Superstitions in Tennis
Tennis players, with their speed and agility, also have the ability to work out what their opponent might be doing five moves from theirs and the other possible moves to their countermoves. Tennis players are amazing sportsmen and sportswomen. However, the clinical mindset it takes to dissect the moves of your opponent has room as well for silly superstitions. Almost every player has them. People have seen them throughout many tennis tournaments, and probably will see them again during the up and coming Autralian Open. Tennis players, even famous ones, are not inured to routines and habits that have become a part of their superstitions.
During his games, Andre Agassi must make the ball boys and ball girls be in the original place they were before he serves. If that means he asks them to go back, he will do it. In a whole tournament, one of the Williams sisters, Serena, will actually wear the same pair of socks. Not copies of the same kind, but the same stinky sweat ridden pair soaked in sweat from numerous matches. Other famous female tennis players have their share of superstitions. Hennin-Hardenne would never ever put her feet on tennis lines between points. Allegedly, this habit has toned down now from her usual ferocity in keeping up her superstition.
What is the point of such superstitions? Mostly it’s a mental one. If a player thinks they have an advantage by doing some strange and often dumb looking (or smelling if you’re Serena Williams’s socks), then that player will play like they have an advantage. It’s a kind of self-imposed psychological trick. The other reason superstitions work is it makes a brain get some focus which is critical for a match. Tennis is a detail-orientated sport: a player must be focused on the ball pin ponging around the court and following through on a swing and a million other things. If having the ball boys out of place distracts you, you will also be off your game. Therefore, it is better almost to have a superstition that eliminates such distractions, It isn’t really so much a superstition either as a means to increase the mental aspect of a player’s game.
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