Thoughts about Tennis Tradition...

[don_budge]

Geronimo...Bin Laden and wasps.

tradi’tion n. body of beliefs, facts, etc., handed down to generation to generation without being reduced to writing; the process of handing down.

Yes...where was the trial? Usually it is at the trial where the evidence is presented. Hmmm...apparently Mr. Bin Laden was not even wanted for the "crime"...he wasn't charged at any rate. This is a new precedent isn't it...execution without a trial. Well it's too bad sometimes...that dead men can't talk.

If a lie is assumed to be true...then everything that follows that is predicated on that lie is, in fact, a lie also.

Historically speaking it wasn’t so long ago that America had their own problem with terrorists. Well, they weren’t really terrorists, they were the original inhabitants of the land. They had families, a way of life, probably even a judicial system to take care of the bad guys. They were the real "Americans".

Way back when...before I was don_budge, when I was johnny_rattlesnake I met a direct descendant of my favorite American ever. The man that I met was a Native American living in Arizona. Once upon a time...I was a little distraught with my life and the way that I was being treated by a fickle girlfriend and a harassing boss, so I went on a bit of a sojourn out west where one evening I found myself completely alone outside of Fort Bowie in the Chiricahua Mountains at dusk. For some inexplicable reason I yelled to the ruins of the fort, three times...Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo. There was no reply.

The next day as I was driving on the outskirts of a town in Arizona...on a dusty road there stood a crude sign written on a piece of cardboard that said...Geronimo III. Recognizing instantly that I was having a Carlos Castaneda moment I pulled off the road to seek the man that I was destined to meet. I never learned his real name but I called him Grandfather. When I visited him over the years, I would sit at his feet with a mini cassette recorder with which I taped our conversations while I listened to his story. The story was one about his great grandfather...Geronimo. In the end he gave me his hat...the shaman's hat.

A couple of times, since I have moved to Sweden, I have been asked who my favorite American is or was. Without thinking my lips form the same word that I yelled to the abandoned fort at dusk that evening in Arizona...Geronimo. I get some funny looks. The story that Grandfather told me during that period when I sat at his feet like a schoolboy (I was thirty or so at the time) was a compelling and passionate account of the man and the legend...and how he was hunted like a dog by the American government. His crime was that he was fighting for his freedom, his people and his life. That made him a freedom fighter...not a terrorist. It’s all about point of view...perspective.

The operation that supposedly terminated the life of Osama Bin Laden was called Operation Geronimo...or so we are led to believe. Who can believe anything these days? The official account has been somewhat garbled and edited with liberal use of the edit function and we are left to sort out the puzzle to somehow come up with some plausible explanation that will serve as the truth for us in the future.

Anyways, the Apache people are very offended that this man’s name would be used in connection with the manhunt that the Western world considers the worst scoundrel in history...witness that he has elevated his status to the most evil one...Adolf Hitler. They are a little touchy about their ancestors you see...they have great respect for tradition and the old ways. At least they did before the soul of their people was ripped from them. There aren't many Apache people around anymore, most of them were wiped off the map by the American government. Those that survive live on a minimal existence and are mostly delegated to fixed spots in the country called a reservation...in a land that once was their land, where they were free to come and go as they pleased. No passports and no tickets needed. We as a nation designated a holiday to these people called Thanksgiving...it helps us to sleep better at night.

Osama Bin Laden is a man who by all accounts used to be an employee for some nefarious projects that the American government had been conducting in Afghanistan and other points in the Arab world. I have never met him. I have never met any of his family. I have never even met anybody who claimed to have known him. Judging by the accuracy of what passes for the news these days...I cannot even know one single solitary fact about him. I must honestly say...I don't even sympathize with him. I don't know him. All I know is what I have heard...and that amounts to here say. I for one...am in favor of judicial proceedings. I am against assassinations and extradicial renderings and torture. I for another...want to know the truth and the problem with dead men...is that they cannot talk.

This summer my wife and I made a huge project of painting the farm here. At a number of points in our project I encountered colonies of bees and wasps that had built their homes and nests at various locations around the property. I suppose that I had a choice in the matter about how to manage these critters, these terrorists...afterall I am bigger than them, and certainly more intelligent, right? I could of used my God given right to kill them, they used to call it "Manifest Destiny" back when the Native population was being eradicated in America...I could kill every single little bitty one of the pesky varmits...or I could use the tact that I chose. I talked to them. I soothed their little angry hearts. I assumed they were my equals. I assumed that they had a right to exist. I told them...that I understood. I was in their territory but I had some business to take care of but I would leave directly after it was done...and I promised that I would never disturb them in the future. I told them they could have their space. I respected them...and their God given right to live freely.

