Andy Murray Wins His Inner Game And The Queens Tournament -

Well, in the on-court interview with Sue Barker after winning Queens, Andy Murray said, amongst other things, 'I took my chances' - which makes a very nice addendum to the French Open IWC Blog where he admitted that he didn't take his chances.

So can it be as simple as that?

And what does it take to take your chances?

Last weekend I was talking to a young tennis player who has spent years playing at County level in Sussex and is now off to university. He had realised that to get better results, the key improvement he needed to work on was his mental skills, but something stopped him taking action on this and he looked everywhere else but where he needed to for an answer - tweaking his technique, tactics and fitness. This inevitably led to increased frustration.

It is often easier to see symptoms and attempt a direct cure. But as Einstein said, the solution will never be found at the level of its manifestation. To me, if you drill down deep enough, the cause of our outer experiences (whether in sport or in any other aspect of our lives) is invariably our state of mind.

Sometimes people would rather not admit to themselves or anybody else that this could be the case. Perhaps they are fearful of being judged or fearful of opening up what they may feel is a daunting can of mental worms! Well, in my experience, the attic might look scary in the dark, but when you switch the light on and take it a step at a time, it's really OK.

So perhaps the most important key to achieving better performance is as simple as getting better control of our state of mind.

And what does it take? Training our mental focus means we'll be able to take more of our chances.

The Inner Game principles can help to give clarity to how we go about training our minds. We can monitor and experiment with how non-judgemental our observation of events is, where our focussed attention is when we achieve what we want, how much we trust our potential and how much responsibility we own. And practise what we discover works best for us.

Andy Murray certainly found his focus over the course of the Queens tournament, winning his Inner Game and winning every match in straight sets. This relaxed focus reduced any internal interference and allowed him (and the spectators) to enjoy seeing the unfolding of his potential. Arguably his clear trust in his ability is the backbone to his world-class results which shows in his tenacity when the chips are down - the mark of all great sports achievers.


Pete*