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A commonly understood philosophy among emergency responders (Police, Fire, and EMT personnel) is that one generally won’t rise to the occasion, but will actually fall to the level of their training.

Tennis is a game of emergencies!

Your opponent, if they are at all skilled, will try their level best to present you with situations that surprise you and/or unbalance you, in their effort to win points.

Only the skills and responses that are fully integrated through purposeful and focused repetition are the skills and responses that are to be depended upon in a tennis match.

You have limited practice time as an adult tennis player, considering work and family issues requiring the better part of each day, so to raise your level of play you really need to zero in on and polish the skills and recreate situations that tend to crack or cause panic under match pressure.

The more times you have practiced a situation the more permutations of that situation you will have experienced and the less likely you will be to overreact or freeze as the case may be.

Do you logically weigh your course of action and adaptation during the heat of battle, or are you of the, “well maybe if I just try harder,” school of thought?

Do the work so you can enjoy the play! Fill your toolbox with reliable tools that are easily accessible to you and then practice choosing and executing the use of those tools in pressure situations until you respond automatically in the most logical manner for the situation at hand.

Tennis is a game of emergencies as I said earlier, so make sure your practices reflect the concept held as truth by first responders and train until you own it!

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Howie Burnett is a member of the United States Professional Tennis Association and tennis director at the Island Country Club on Marco Island. Burnett welcomes questions on strokes, tactics or etiquette. To reach him, call the tennis shop at 394-4464 or e-mail him at islandclubtennis@hotmail.com.