Wise words from Karl……When I play in a tournament I come away with three items. (1) what did right (2) what I did wrong and or what caused me to lose vs what my opponent better than me (3) what my homework will be for the next tournament. I would appreciate your thoughts on this process.
Thanks for a great post. I must admit after about 20 years of playing tournaments I stopped the notebook routine. More on that in another post but to summarize it was a mistake to quit journaling, at least for me.
Every tournament I competed in I went through a similar process. I took an honest look at my strengths and weaknesses. I distinctly remember tournaments where I forced myself to hit down the lines, even though I was uncomfortable doing it. I also remember going cross court to win matches because I had to; not because it was the best shot. Sometimes I had to grind through matches realizing the darn ball was not going where I wanted it to! That didn’t mean I couldn’t win.
When I got home I always worked on the next few weeks to do what I needed to do to improve. That process included tournaments I won and tournaments I lost. Your process lends itself to improvement.
I would add one little trick to that assessment of your performance in the tournament. What was your week of pre-tournament training like?
means a good day of training.
means you had an in between day and maybe felt more nervous than usual
means you had an awesome day of trainingYou could also rank your work day prior to the tournament (or school). Working a ton of hours or operating in stressful environment can contribute to poor performance as well.
Thanks Karl and to all of you out there who play our great sport! Go get’em tigers!!!