Visit any tennis website or any YouTube tennis instructional video and you discover the focus is primarily on technique.  It’s about how you hit the ball.  If you were to take a computer programming class, say, in Java, you’d be essentially taught the grammar of the language.  You wouldn’t really be taught how to program even though the course title suggests you would.  To make an analogy for the non-programmers out there, imagine you took a class in “Writing Novels in French”, but they assumed you didn’t know any French, so you spend all your time learning French vocabulary and grammar, but almost no time on how to tell a good story.

The point?  Tennis is more than technique.  Tennis is also strategy.  And tennis, like many sports, is about mental toughness.  Our own beloved Essential Tennis has addressed mental toughness issues primarily because some fans asked questions about how to play the way they practice during match time.

Andy Murray recently admitted that his recent woes were mental.  This is a rare admission for a pro.  Sure, there have been pros that have been known to be head cases.  Marat Safin and Dinara Safina.  Safina, in particular, has put so much pressure for her to win that her play has precipitously declined.  To be fair, if one was that nervous playing tennis, one would probably not get to the top of the ranks.

Andy Murray’s mental issues seem easier to trace than Novak Djokovic.  Andy Murray spent December as he normally does, training in Miami.  He then skipped an early exhibition in the Middle East and then skipped Doha as well, choosing to head to Australia and play an exhibition, the Hopman Cup.  The Hopman Cup is a variation of the Davis Cup, which includes one man, one woman, playing singles, then mixed doubles.  Usually, one player might be weaker than the other, potentially significantly so, and the mixed doubles is a way for the stronger player to help the weaker one.   In this case, Murray teamed up with Brit teen phenom, Laura Robson, whose ranking, nonetheless was in the triple digits.

During the Hopman Cup, Murray looked like he was moving better than ever, and although he lost to Tommy Robredo in singles, he seemed good to go for the Australian.  And, Andy Murray reached his second Slam final.  Much like most people, most notably, Andy Roddick, Andy Murray faced Roger Federer in the finals.  Federer’s consistency overall seems to have slipped.  He’ll have surprising losses in week to week tournaments.  But in Slams, he usually proceeds in an upward crescendo.  He may not play well his first few matches, indeed, Davydenko seemed poised to upset Roger Federer, but as the Slam gets deeper, those shanks, those errors, just seem to disappear.

And so Murray, despite a game effort, couldn’t push Roger into a fourth set, and when award ceremony time game, he shed a few tears.  He said “I can cry like Roger, it’s a shame I can’t play like him” using the word “shame” as a Brit would (you can hardly imagine Andy Roddick saying this).  It seems Andy Murray took this loss a bit more than most had expected.  I was sure he was spending the days after the Australian Open training again, trying to devise a new way to beat Roger Federer.

Instead, other than an obligatory charity event, Murray didn’t even pick up a racquet for 10 days.  That loss appeared to have hit him pretty hard.  He was originally scheduled to play Marseille, having decided to skip Rotterdam the week before, where he was defending champ.  The tournament director railed against Murray for skipping Marseille and said he should be banned for not fulfilling his tournament obligations.  This brouhaha appears to have spurned him to head to Dubai, where the draw had him meeting Federer in the semis.  But Federer dropped out because of a lung infection.

Murray, for his part, won his first round, then played a tight match against Serbian journeyman, Janko Tipsarevic.  Although Murray hit his racquet on the ground after the loss, he went into the interview saying that he would normally have spent the time practicing, insinuating that the bad press he got in Marseille compelled him to show up in Dubai, an event he might have skipped as well.  He said he tried a few things out.  This upset tournament organizers who, rightly, pointed out that Dubai was an ATP 500 event, just underneath the Masters 1000.

After his early exit, Murray wouldn’t play again until Indian Wells.  To be honest, his loss in Indian Wells wasn’t so horrendous.  He lost to Robin Soderling in the quarterfinals.  True, a player with aspirations to number 1 needs to pretty much beat anybody, but Soderling has the game to bother Murray.  To be fair, it’s not like every hard hitter bothers Murray.  Murray has a good record against del Potro who has a monster serve and the biggest forehand in the game.  Murray may play passively, but he is where he is because he returns exceptionally well.

When Murray lost to Mardy Fish in 2nd round play (Murray had a bye in the first round), he pointed to Fish’s past success, rather than point to his current ranking of 101.  Many pros have the potential to play much better than their current ranking would imply, but Murray probably knew that he should have beaten Fish.  Fish knew that Murray wasn’t playing as well as he did in the Australian Open, but he didn’t care.  If Murray tripped and had to retire, Fish might have said “a victory is a victory”.

Murray blamed the loss to his head.  He said he’s been through bad patches before, and he just needed to get past this.  Murray trains in Miami and he was the defending champ, so to lose earlier than he hoped in Indian Wells and then even earlier in Miami has to be devastating.  And the tour only heads to clay after this, Murray’s weakest surface.   Murray has opted not to play Monte Carlo, the one clay event he did somewhat OK last year.

It used to be, before Murray went on his current streak of success (one can point to the summer of 2008 as the tipping point for his success) once he learned to tame his rather surly emotions.  Once upon a time, Murray would yell at himself, get upset, and not choose to fight,  Since the summer of 2008, Murray has stayed more upbeat, and has toughed out matches where he once used to give up.  Murray seems to attribute some of his issues with that negative attitude creeping back into his game.

There is, at least, some level of comprehension why Murray might be losing his matches now.  With Djokovic?  Who knows?  Djokovic may have health issues that are not well-known, e.g., asthma or some-such.  It may be something he is loathe to explain as a top player.  But he has had issues with the heat, and his share of bizarre losses.  At least, Murray’s losses tend to follow the same M.O.  He loses to big hitters.  With Djokovic?  He seems to flake out some.

In the meanwhile, Andy Murray needs to reflect on what to do next.  He might chalk up his loss to a resurgent Fish (after all, Murray did lose in the first round of the Australian Open in 2008 to an unknown, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who has since then made himself a top 10 player), but he has said his forehand is off, he’s not hitting it deep enough.   And that, he says, is a matter of confidence.