John McEnroe threw temper tantrums, Novak Djokovic, before he became a dominant ATP player, would to bounce the ball 50 times before hitting a serve. And Andy Murray complained that Stefanos Tsitsipas gained an unfair advantage over him after taking multiple lengthy bathroom and medical breaks during their 5-hour match at the 2021 US Open. These are all tactical tricks used to weaken the opponent’s state of mind and influence the outcome of the match.  In tournaments, all players must contend against mind games. Common mind games include:

- Not hitting first serves during the 5-minute match warm-up. This delays how long you get used to your opponent’s serve.

- Taking a bathroom break or an injury timeout when you have the match lead. This is common on the pro tour as well. It was even depicted in the movie King Richard, when Serena had a lead and her opponent took an extra long bathroom break (although the bathroom break for that match was not factual).

- Tennis etiquette dictates you should feed the ball over to your opponent if they’re serving. Some players feed the ball away from you, just to mess with you.

- You are about to serve, and your opponent holds their hand up, interrupting your serve process. This can happen naturally if you’re rushing the receiver. But sometimes players do that intentionally to break the server’s rhythm.

- Taking extra long between points. When there is no chair umpire or, there is one but the umpire doesn’t enforce the 20 second rule between points, your opponent may take 30 to 40 seconds to start the next point. This can be tough on you because you might have trouble finding a good match rhythm. This happened to me once at the final of an ATP Challenger wild card tournament in Hawaii. My opponent was taking about 30 seconds between points, having me wait for every point. I lost the first set 6-4, couldn’t find any rhythm.  To counteract this, I tried to do something different – I took longer than my opponent. So, when he took 30 seconds, I made him wait an extra 5 seconds. He was thrown off and I won the following two sets 6-1, 6-0.

- Asking for the score during game point when you’re about to serve or receive. This affected me a lot because I wouldn’t take the time to get my mind back into point mode.

There are plenty of things your competitors will do to rattle you and throw you out of your element. Your job is to find ways to stay in your element despite the little or big things they do to break your A-game. The first thing you must do is accept that these things happen. You have no control over your opponent’s actions. You can only control how you act and react. One thing I learned, is that I had to stay in charge of my actions, even if I had to adapt to waiting for a long bathroom break.

If you apply two ideas, your opponent’s mind games won’t affect you: First, don’t resist the things you can’t control. Resistance is letting yourself get frustrated by their actions. Let it go. Second, remain in a state of flow. Your focus is the valuable resource that allows you to play the way you want.