I never got stung...not once.

[tennis_chiro]

Those webs!!

Problem is those webs sometimes stay "sticky" way after they have done the job they were intended to do and pretty soon the webs are more problem than the varmints they were supposed to catch!
don

[stotty]

Bottle,

Many countries have copied or taken from various aspects of the British judicial system...until someone comes up with something better, it's the best model going...Despite all our faults, we are, on balance, one of the fairest countries around...many would argue or contest this, but when you look around and compare us with other countries there is some truth in what I say.

As to your country:

Without America policing the world here and there, what state would the world be in now? It's a question we can never know the answer to because what is done is done....but on balance... the world would probably be worse off without US intervention....you ain't so bad you yanks... your more good than bad...Blair shouldn't have backed you over Iraq, but he did because we owed you favours from the past....he lied to us to field those favours back to you...we all know that now on our side of the pond.

Ultimately we've both paid the price for propping up dictatorships........I shan't go on...politics gets so complicated...Oh what a tangled web we weave...when first we practise to deceive...

[bottle]

Agreed. But we could perhaps look to the American justice system, which took its beginnings from the England where you live, I believe, in order to give the clueless some idea of how to deal with very baddy, baddy, baddy baddies.

[stotty]

I fully understand the point you're making, bottle....and agree with many of your comments. But by any standards Bin Laden was most definitely a bad guy. Whether he was the true mastermind of 9/11 or not, he led the organization the did it...or did they...was it someone else....

[bottle]

[ATTACH]445[/ATTACH]

[bottle]

Sorry, Stotty, I'd rather go to the court and work on one-sided scapular retraction right now, but weren't we the original supporters of Bin Laden, as he stood up against the Russians in Afghanistan?

And don't we Americans have a dreary tendency to turn everything into an American western, with good guys vs. bad guys?

The Cambridge, Massachusetts linguist Noam Chomsky, not at all sure that Bin Laden was the actual mastermind of 9/11, said that for Bin to claim to be so, was like him, Chomsky, claiming to have won the Boston Marathon.

Are you, Stotty, or is anyone we know, actually sure that Bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11 ? If so, what is the evidence? Was there a trial?

You see, all we have to do is decide that we don't need evidentiary trials any more, and then we can kill anybody we want-- just call him a bad guy-- could be a woman or child or animal in Afghanistan.

I watched a video this morning in which Ray McGovern, the 72-year-old former top CIA analyst and spokesman through countless presidencies was dragged out of a speech by Hillary Clinton and bloodied, bruised and beaten-- not even for saying anything but for turning his back on her while he was in the audience.

Did Hillary drag him out? Possibly, but the camera showed two thugs who were working for her.

She meanwhile was holding forth about Mubarak's abuse of free speaking
protesters in Egypt, and she pretended not to notice what was happening right in front of her.

We have many fascistic tendencies here in the U.S. I won't speak for Great Britain but I've heard rumors (rumours).

Our last two presidents, similarly awful on torture and needless war, have done everything in their power to perpetuate them.

[stotty]

Worst thing about 9/11 is Bin Laden achieved everything he could have hope for and cemented himself in history for ever more...in a similar, vile way as Hitler. Shame we can't erase the existence of such monsters forever.

Hitler has few followers these days, let's hope Bin Laden's dwindle in the same way over time...

[don_budge]

September 13, 2001...

tradi’tion n. body of beliefs, facts, etc., handed down to generation to generation without being reduced to writing; the process of handing down.

On September 13th...two days later, my boss asked me to handle this assignment in our department and this is what I said to my employees:

"The company has asked that we join other major Detroit organizations in observing a moment of silence in memory of the killed or injured in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. I asked a number of you whether we should observe this individually or as a group. It was decided we would do this as a group.

The question is no longer a question of diversity but a question of unity. All of our lives have been dramatically altered since the terrorist attack on our country on Tuesday, we cannot begin to comprehend. The question is now what do we all have in common. The answer to this is quite simple...we are all Americans and we are all Ford Motor Company employees. Now we must all pull together to the best of our ability.

On Tuesday, there were thousands of people who went to work in New York City and Washington D. C. who thought it was just another day, another day at work, just like we did...and now they are no more. Let us observe a moment of silence for the dead and injured."

