Nobody overthinks quite like a tennis player.
Not the girl rereading a text to her crush for the fifth time. Not the friend group debating whether to camp out for Gators men’s basketball tickets. Not even the group chat deciding what to wear tonight. Nope. Speaking as a tennis player, we take the crown. By a landslide.
Before the point even starts, a tennis player’s brain is already running a highlight reel of possibilities. First serve wide. Keep your racket face closed on your backhand. Who’s that guy in the third row? Stop thinking about the cute guy in the third row.
Then, the point begins, and instead of going quiet, the mind dials in more — like an overcaffeinated sports announcer inside your head. Hit with bigger margins. Move your feet. Who is that guy?
It’s no secret tennis is a mental game. As tennis legend Novak Djokovic once said in his book, “Serve to Win,” “The game looks like it takes place between the lines on the court, but it really takes place between your ears.” Regarded as one of the greatest mental competitors in tennis history — and the man with a world-leading 24 Grand Slam titles — he would know the power of the mind when playing.
The structure of tennis gives you time to think. There’s 25 seconds between points and 90-second changeovers (where players sit down, towel off and reset before swapping ends of the court). The time spent actually playing tennis is roughly one-fifth of a match. This leaves the rest of the time for the other match — the one happening in your mind.
College tennis lives in these moments. The no-ad “golden” deuce points, the privilege of clinching a point for the whole team, crowds heckling from the sideline.
Two weeks ago, during our match at North Carolina State on Jan. 27, I got my official welcome to the heckling world of SEC tennis. A group of fans set up camp behind my court and treated my final set like Saturday open-mic night — commenting on my line calls and trying anything to break my concentration. My challenge became conquering the opponent in my head and behind me, rather than the opponent across the net.
In college tennis, the noise is part of the match. So how do players control it?
Freshman Gators tennis player Lucie Pawlak has a few methods.
Fresh off of the plane from France, the Montpellier native had one of the biggest wins of her career in November, taking down the No. 1 player in the country in a third-set tiebreaker. She didn’t even realize it at the time because she wasn’t thinking about rankings or headlines. She was just thinking about playing the next ball fearlessly.
On changeovers, Pawlak sits down and pulls a towel over her head. If you didn’t know better, you might think she’s hiding, taking a quick nap or cursing herself out in French. She’s not. With her eyes closed, she’s picturing the exact points she wants to play — visualizing herself playing her game.
Between points, she talks to herself.
“I usually say, ‘You can do it. I believe in you,’” she said.
She repeats those phrases 30 or 40 times a match, keeping her mind focused on the game and blocking out the noise.
Former UF men’s tennis coach Bryan Shelton, who led the Gators to the program’s first national championship title in 2021, said the belief component of tennis is the most important.
“If [players] have that belief in themselves, and they walk out there with that, that’s the secret weapon,” Shelton said.
Before my own matches, I have my own mental routine. I’ll sit in a quiet corner, close my eyes, and picture the exact points and patterns I want to play. Then, by the time I walk on court, my patterns feel as though I’ve already played them.
Like Pawlak, I’ll repeat key phrases in my head after every point — small cues to anchor my thoughts. When nerves creep in or a tense moment arrives, those phrases give my mind somewhere familiar and steady to land.
The mental game of tennis doesn’t have to be an adversary after all. It’s a muscle you train, and when it’s strong, it becomes less of an opponent, and more like a secret weapon you carry onto the court.
Contact India Houghton at ihoughton@alligator.org. Follow her on X @indiahoughton16.
India Houghton is a graduate student studying Business Management and a member of the UF women’s tennis team. She is the sports opinion columnist for The Alligator. A Northern California native, India completed her undergraduate studies at Stanford University in Science, Technology and Society, competing for the Cardinal women’s tennis team. She enjoys playing the piano, taking ice baths, and rooting for her hometown 49ers.
