The Mind of the Baseliner--
And How to Transform It
Jeff Greenwald, M.A, M.F.T.
Last month I wrote about my decision to incorporate more net play into my baseline game, and how that helped me win the most recent ITF Senior World Championship. (Click Here) Now in this article, I want to elaborate on the mental and emotional processes that were critical in that transition.
It’s commonplace for coaches to urge players at all levels to attack the net more. But in all honesty how often do players make that happen?
There are reasons why it doesn’t and I had to face them too. Primarily it has to do with a player’s mindset. The mindset explains why players play the way they do, the satisfaction they get from their games, and the inherent obstacles that prevent real change from happening.
This is a story about the mindset that drove my game for 30 years—what I call the mind of the baseliner. If we understand the mind of the baseliner we can understand why so many players resist the advice to add attack to their game. It’s true at the tour all the way down to the 3.0 club level.
Actual Change
This is also the story of how I changed that mindset. It’s the story of the challenging mental process I went through in doing this--committing to, incorporating, and following through with this addition to my game in high level competitive tennis.
My hope is that this process and change is something players at all levels can aspire to should they choose a similar path. But actually it would apply to any fundamental change in your game. The primary obstacle is always mental.
For me, key was to find a new kind of satisfaction in the way I won points and to redefine what I loved about competitive tennis. Without this change in mindset, I would not have stayed committed to the process.
I am also very pleased that this article is being published in conjunction with two related articles on adding attacking tennis to your game from my collaborators in my own process of change, top Marin county California coaches Paul Cohen and Rod Heckleman.
Paul’s article presents the steps for developing or improving your forehand volley—something I quickly realized would be critical if I was going to believe that I could truly get the job done once I was at the net. (Click Here.)
Rod’s article details the equally critical improvements in my footwork, as well the progressive drills and practice games I used for a period of weeks to assimilate opportunity attacking into actual competitive play. (Click Here.)
So far as I know this is the only multi-dimensional presentation of its kind, put together by John Yandell, in yet another in a long line of Tennisplayer firsts. I look forward to hearing what you think about our trilogy of articles in the Forum!
The Start
So how and when did I decide to change from an almost pure baseliner into a player who also was able to attack the net, and to do this successfully under high level competitive pressure?
That decision came in one moment, during the third set of the semifinals in a previous national senior tournament. I was sitting on the sidelines in serious pain, getting treated for multiple cramps in my legs.
At that moment, my mind flashed back to the meeting I had had a few weeks before with coach Paul Cohen, a meeting that I described in the first article. (Click Here.)
If you didn’t read the article, it was an unusual meeting to say the least. Having watched one of my practice matches, Paul walked up and told me point blank I was playing some of the dumbest tennis he had ever seen.
With my game—and he said it as a compliment--I should be closing the net "all the time." At the time, I was amused and intrigued. What type of person says something like that after meeting you for the first time? Someone who has something to say and calls it how he sees it, I assumed.
Flash forward to a few weeks later and that national semifinal, when, writhing in pain in another brutal baseline match, it occurred to me that Cohen might have a point. When I returned to California I got in touch with Paul, and so the process began.
The Irony
It is ironic that, as a sports psychology consultant and therapist, I am in the business of change. I have helped hundreds of players, including many high level USTA juniors and tour pros to play more fearless tennis, to play looser, to believe in themselves and their games, and to win more.
But now, I was considering going out of my comfort zone in a totally different way. Up to this point I had never considered adding a net attack dimension.
To do this I needed to shift the mind of the baseliner. But I really enjoyed dictating points from the baseline. What would changing my tactical style do to my mentality in matches? Would it interfere with the automatic, instinctive responses that I had honed for years?
Could I find the motivation to make this change? Would I find real satisfaction in attacking the net as opposed to dictating from the back? In retrospect, these were the critical questions.
Ego
To understand how I answered them, it’s important to understand more about the mind of the baseliner and how that formed the foundation of my sense of self as a competitive player.
I had learned all the parts of the game as a junior--groundies, serve, volleys--the same way most players do in the beginning. But the fact is that I never tried to put the pieces together in my match play—and never wanted to.
As I said in the first article, my father tried to encourage me to "just get the hell in" and finish points at the net. But how could I believe in a tactic that I didn’t understand, didn’t practice, but should somehow implement it with a match on the line?
That’s what I told myself anyway. But there was a deeper reason. That reason was that my identity as a player was tied to the baseliner mentality.
The truth was I found it very gratifying to slug ball after ball. My style in the juniors and on into college was to anchor myself on the baseline, try never to miss, and run like a roadrunner.