We sobbed and cried as a group that day...and today the American people are divided and confused. We could not begin to comprehend...the future.

[don_budge]

9/11/01-9/11/10...what happened?

tradi’tion n. body of beliefs, facts, etc., handed down to generation to generation without being reduced to writing; the process of handing down.

Surreal day yesterday. The day after the epic on Ashe where the King was slain. Full moon. Tenth anniversary of the strangest day in the history of "modern man". Propaganda all day long...just to remind everybody. The authorities retelling the story. Everybody on the same page? Good boys and girls. Political correctness working.

So what were you doing 10 years ago? I went to work as the manager of a quality control testing facility in one of the Big Three car companies in Detroit. The planes hit...the news spread. Then a plane supposedly hit the Pentagon, at which point I left my job and went home directly.

I said to myself, "that is the most protected airspace in the world, nothing gets through those defenses". I watched the news...they repeated the same thing over and over. It seemed like a zillion times. Video of planes hitting the towers...but not the Pentagon. Why not?

That night I read George Orwell's "1984" again...in it's entirety. I knew that the world had changed that day. A lot of our traditions died that day...which is a dangerous thing.

The story is sketchy...the evidence doesn't add up. We needed Sherlock Holmes to sort it out...they wanted to give us Henry Kissinger instead.

Yesterday was a strange day...I couldn't wait until it was over.

[bottle]

No More Celebrations of 9/11 as The Biggest Crime in the History of Mankind

Yes, I've always loved that shot and did in fact hit it against the hi-tech wall at the town park just on Friday since the high school had already slurped up every available court.

When I'd watch videos of Stan Smith doing it, I'd think, "He gets going first. And whatever else he needs to do he does along the way."

O my sciatica. O my myelin. O my my my.

If I do it with more crouch combined with a more schoolish unit turn, to begin, I may revert to John playing tennis his very first day, according to Matthew Syed, author of the book called BOUNCE, so instead, "Cry havoc and let slip the doglets of war!"

Yeah, skip forward and whup up on all warmongering fruitcakes everywhere.

Have these pomposities ever heard of Hiroshima? Me and Mothra are going to get these silly fear-biters. You mark my words.

[don_budge]

Latin Dancing...and footwork.

tradi’tion n. body of beliefs, facts, etc., handed down to generation to generation without being reduced to writing; the process of handing down.

Welcome to my playground! I'm Bigfoot. Wherever you hit the ball, there I will be.

This is essential intelligence for a tall person such as myself. Get there first.
Then refine position with small adjustments if needs be or maybe throw in a couple extra just to stay alive.

Before I was don_budge...I was johnny_tango. Buenos Aires...tango by night and red clay tennis by day.

John...I mean Bigfoot...er, bottle. If you have a wall over there on Lake St. Clair that you can hit against, try this. As the ball comes back to you...get in position, crouch, with your back foot start with a cha cha cha. Three small, quick steps and now you are ready to go forward to plant your front foot to deliver the payload! Ole!

[bottle]

Playground

Welcome to my playground! I'm Bigfoot. Wherever you hit the ball, there I will be. Once, John Yandell used a lovely parenthetical regarding myself. "If he behaves himself..." he said. The pressure has been on ever since. Still don't know if I can do it.

I, too, applaud the above article by Tom Allsopp on stopping time. Among its other virtues is its smashing up of one of those ready made ideas that can creep, insidiously and unbeknownst to the person, into anyone's unconscious.

From reading the old book RICK ELSTEIN'S TENNIS KINETICS, WITH MARTINA NAVRATILOVA and starring Mary Carillo in its visuals, I got the idea of little steps. Watching people like John McEnroe or Justine Henin or even Roger Federer only reinforced this.

But Tom, with eyes like a dermatologist, has noticed something that the rest of us can see only once it has been pointed out-- that when Roger isn't using small steps, he's using big steps.

This is essential intelligence for a tall person such as myself. Get there first.
Then refine position with small adjustments if needs be or maybe throw in a couple extra just to stay alive.

Also, in Roger's first match at The Open last night, he took countless balls on the rise-- talk about stopping time! It's fun to see an uneven match once in a while. The virtuoso comes out.

[don_budge]

Time...is on my side, yes it is! (The Rolling Stones)

tradi’tion n. body of beliefs, facts, etc., handed down to generation to generation without being reduced to writing; the process of handing down.

