StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - The Tennis Brain: Strategy, Analytics, Mental Game

Episode Date: September 6, 2018

Hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly investigate tennis brain and the strategy, analytics, and neuroscience that make it work alongside tennis strategy analyst Craig O’Shannessy, sport psychologist Leslie Sherlin, and professional tennis coach Sarah Stone. Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Please subscribe to our channels on:Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360 TuneIn: https://tunein.com/podcasts/Science-Podcasts/Playing-with-Science-p952100/ GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjq SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-science Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-science NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/the-tennis-brain-strategy-analytics-mental-game/Photo Credit: Ben Ratner. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And this is Playing With Science. Long gone are the days of wooden rackets. Ah, Roscoe Tanner, Borg versus McEnroe. Things were, well, rather analog. Oh man, I miss those days. But you know what?

It's a new age, a digital age, if you will. And if you don't train your brain, you ain't got no game. Did you like that? I did. Yeah. And if you ain't got no stats, guess what? Where are you? Yeah, why are you here?

It's exactly it. It's about pattern recognition and finding your zone. How quickly can you dial it up? How quickly can you dial it back down again? Absolutely right. And joining us today will be tennis strategist and analyst Craig O'Shaughnessy, as well as sports psychologist and mental performance consultant Leslie Sherlin. We'll also hear from coach Sarah Stone, who currently works with Serbia's number one ranked female player,

Aleksandra Krunic. So put down your rackets and pay attention, please. But joining us first is tennis strategist and expert Craig O'Shaughnessy. He's the number one tennis strategist analyst in the world. He's coached on tour for 20 years. He created BrainGameTennis.com. And actually, he's the lead tennis analyst for the New York Times. Craig, welcome to the show. Yeah, welcome. I've just arrived in New York. It's great to be here.

Looking forward to an amazing U.S. Open. Oh, that's right. That's why you're here. Of course. By the way, love the Open. Can you please get me some tickets? Get me in there. I'm joking. He's not joking, Matt. Don't encourage him. Craig, I'm really not joking, but I am joking. You know what I'm saying. You know, it's kind of like when you ask a girl if you want her to sleep with you and you're like, I mean, I'm joking. I mean, unless you're into that. So anyway.

So much of your personal life comes out in the show. I know. Hey, man, let me just say this. It is such a pleasure to watch you when you're doing the analyst for the Open or for Wimbledon or for the French, or it doesn't make a difference. You're so enthusiastic. Can you give us a back story about how you came to be, Craig O'Shaughnessy, the greatest tennis analyst in the world?

You're working on those tickets, aren't you? Yeah, I'm working on those tickets. Yeah, you're doing a good job of that, by the way. I think it goes back to when I was a kid. I grew up in Albury, Australia, a rural country place, but it's a hotbed of tennis. There's 200 grass courts within 100 kilometers or 60 miles. Tennis everywhere.

So the club I grew up had 25 grass courts. The club over the road, just know, just a couple of miles down, 30 grass courts. And all I did as a kid was, was play. You know, I'd get on my bike after school and go home and go to the courts and play until it got dark. And, um, I should have, I really wish I should have taken some tennis lessons to refine my technique.

Um, but it just wasn't something the kids did back then. We just went and played. So I was very heavy on playing sets, therefore the strategy of the game, what matters to winning and losing. I think, you know, these days while most kids may play, you know, 50 or 60 matches a year or 80 matches a year, whatever, you know, we're playing 300 or 400 plus all the practice sets. So I was just so heavy onto the strategy side of it,

and I greatly enjoyed that. I never really wanted to practice. We'd rock up to the courts and say, why warm up? Let's just go and start our point. So from a young age, I loved to compete, and I loved the strategy of the sport. So with the strategy, now you've got that big ally called Big Data. When did Big Data start to really get a hold on the sport of tennis for you?

Okay, so from 1991 backwards, there is no data was ever collected in tennis. So the first year was 1991. So you want to look back at the 1981 Borg-McEnroe final. There is no analytics whatsoever that exists. You've got to go and find the match and do it yourself. So from 1991 to 2002, there was primitive data in our sport. You know, it was very, it was 10 line items. That's about it.

From 2002 onwards, it was what we call rich data. And then I got involved in the research of it in 2015. Right. And it was at the Australian Open in 2015 where I really moved from saying you know I've I've gone through this period of my life where I've coached on the court I've coached on a tour I I really enjoyed writing I have a journalism degree I hate math but I understand that math you know that why I'm into it so much is that it distinguishes between the patterns of play. Is it better to fall into a backhand?

