“Tennis is a battle if minds, just as much as it is a battle of playing ability. Trying to expose your opponent’s weakness is one of the most vital and fascinating facets of tennis.”
SUE BARKER.
“It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one, than to have an opportunity and not be prepared for it.”
WHITNEY YOUNG Jr.
SWOT is an acronym for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats. It is a business tool and a framework for analyzing your strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats you are likely to face. The same tool can be applied in Tennis and it has great relevance both during training and competition.
Carrying out a SWOT Analysis is a good way to train. It helps you understand your strengths and weaknesses and thereby setup training programs that will focus on accentuating strengths and eliminate weaknesses. During competition it is a great way to know where you stand vis-à-vis your opponent. Carrying out this analysis will often be revealing - both in terms of knowing what needs to be done, and in putting potential threats and problems into perspective. Understanding the opportunities and threats you may encounter is a great way to develop an effective game plan for a match. This will help you to focus on your strengths, minimize weaknesses, and take the greatest possible advantage of opportunities that may come your way.
Strengths:
Every player has certain resources and capabilities and it is important to understand the following: -
What advantages do you have?
What do you do well?
What relevant resources do you have access to?
What do other people see as your strengths?
For example. your strengths could be the following:-
Forehand, dependable second serve, Physical endurance etc.
Weaknesses
On the converse the absence of certain strengths may be viewed as a weakness and it would be productive to understand the following: -
What could you improve?
What do you do badly?
What should you avoid?
For example, your weaknesses could be the following: -
Shaky second serve, Backhand passing shot, inability to sustain a rally on a clay court.
Opportunities
An analysis of your opponent and the external environment may reveal certain opportunities for you to capitalize. For example if my opponent has a shaky volley and is really uncomfortable at the net, it presents an opportunity for me to capitalize. If my opponent has a weak backhand passing shot, I would try to give him more opportunities to make mistakes on the backhand pass.
Threats
An analysis of your opponent and the external environment will also reveal potential threats that you might have to face in a match situation. For example if my opponent has a great forehand passing shot, I would not risk approaching the net on his forehand side on an important point.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors. Opportunities and threats are external factors. Understanding this is the first step to planning and to develop a training plan or a match profile and a game plan. As the saying goes “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.
A useful approach to looking at opportunities is to look at your strengths and ask yourself whether these open up any opportunities. Alternatively, look at your weaknesses and ask yourself whether you could open up opportunities by eliminating them.
While doing a SWOT here are a few simple rules to follow: -
- Be realistic about your own strengths and weaknesses and the strengths and weaknesses of your competition. SWOT sometimes can be prejudiced and therefore it helps to get an opinion from someone whose advice you value and whose opinion you can trust.
- For training purposes, analysis should distinguish between where you are today, and where you want to be in the future (Goal setting).
- Be as specific as possible. Avoid grey areas.
- Be honest in your analysis. It is good to confront truths as early as possible, however unpleasant they may be.
• During competition, always analyze in relation to your competition i.e. better than or worse than your competition
• Keep your analysis short and simple. Avoid complexity and over analysis.
I like to tell my students “Don’t go there and be a swatter or a mindless player. Instead be a SWOTer”. Use SWOT as a guide, the benefits is immense.
