So I ran across a question that went something like this: “Why did the Art of War book say never put your enemy in a corner. Allow them to retreat.” (I paraphrase here as I do not have the original quote)
The answer went like this: Imagine you are surrounded with no chance to retreat. You will have to fight to the death and your motivation will be to kill as many of the enemy as you can. Now imagine you have an avenue to retreat. Your will to survive to fight another day will lead to not as many casualties.
What does this have to do with racquetball? Suppose you have your opponent in an almost hopeless situation with you way ahead on points and providing a dominant performance. Why would you then taunt your opponent? Why would you poke the sleeping bear?
That would lead to them trying harder to come back and it would definitely be motivation for them to train harder and get you the next time. I can think of many matches when I was down and out and rehearsing the conciliatory defeat speech to my opponent when out of nowhere they began taunting me. In some of those matches I dug down a little deeper and found a way to win. If they had just shut up they would have won.
So like the lesson in the book, The Art of War, you allow them a graceful defeat. That leads to fewer losses. (Theoretically-sometimes you just don’t care-I will have to admit that-so maybe wait until match point then!)