Is it better to serve wide or go down the tee? Is it better to step in or return or step back? Is it better to go to the net or stay at the baseline? So in our coaching industry, we've only had to guess. And once I saw all this data, I'm like, we don't need to guess anymore. We've got some really good data. And I looked at it differently and I started taking my own stuff and then – and it evolved from then. But really, Moneyball in tennis, you know, there's really good data in tennis.

It's only 2015 onwards. It's very recent in our sport. Only 2015 onwards, it's very recent in our sport, and I greatly enjoy all the work that I do to help improve the practice court primarily. Let's put the match court first. Traditionally in our sport, we go on practice, we think we're doing the right thing, we think hitting a million balls back and forth, forehands and backhands is a good deal, but then you go and look at a match and you look at the analytics and it matters very little.

So my main role is all over the world globally is to help improve the practice court, help coaches, empower them with this data so that the kids can be practicing on the things that matter in their competition. So when you're developing strategy, do you start with the player or do you start with a platform upon which all players rest for a strategy? Always start with a platform. You know, it's a great question because the beauty of our sport is there's a lot of different ways to be successful. You can be 6'9", like Kevin Anderson, or you can be 5'9", like Diego Schwartzman,

you know, both in the top 15 in the world. You can be left-handed, right-handed. You can come forward a lot. You can stay back and never come in. You need tons of spin or no spin. So that's a real advantage of our sport is a lot of the different playing styles. But in saying that, there are underlying analytics that apply to everyone that you can't escape and so you start with those analytics you understand what they are

you understand that the number one player in the world each year is going to take a 50 50 battle tip it up to 55 you're number one in the world the The top 10 average winning only 53% of their points. The number 20 guy in the world averages 50%. So it doesn't matter your style. That's just how our sport is organized. And in some ways, it doesn't matter whether it's two men playing at the U.S. Open or two women or two juniors or two kangaroos playing on the dark side of the moon. It's still going to produce the same amount of analytics.

By the way, can you get me tickets to that kangaroo match too? We are on StarTalk. I wanted to go. Don't encourage him because he'll only sell them on. I'm just thinking now, so when you get strategy, you've got basically taking the doubles out of this conversation temporarily, you've got a one-on-one situation. This is kind of like chess, but it's not as simple as me setting you up. There must be a whole raft of standard strategies that you go through.

Or have I got that wrong? Are there 10 definable key strategies or does it just freeform itself? Yeah, that's a good question. So, you know, there's four elements that will happen in a point. You've got serving, returning, rallying and approaching the net. So you've got patterns of play that I divide up very simply into primary patterns and secondary patterns.

So tennis is absolutely straight out of Pavlovian theory. So you serve out wide, you win the point. You serve out wide again the next game. You serve out wide in the juice court. You do it three or four or five times. You then condition your opponent's mind to expect that. And if you're smart enough, you'll figure out, okay, I've got them where I want them. I've got them thinking that this is coming.

And that's when you employ the secondary tactic. So, you know, there's a lot of times you'll see on a court that some, you know, a drop shot will happen for the first time. Well, it's been set up. It's four games and 25 minutes in the making that have enabled that drop shot to be successful. The players that run secondary patterns first, they're trying a shotgun approach. They're trying everything. They don't even know where the ball is going. So there is absolutely a structure to where you serve, how you return, how you put together points from the back of the court and and again you know one

of the things as a coach early on is like do these patterns from the professional tour wash down to junior tennis and i'm like well let me experiment with this let me try and figure it out let me find some patterns from roger and rafa and novak and take them to 12-year-old boys and girls and see if they work, and the answer is yes. Wow. It's done. You know, the speed of the foot is different, and the speed of the ball is different, and that's it.

If you just slow Novak and these guys down, you know, watch them at 80% of their pace, you're watching a junior tennis match, and where the ball goes is what you want to teach these young kids that's that's kind of like saying though if you made me 80 percent less good looking then you would have Idris Elba so I understand what you're saying you've never been in the same sentence as Idris Elba this is so true hey so perfect analogy exactly so here's the deal um when I just want to talk about this confusion, this strategy, this mental game. You know, I think tennis is like probably one of the most mental sports there is, period. I mean, like so much of the game happens in your head.