I got used to the physical warfare and learned to relish it. There was a sense of control and comfort associated with pushing other players around and eventually grinding many of them into submission.
Serving an ace, in contrast, just never delivered the satisfaction that a hard earned backcourt did. Strange as it seems, I can admit now there were times I would even kick my first serve in just get the point started. This was because I was so excited to get into that kind of slug fest.
There was intensity and drama in a good baseline rally that forced me to engage and dig in from the first ball. As the rally length increased, so did my adrenaline.
I loved the intensity of twelve ball rallies that had me stretched or on the run. There were times I actually felt somewhat disappointed when the point was over--again as crazy as that may sound.
As my game developed, I typically knew exactly where I was going to hit the ball before it even landed on my side of the court. Based on experience, where my opponent was hitting and what I could see off his racquet, I developed good anticipation.
This was accompanied by a visual image of where I was going to go with the next hit. This process became so natural that it happened automatically.
Some people said that I was very fast on my feet--and I believe that was true. But there was much more going on in the way I played my matches.
Anticipating my opponent’s shot and knowing my response created a comfort level. It created predictability.
This had the huge additional benefit of reducing cognitive "chatter" and indecision. All players like to control what happens on the court. My game style gave me that feeing.
In many matches, I firmly believed that if I could force the other player to play my type of game I would win. In contrast, when I thought about it, an attacking game always looked risky and unpredictable.
Shot Tolerance
By nature, the baseliner’s shot patterns are relatively fixed. This creates a certain built-in rigidity. The fact is that playing from the baseline keeps the possibilities limited and manageable.
Many seasoned tennis professionals understand the concept of shot tolerance. (Click Here to read Elliot Teltscher’s classic explanation.) Some players have a lot of tolerance and some have much less. I prided myself on having a higher tolerance than most of my opponents.
My goal was to create exchanges where I never felt rushed, where I controlled the rhythm of the exchanges, exchanges that made my opponent as uncomfortable as possible, physically but also mentally.
I found this to be an exciting way to play. I enjoyed imposing my game on the other player, and knew that when I could do this, I had a very good chance of winning. It was a similar mentality to players like Rafael Nadal or Bjorn Borg.
I knew who I was on the court and felt very comfortable in the heat of battle. And this mentality was producing enough competitive success to prevent me from entertaining anything drastically different. All in all there was a significant emotional payoff in the game that I had developed and was very attached to.
Evolution
Around the time I turned 35, when I won my first ITF World Championship, my game morphed into a more aggressive version of itself. The primary change I added was a new emphasis on trying to dominate with my forehand and be more aggressive with my backhand as much as possible.
I also started loosening up my arm and was serving a bit bigger. But I still avoided the net like the plague.
The essence of my game was still a rally battle. My goal was still not to miss and to move my opponent around and force errors. It was just that I also looked to create opportunities to hit more winners. My rallies were often still over ten balls, sometimes longer to win a point.
I tried to hit two thirds of all balls with my forehand. I would go inside out to inflict damage and then, when possible, use my down the line off each wing or my inside in forehand to draw blood or win the point outright.
I trained to get better at these forcing shots and combinations of shots. I worked on having the courage to go for them even if I felt a bit hesitant or nervous.
These additions helped me win some matches more easily. But in many cases I still found players were less consistent than I was and would miss before I had to pull out my "point ending" deliveries.
These additions only strengthened my baseline mentality. As a baseliner, I didn’t need to worry about which ball to come in on.
I was tucked into a comfort zone, running and hitting on the baseline horizontal, a game that required little thought, just visuals, instinct, cardio, and the courage to go for big groundstrokes at the right time.
Volleys weren’t even on the radar. I couldn’t see the sense in changing from my basic heavy topspin to slice approach shots—the shot I had also been told preceded the volley.
But in retrospect I realize that, to the extent I even considered the idea, the reality was I simply couldn’t afford the cognitive risk associated with trying to close the net.
The Transition
And that takes us back to the decision point--cramping badly in the semifinals of a national event. Sometimes you need a certain level of pain to make a major change.
I realized that my game had hit a wall. As I continued to get older, I would need to do something different to continue to maintain my level and sustain my results.
As hard as it was to admit, I decided maybe my father was right. I was leaving too much on the table after I hit a penetrating groundstroke.
So, I forged ahead and started working with Paul. Cohen’s concept was simple. Take advantage of my forehand. When I had hurt my opponent with velocity, depth or when I had opened the court, I should move forward and finish the point.
As I noted in the first article, Cohen believed that a huge percentage of balls in most matches were actually short and therefore potentially attackable. His advice was to learn to recognize these balls and pound them with my best shot, my forehand.