Well tpatennis...you will find that anything that you have to say is not entirely out of place here on the forum. Stumphges may disagree with me though, he rather succinctly let me know that one of my posts certainly did not belong to a certain thread he was conducting or was being written in his honor or his behalf, I think it was about spaghetti strings. He really dismissed me. Which is alright...he is entirely within his rights. In my book. Btw...excusssse me all to pieces stumphges. I have read your stuff...and it's impressive, very scientific and all of that. I am not arguing that. I can do the math. I still don't understand why I used to be able to generate much more kick spin with my old wood racquets with the gut strings than I can with the new fangled stuff. I think that the answer was in your recent post, though I am not certain. But that's ok...I am on a need to know basis. I can't serve like I used to. This much I do know. Yes tpatennis...it's all on the table here at the tennisplayer.net forum...John Yandell's baby and bottle's playground...and the rest of us.

There are a few here that are making some noise...or creating whatever it is that describes the phenomena of the internet (chatter?), but there are many more that are just listening and reading...and wondering. Some great ones that are not contributing on a regular basis...or at all for that matter. I wonder what they are thinking. One of the many entertaining aspects of this site is to view who is online and to see what they are reading...often times I go there and read exactly what they are reading. Terribly entertaining. To me, at least.

One thing leads to another. Yes it does. Connect the dots. Follow the leads...and see where it takes you. Sherlock Holmes...the greatest Brit of all? Sometimes I think bottle is throwing curveballs and maybe he is, but isn't that what it is all about...applying spin? We are all "Spin Doctors" in the end. I spin to you, you spin to me. The world is a ball...spinning through time and space. So your article is of particular interest to this conversation...absolutely. It's all on the table...just not in the sense that Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Oblabla mean it.

Time...and the manipulation. According to the books "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge", "Journey to Ixtlan" and "A Separate Reality", a story about a young Hispanic anthropologist named Carlos Castaneda who meets an ancient Yaqui Indian in the Sonoran Desert, it is possible to "stop the world". It's not only possible but imperative to living a healthy life, as it turns out. I spent some time in the Arizona deserts learning this little peculiar facet of life with an ancient Apache Indian. My father was recently visiting me and he made the comment to me that it seemed to him that time is passing so quickly and my response was that it seems to be going on forever...it's dragging it's feet. I guess that I learned my lesson. The trick is to not have children...this is besides what the old Indian taught. My father is 83 years old now, and to some people that may sound old but I can tell you that he still moves like a cat...if not an "older cat". We went out on the tennis court and I put him in a group with two ten year old girls named Nora and Tilda...that was an interesting blend. An interesting visual. I was showing him how to hit a topspin backhand with a strong eastern grip and he caught on really quick...which is amazing seeing that he hit his backhand predominately with underspin and a continental grip all of his life. He hadn't played tennis in some thirty years...but he was an amazing athlete. He still is. He's old school.

I loved your point about good old George Knudson...I have taught golf professionally as well and one of my little pearl's that I would dispense to my students was the importance of not trying to hit too hard...or to swing too fast. I actually used as an example for my students to try to drive slower than normal, slightly under the speed limit, in fact...what an effort that is in our modern society. Has anybody tried taking their time to do anything lately? It's only a matter of time before some maniac in the midst of their own road rage is inches behind your rear bumper trying to drive you off the road...for driving too slow. Everyone is running around pall mall...like chicken's with their heads cut off. Ironically going nowhere. When it comes time to take that golf swing you had better have yourself under control...and it helps to stop the world in that moment. I would recommend swinging at 85% percent capacity because this tempo is easier to dial into on a daily basis rather than full machine, 100%, all of the time. Some days you feel better than others and your 100% is all of a sudden 110%...and then you spend the entire round trying to compensate for that extra speed in your swing. Or vice versa. Some days you don't feel so well and your 100% is all of a sudden 87.2%...then you find yourself trying to compensate for the lack of speed by swinging harder, instead of merely accepting your loss of distance and hitting the ball comfortably down the fairway. In order to stop the world...you have to be able to dial into your own clock. Time management.

So when I hear someone say that they are 83 years old, or 71 years old, or 57 years old (my age now and Don Budge's age when I met him in 1972), or 30 years of age...I think that the number represents the number of times that the earth has traveled around the sun with that person on it. The number is not so much an age as it is an indicator...or a standard, or merely a measurement of time. My father may be 71 years old when compared to another 83 year old or the 30 year old may have the wisdom of someone who is 57 years old...and so on and so forth. Everybody lives to be one...one lifetime that is. You are born and then you die. In the wink of a young girl's eye? Some people say that you are only as old as you feel...I say that you are only as old as the woman that you feel. In the end, it's not the miles...it's the terrain. Time is a river...you can feel it flowing in your veins, if you can stop the world.

