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The Crucial Foundation of Ash Barty's Accelerating Dominance
What an incredible effort by Ash Barty :-)
Whenever we hear Ash talk about her tennis, one thing that is clear is the incredible relationship she has with her support team.
As she talked about her victory post-match, her pride in the fact that her complete support team has remained the same since her comeback to tennis in 2018 after taking 18 months away from the game was obvious. This is incredibly rare in tennis, and almost unheard of in the womens' game.
This, above all, says a lot about Ash's loyalty, and tennis families and players can learn from it.
Listen here to her dad Rob talking to me about the pressure from outside the team for Ash to sack her coach Craig Tyzzer in 2018 when her comeback wasn't meeting some peoples' expectations...
And how Ash responded at the time.
Form vs Function
If we want to understand player match behaviour better there are 3 factors to consider.
1.) Context
Context is the situation in which the behaviour occurs. So, for example, a particular behaviour may occur only in certain match situations.
2.) Form
Form is the behaviour that we see. So, for instance, a player who gives up when losing, a player who plays poorly under pressure, or a player who acts angrily when not meeting expectations.
3.) Function
The function is the reason for the behaviour. When we look at behaviour through a functional lens we are repeatedly asking ourselves, “What is the player’s current behaviour in the service of”? “Why might it be occurring”?
When we look at match behaviour we can often see that similar forms of behaviour e.g., giving up, acting angrily…might have different functions. It’s the function that is important for us to understand if we want to help players regulate their behaviour.