WELCOME TO OUR FREE ARTICLES, VIDEOS, AND RESOURCES

What an epic...

5hr and 9min of great competing...Ups and downs...Twists and turns...And finally an incredible chip passing shot by the Grand Slam specialist Wawrinka to pronounce his return as a serious Slam threat.

Its a shame there had to be a loser in this one. But above all, simply seeing the last point, hearing the crowd's roar, and feeling the emotion of the embrace that followed tells us all we need to about why tennis is the greatest game of all...And why we love it so much :-)

It also reminds us of the key performance values that we should connect with before we step onto the court for practice or matches...Let's listen to how Wawrinka and Tsitsipas described what they valued most when reflecting on the match:

On Striving to Win:

Wawrinka: "That's the reason why I still play tennis, and that's the reason why I'm practising every day, to try to win big matches like this."

Tsitsipas: "We both struggled, we both went beyond our limits, we both experienced luck...

What a match!

With the 1^st set in the bag Federer stepped it up to play a sublime 2^ndset and looked like he had Wawrinka’s measure.

But early in the 3^rdtwo things happened in quick succession that conspired to trigger Federer to tighten…

He found himself on the doorstep of a highly unexpected Slam final at the same time as Wawrinka was struggling with a tweaked knee and looked on the edge of folding.

In next to no time the comfort of a 2 sets to 0 lead and having Wawrinka down 0-30 on serve early in the third, switched to high pressure after missing that chance plus playing a loose game to lose serve and go down a break.

Suddenly Wawrinka was free-wheeling it and Federer had the huge pressure of trying to finish a match that he had in his control just a few minutes earlier along with the added pressure of playing an injured opponent.

And With This Came The Nerves…

Federer reported in his post match interview with Jim Courier, “What can I...

1.) What To Do: Players should fight hardest when their opponent is trying to finish them off, because it’s more likely that they’ll play poorly at this time

It was a Major tournament master and a potential future star that taught us this huge competitive lesson to begin…

While so often players tap out and fold meekly when it gets time for their opponents to serve for the match (or close to it) champion veteran Stan Wawrinka and 17 year-old newcomer Alex De Minaur got tough at the right time and reaped the rewards.

For Wawrinka, down 4-3 40-15 in the 5^thagainst a rampant Martin Klizan, the reward was a 6-4 in the 5^thvictory. And his post match quote summed up the importance of fighting till the end when not playing your best, “Wasn't my best tennis today, but was fighting, trying to stay in the game, fighting a lot.”

For De Minaur, looking gone at 2 sets to 1 and 5-2 down in the 4^th, he seemed to harness memories of Lleyton Hewitt at the...

That was another incredible big match performance by Stan Wawrinka to claim his 3rd Grand Slam and 11th finals victory in a row. Interestingly, it came after what he described as being the most nervous he has ever been before a match...

I found his candour regarding his pre-match nerves refreshing. Here's what he said in his post-match interview:

"Today, before the final, I was really nervous like never before. I was shaking in the locker. When we start five minutes before the match talking, last few things with Magnus, I start to cry. I was completely shaking...I was also -- because I don't want to lose the final in a Grand Slam. That simple. That's the only reason....The pressure, I was feeling amazing after the semifinal. I was feeling great yesterday. Really happy. But this morning it start to be there, the feeling of you don't want to lose. I don't want to come to the court and lose a final. So close, so far."

The reason players almost always feel nervous before...

When Novak Djokovic lost to Stan Wawrinka in the final of the French Open last year, I wrote this in my post-match review:

“His (Djokovic’s) efforts strongly indicate that his march towards becoming a master competitor is complete…Quite simply, his ability to maintain consistent competitive effort throughout the challenges of both his semi-final (in which he beat Murray in 5 sets) and final was hugely impressive…With the histrionics and hitches that were a feature of his early career play becoming almost nonexistent, unless players can repeat Wawrinka’s incredible level, it looks likely to become a Slam fest for Djokovic in the coming years.”

Funnily enough, it was the way Djokovic lostthat convinced me that he had overcome the final barrier (his occasional low stress tolerance) to becoming virtually unbeatable in the Slams…

And He Has Improved Since Then…

To understand how far Djokovic has raised the bar, anyone...