So of course great athletes learn to manipulate time as you assert in your article...but only on the smallest scale, the minutest of scale. A pinprick in the universe. Roger does it best of all...on every shot he virtually stops the world. I can see it...so can you for that matter, if you know what it is you are looking for. Tiger Woods used to be able to do it...before he got "distracted". The only problem these guys have is that while they have discovered how to bend time a bit in the craft that they pursue...in reality their lives are running along lickity split...it's over before they know it. Because in reality...their time is not their own because of the professional demands upon it. When it comes down to it, the whole thing boils down to "time management" or early preparation, but that only applies to "real time" and I am a bit uncertain how it applies nowadays to "virtual time"...which I hate to inform everyone, we exist in. It's the collective unconscious vs. the internet. It's the truth vs. psychobabble. Old school vs. new school. Reality as we knew it...those of us old enough to of known the old days, is in the past. Some of the posters here think that I am stuck in the past because of my great love and respect for the traditional and original game of tennis...they actually used to call it "real" tennis early on, but I can assure them that I am not stuck anywhere because I am in the moment, the spot in front of my nose, and that moment is flowing along with the rest of the river...to the destination.

So tpatennis...your article is very welcome here. It actually ties in very nicely. Food for thought. We thank you for any provocative thoughts you send our way. It's refreshing. We appreciate new blood. I thought that it was very interesting. It's another dot along the way...in the river. So to speak. Dot, dot, dot. Footwork, Speed, Reaction Time and Technique are all key facilitators in the management of time when a great athlete is performing his craft, what a beautiful ballerina is doing as she is whirling and twirling like a dervish, when an old Indian shaman puts one foot in front of the other on the ground like a prayer...like a McEnroe when he ever so deftly and delicately plants his right foot, like a litany, on the forehand volley, arguably the toughest stroke in tennis. All of that blinding preparation gives you one small pinprick in time to be under control, when you begin to go forward with your swing as if you have all of the time in the world. When in reality you're are under the most impossible of time constraints. Oh Lord...to get in position! Like Roger. Just once in my Life. The moment of truth. But all of this just contributes to "stopping the world"...even though it is a forgotten art that is remembered only by the ancients and is being rejected by the modern world...largely through science...and that is when the scientists are not acting like they are reinventing the concept. But just one more point my young friend...don't forget the element of ANTICIPATION. What is going to happen, what is about to happen...in the future! Don't ever forget...these are only moments that we borrow.

Time manipulation...what an interesting thought.

[tpatennis]

Manipulating Time.....

Nah, don't worry. A little rudeness can be okay. I'm sure it would be nothing compared to what the poster "elephantiasis" used to do over at Talk Tennis before we both received our bans.

After I posted, he'd think of the most evil thing he could do in reply. Once it was a picture of Chuck Barris or whoever the guy was who always had "the unknown comic" appear in a regular segment of The Gong Show.

This man would wear a paper bag over his head with two eye holes cut in it.
But when elephantiasis embedded this picture the bag was on fire!

Yes, I'm quite sure I was burned in effigy. Not that I'm paranoid. Come back little Sheba, I mean little Nabrug-- you were mild.

About myelin: 97 per cent unknown. And I'm not sure that "go ten times slower" applies to the past. My previous generation drank much too much, especially the ones on university faculties, those early ejaculators.

In future tennis, going ten times slower could mean take time to lift the threshold of difficulty just to where one's instructive mistakes begin to appear, and don't try for perfection too soon, and don't play any tournaments until you have a full toolbox, Little Buddy, Little Miss.

On the other hand, so much isn't known of myelin that one can probably say anything and not be terribly wrong.

It's fun, though, to know that people have seen it. Very exciting, according to the author of THE TALENT CODE Daniel Coyle is to see the oligos actually wrapping on the goop.

I think of workers laying huge black pipe by the side of an excavated highway.
A heavy machine inches along using three dispensers on a single shaft to twirl on a triple layer of gauze.

One picture is worth a thousand worms, however, so I demand that one of the neuroscientist members of Tennis Player produce a full length movie showing this action by next Thursday right here in these pages.

