Consistency

I have been a fan of Roger Fed­erer since I first saw him inter­viewed in 2003. I was struck then by his poise and his grace and the way he thinks about the game. And now, at just 27 years old, with 14 Grand Slam titles to his name, he’s still as con­sis­tent as ever.

Federer’s got the whole pack­age: great foot­work, unfail­ing mechan­ics and power which help him keep his oppo­nents on the run. But what really sets him in apart is his men­tal technique.

Men­tal Tennis

The most impor­tant psy­cho­log­i­cal abil­ity in a Ten­nis player is called “selec­tive atten­tion” or “atten­tion man­age­ment” (Source). This goes way beyond sim­ply stay­ing focused; it is about direct­ing your aware­ness to rel­e­vant stim­uli while ignor­ing things like a scream­ing crowd or some­one sneez­ing. The mind wants to focus on any­thing novel or dif­fer­ent, but you have to keep your mind engaged in the tac­tics of the moment. Asad Raza writes, “Con­cen­tra­tion takes men­tal energy…whenever I saw Fed­erer on the grounds, he seemed to be using as lit­tle of it as pos­si­ble”. [Click to con­tinue the arti­cle, or to comment…]

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