I Called Them Match Experiments

This is the first of three connected reflections about exploring ideas, borrowing possibilities and deciding what to do with other people’s certainty about your tennis.

For about a month, I served and volleyed whenever I served during the first set of every match. Whenever I returned, I returned and rushed the net. It did not matter whether the previous attempt had worked or whether the score was becoming uncomfortable. For that set, I kept going forward.

I repeatedly lost those sets 6-0.

This was one of the things I did after I had begun treating matches as experiments. I used the name match experiments because of a simple need: if I wanted to understand how a new idea might fit and add to my game, eventually I had to try it in the game I actually played.

The match became my testing ground.

Why a match?

An idea can feel convincing when nothing interferes with it. On an empty court, I can choose the feed, repeat the same movement and give all my attention to a sensation. The confidence I develop there is not necessarily false, but it belongs to those conditions. It becomes misleading when I treat smooth performance in a predictable environment as evidence that the solution will remain available while I am moving, reading an opponent, responding to different balls and feeling the consequence of the score.

The feeling can be real. What I think it proves may not be.

A match changes the question. The opponent changes height, speed and direction. I have to move, recognise what is happening and decide where to play. The score makes an error feel different, and the other player responds to whatever my experiment is producing.

That was the information I wanted.

I was not waiting for a new solution to become polished before allowing it into points. I used points to discover what the solution actually was when it met tennis.

My experiments included:

  • serving and volleying, then returning and rushing the net, during the first set of every match for about a month;
  • serving very slowly while exploring what I understood as pronation;
  • playing matches in which I sliced from both sides;
  • using a two-handed forehand after encountering the idea from a coach;
  • playing two-handed backhands even though I normally use one hand;
  • changing a serve, forehand or tactical intention and remaining with it for part of a match.

The serve-and-volley experiment produced plenty of first sets lost 6-0. Other experiments created shanks, awkward contacts and choices I would not normally have made. A match experiment was not a reliable way to win the next match.

The experiment continued inside the match

Committing to an idea did not mean repeating it mindlessly until the set ended.

I was constantly calibrating. I noticed what worked, what did not and what I might try differently on the next point. The match kept giving me questions:

  • Which balls gave me time to find this solution?
  • What effect did it have on the opponent?
  • Where did it create a useful ball, and where did it leave me exposed?
  • What changed when the score became uncomfortable?
  • Could I adjust the idea without immediately returning to my usual game?

Sometimes the match answered a question I had not intended to ask. When I explored serving with pronation, I served slowly because speed was not the question yet. The serve itself was awful for a while. Because I was giving away so much in my service games, staying competitive meant I had to return even better. I noticed that I became sharper in my return games. An experiment that was supposed to be about serving had unexpectedly changed another part of my tennis.

Another experiment might change my positioning, attention or understanding of an opponent even if the solution I originally tested never became important.

This is why I rarely experienced attentive exploration as wasted. When I committed to the experiment and kept noticing what happened, there was often something useful beyond whether the original idea worked as expected.

The temporary commitment mattered because an unfamiliar option is easy to abandon. Two missed volleys can send me back to the baseline. A double fault can make the old serve feel like the only responsible choice.

By deciding that I would remain with an experiment for a set or a match, I gave myself enough time to move beyond the first failure. Staying with the question did not mean keeping the same answer. I could adjust, exaggerate, soften and discover where the solution began to make sense.

Expanding the game rather than replacing it

I did not become a permanent serve-and-volley player, a two-handed-forehand player or a two-handed-backhand player. That was never the requirement.

The month of moving forward helped me develop a serve-and-volley game I now trust, especially on pressure points. The slice-only matches made slice more available and helped me recognise when it fitted. Even the stranger two-handed experiments revealed useful things that remained after I returned to my usual strokes.

The experiments expanded the number of solutions available to me and my understanding of where each one might belong.

A match experiment was not a promise to change my game. It was a temporary commitment to discover whether my game could contain something more.

A month is not a formula, and discomfort by itself is not evidence of learning. What mattered was remaining with a real question, inside the game, while continuing to notice and adapt.

Perhaps the next important jump in your tennis will not come from finding another answer. It may come from becoming able to explore something uncomfortable in real matches for long enough to discover what it can add.

Sometimes the idea came from me. Often it came from a coach, another player or something I watched. The next part of this reflection follows one very technical YouTube forehand from the video into a match, and asks how somebody else’s idea could become part of my own learning.

Sources