I played the first round of a tennis tournament this evening, in the 3.0 Men's Singles division. The end of the first set saw me with a big fat 0 on the scoreboard. I had lost all six of the games in the set. For the most part, it was my fault; of all the points I lost, nearly all of them were unforced errors on my part. Which isn't really fair to my opponent, because his play definitely contributed to the errors I made. To say I was disappointed, disgusted even, would be an understatement. 

As I sat on the bench during the set break contemplating what I needed to do for the next set, I just reminded myself, "every point is a new point." This is something I've been telling myself for years on the court. You can't do anything about the points you've already played, all you can do is focus on the point you are playing right now.

Learn from the earlier points?  Yes. Dwell on them and wish you had hit that shot better? No, absolutely not.

I play tennis for fun and exercise. Sure I like to win, and every time I step on the court my goal is to win. To play as hard and as smart as I can. My purpose for playing, though, is not to win but, as I said, to have fun and get some exercise. And at our level, it is as much about socializing with your team mates and opponents after the match as it is actually playing.

In case you are wondering, this story does not have the come from behind happy ending you (and I) might have liked. After getting ahead 4-1 in the second set, I ended up losing the set 5-7 and hence the match. While we talking after the match, my opponent mentioned some of the things I had done well during that second set and how he had to adjust his play to accommodate.

He, too, apparently played each point as a new point.

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In his commencement speech at Dartmouth last year, Roger Federer included some thoughts along these lines, noting that despite having won 80% of his matches in his career, he won only 54% of the points he played in those matches.

"It's only a point."

The video of his address is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqWUuYTcG-o

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Cheers,