I am not sure if this ties in with what you are talking about, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, maybe it is just interesting as a side note.... maybe it isn't haha

Here is my article form www.tpatennis.net

By Tom Allsopp

All great players look as though they have more time than the average player. Roger Federer looks like he is never rushed. Is this because of his technique, footwork and all round tennis excellence or can time be manipulated? Some professional athletes believe it can:

George Knudsen, a professional golfer would drive to the course at around 15mph and even started this slowing down process the evening before, for the reason of feeling like time slowing down would help his performance. From the website sportshypnosis.co.uk they state, “when a sports person creates an intense level of focus they have heightened awareness so are able to take more ‘snap-shots’ per second of real clock time, thus time can seem to slow down.”

As a coach I am looking for ways to teach advanced methods such as time manipulation without making it seem too complicated, unachievable or maybe even a little strange for the average person. I feel as though there are many things I can do as a coach to work on this without my pupils being overwhelmed. Here are a few methods that I believe can lead to at least a perceived slowing of time:

Footwork – Less is sometimes more. Every step should have a purpose. You don’t see Federer doing many movements without a purpose. Quite often he will use far fewer steps than your average club player especially when running to and from a wide shot. Therefore efficiency in the way a player moves can create more time.
Speed – This can be classed as footwork and a quick first step could be classed as reaction time but pure speed like we see from Nadal, Federer, Murray and Djorkovic is what gives these players time to hit their shots and it is not a coincidence that they are the fastest and the best in the world.
Reaction Time – The more you spend time in front of a 120mph serve for example, the more you will get used to it and the slower it will seem. Without the correct technique however, you may never be able to return it consistently.
Technique – The way you swing the racket has a lot to do with time. With lighter rackets there is a tendency to do massive swings that probably couldn’t have been achieved with wooden rackets. However, even professional players with big swings know when to shorten their swing to make them less rushed. A player such as Federer is a master at this. His ability to shorten his swing means he is rarely late for a shot, giving the appearance of extra time.

Whether time can be slowed down or not, the fact that the player feels like time has slowed down allows them to get more done or to be less rushed, just as though time had actually slowed down. My coach when I was a junior would tell me to imagine I was making a video on how to make the game look easy. If you do this for long enough you will be more relaxed and time will seem like it is slowing down. This is something I have continued with my pupils. I also ask them to give themselves a rating out of ten for how relaxed they felt on the previous shot. This gives them the feeling of not being rushed and they can therefor focus on other elements of their game. Quite often their technique will instantly improve because they are now more aware of what they are doing. It also makes it easier for myself to make changes to their technique when they slow down and take their time. The next time things are not going the way you would like, whether in practice or a match, I suggest trying this trick and you might feel like time just slowed down, allowing you to play smoother and clearing your mind by giving you something else to focus on.

There are always times in a match when things are going your way and you are playing well, and there are times in every match when you are not playing so well. Let’s say that for 30 minutes you are playing well and for 30 minutes you are playing badly throughout a 60 minute match. One would want to play 60% or more points in the time period where they are playing well and 40% or less in the time period where they are not playing so well. You see examples of this in many tennis matches. Andre Agassi played extremely fast when he had his opponent on the ropes. Many players also slow down the play when things are not going in their favor, to the point where they take bathroom breaks or dubious injury timeouts. Not only does this stop the flow of their opponent but it stops time from flying by as they start to lose. Pete Sampras after losing in his first Davis Cup final to France and Henri Leconte said, “the score just seemed to fly by”, and after talking about the noisy crowd said, “I should have asserted greater control over the situation by walking away from the service notch to wait until they calmed down. That would have represented control, and playing at my own pace.”

This sounds a lot like tactics and it definitely would be classed as tactics or maybe gamesmanship in the tennis world but in other situations it can seem like more. There are two ways to gamble using similar theories. One is when you lose money, bet more because your fortune will inevitably turn around shortly, this is called ‘chasing’ your money and that thought process can easily be linked with tennis, and is not advised for either game. The other more popular theory would be when you are on a winning streak bet more and when you are on a losing streak bet less. This is not directly linked to time as such but if everything was equal at all times then there would be no need for these theories to exist. Maybe they do not need to exist but if things do flow up and down, whether it be time speeding up or slowing down, or your fortune is in or out at different moments, learning how to manipulate time with great technique and movement as well as with tricks of the trade is important and interesting to ponder.

If you have any thoughts on this I would love to read your comments!