games he needs to win to qualify for the semis, the match focus is lost and often the match itself. Murray did manage to beat Verdasco in a third set tie-breaker, but in the end he did not qualify for the semis based on a games won percentage (one game made the difference!). Perhaps Murray was a little distracted in the second set worrying about reaching the semis and instead needed to focus more on the present match. If Murray had won in straight sets he might have reached the semis.
The irony is that especially when a tremendous amount is on the line during a particular match, e.g. critical ranking points falling off, etc. a player needs to focus on the match at hand or risk feeling the pressure even more and playing poorly as a result. If you focus on training hard and play well, good things will happen… it may sound like a silly cliché, but it’s much more effective than focusing on the end goal of winning the match.
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