Having already moved up into the court on a short ball, I would in most cases be able to close tightly enough to end the point with just one volley or an overhead. Many volleys, Cohen explained, could be hit away easily with short angles.
For me this was a whole new approach to the net, because I would be able to use my best shot and the shot I was most comfortable with to start the attacking sequence. This was much more appealing than thinking about learning multiple volley sequences that began with traditional slice approaches.
Still, when Paul Cohen had me at the net angling volleys like a beginner, I thought, "You've got to be kidding. What the hell I am doing?"
Yet as we got into working on this strategy, it became apparent that one of the reasons I had been reluctant to come to the net in the past was the quality of my volleys, especially on the forehand side.
Very quickly, with Cohen critiquing every micro-movement, I began to see that there was value in really knowing how to volley. And I realized I never had really mastered the shot.
As my technique improved, I gained confidence as I hit volley after volley for clear winners in Cohen’s drills. Gradually I began to see the natural opportunities to get in and how to exploit them.
This was the process that I continued with my other coach/collaborator, Rod Heckelman, the general manager at the famed Marin County Mt. Tam Racquet Club. Rod quickly diagnosed that another major piece of the puzzle was my transition footwork.
In addition to giving me more approach repetitions, we worked on my split step in the mid court, establishing balance, and then breaking to ball to hit my improved volleys.
I found that all this required a slightly more explosive movement toward the net compared to the horizontal footwork pattern that I’d gotten used to. However, in the end, exploding toward the net and finishing points off sooner required far less stamina than longer rallies.
Working with Rod, we developed this forward movement pattern as part of drills that ended with me finishing off the point with an angle volley or an angled overhead. We also developed a series of competitive drill/games and set up certain types of matches to make the transition to tournament play in progressive stages.
I needed to pay more attention to see how short my opponent's shots landed on my side to make my decision to get in. This was challenging because it required me to be more cognizant of my strategic intention. Over time recognizing the shot to attack started to feel nearly as automatic and effortless as a groundstroke rally ball.
Dealing with the Baseliner Mind
These were all critical improvements. But, what about the most important piece—dealing with the mind of a career baseliner?
This is where my own experience in coaching the mental game played a huge part. I knew that I had to open myself to a new and different experience, not only of playing points, but of how I enjoyed playing them.
One key was to be aware of not exerting too much effort on the attack ball or tensing up once I recognized the ball I wanted. With my knowledge about how to stay loose and focused at the same time I was able to do this without too much trouble.
So I began to consciously let go of my rigid baseline mentality. As I did I started to love the moment I recognized a short ball that I could pound and follow in.
I began to take real pride in being a more complete player. Finishing off the point at net actually began to feel more dominant than a tough baseline point.
Once you realize the enormous benefit of taking time away from your opponent and see him rushing to try to pass, attacking the net starts to feel powerful and very dynamic. With the mid-court transition area no longer so foreign, I felt I could use the entire court for the first time in my life.
When I saw opponents stiffen up, I began to feel a different but equally gratifying sense of control. The pressure for me to build a point exclusively from the baseline was now gone. All and all I found having the attacking option to be much more fun than my former more one-dimensional style.
I realized that not having to grind and work as much to dictate with my forehand from the backcourt would help me physically in tough matches, and reduce the chance of repeating that cramping experience.
This was all accomplished in under eight weeks before the World Championships. As I wrote in the first article, it paid off in a major international senior title.
Certainly, it was a dramatic shift. But it also felt like a choice.
As a player you have to truly want to expand your game. This also means accepting that you will get passed and you will miss some volleys.
But if it’s the right choice for you then these are challenge you can embrace, rather than second guessing your decision to add opportunity attacking to your game. Remember, it isn’t all or nothing. It’s an added weapon in the arsenal and you can use it as much or as little as you like.
I think it's actually possible to be a very good player but never really understand the game very well at all. If you are a good athlete, train hard and have the good fortune of being physically fit you can do very well. But after developing an opportunity attacking game, I realized I might have done considerably better in my career if I had come to same conclusion sooner.
I had always known that my personality was not as conservative as the game I had played all my life. It was exciting to feel that attacking the net at the right time actually reflected my real personality much more closely.
In the end, all changes we make on or off the court require conviction. You have to be curious. You have to commit to the learning process and be willing to accept challenge.
Ultimately, these values are more important and more gratifying than winning. The result actually needs to become secondary to executing your vision and mission out there. The irony of course is that this approach leads to more wins anyway.
I believe when you are clear about how you want to play--regardless of the nerves or possible short-term defeat—you will enjoy the game more. I hope my experience shows that it’s never too late to play the best tennis of your life.