And with that, I want to talk about Dustin Brown and this what they call the most unorthodox match ever. And that is Dustin Brown. At the time, I think he was ranked 102. And, of course, he went up against Rafael Nadal. And Nadal was, of course, number one. And I got to tell you, if you go on YouTube and watch this as point play, it is just the most unbelievable match to watch. And here's what I want to ask you.

Dustin Brown looks highly improvised. It looks like he's just pulling crap out of nowhere. And I know you were his strategist at the time, and I know you were working with the coach as well. How much of that is improvisation, and how much of that is just like, yep, we meant to do that? Yeah. So Scott Wittenberg was his coach. The relationship with Dustin and I, I went to school at Saddleback Junior College in Southern California with Chris Wittenberg.

I then went with Chris. He goes, my brother runs a tennis camp in Germany. Come on over. went with Chris. He goes, my brother runs a tennis camp in Germany. Come on over. So I went over to Germany during my summer in college. And his older brother, Kim Wittenberg, was there. And there's the middle brother, Scott. So Scott ends up working with Dustin. Now, I'm a coach at this camp back in like 89 and 90. Then around 93, Dustin comes there, I think, as a 12-year-old boy. And he spends a lot of time at this camp in Germany. He knows all the brothers. The brothers introduced him to me. I know him when he gets on tour.

And then, you know, we turn up at Wimbledon in, what was that, 2015, I think. And, you know, I said, Dustin, you know, if you need some help this tournament, just ask. I'd love to help you. And so then he's like, Craig, I've seen the draw. If I win this match, then I've got Rafa. And I'm like, listen, I know exactly how to play this guy. You know, as the analyst for the ATP, I study Rafa so much. He's one of the greatest players of all time.

He's one of the greatest thinkers of all time. I have such huge respect for him. But, you know, one of the reasons that Rafa is so insanely good He's thinkers of all time. I have such huge respect for him. But, you know, one of the reasons that Rapp is so insanely good is he does the same monotonous thing again and again because it wins. It just sticks to the high percentage patterns. So I know where every serve's going. I know if the score is this, he's probably doing this. And Dustin just has – it was the perfect storm because what Dustin does well

really plugs into what Rafa doesn't like. So it's the shorter points. It's the initial attacking. You know, I called that match, you know, Dustin's strategy. It was organized chaos. And that's what it must have felt. You know, before the match, if you had said, Craig, you know, you've got to put $100 either way.

You've got to put on Dustin or Rafa. I'm like, I'm all in on Dustin, and I'll double down on Dustin. I really thought Dustin was the favorite of that match because Dustin knew exactly how to play Rafa. One quick example, in the juice court, when Rafa serves a second serve in the juice court, it is always, back in 2015, it's always going to slice down the team. Dustin stands over automatically more towards the middle of the court.

So he's two steps over. Dustin gives up the out wide serve. He shuts down the middle serve. All the other players step sideways to that return. Dustin's already behind it, so he's stepping in and I say, Dustin, every other guy on tour wants to initially attack Rafa's backhand. Don't go there. It's

straight down the line to the forehand. What Rafa does so well is he serves and then falls to his backhand side to say, uh-uh, I'm not going to hit a backhand, I'm going to hit a forehand. So he's already leaning that way. His body weight is that way, which makes him very vulnerable out wide to the forehand. So time and time again, as you watch that match, you'll see Dustin returning on the

juice court straight down the line. Dustin's sitting on it and waiting on it. I know the serve's going to go there. Dustin knows it's going to go there. Rafa doesn't know that the return's going to go there. And he never adjusted. And it's a big reason why Dustin won that match. Wow.

Greg, here's one for you. Are you, were you rather, because it's past tense, were you surprised Rafa, as good as he is, doesn't then change his strategy, doesn't go from plan A to plan B through to D, C, E, F? Because I'm guessing if you're going to be one of the best in the world and of all time, you've got more than one ace up your sleeve. Okay, so yes and no. I was working for the Wimbledon Channel then, and after the match, I went up and spoke to

Annabelle Croft and Max Wallander in an interview. And in that interview, I said, I think it was, I don't know whether it was the third or the fourth set, I forget which set, but Rafa served in volley,, I said, I think it was, I don't know whether it was the third or the fourth set. I forget what it said. But Rafa served and volleyed. Out of nowhere, served and volleyed and won the point. And never did it again. And I'm like, this is what Rafa needed to do because Dustin took the net away and owned the net.

They weren't playing baseline points. And what Rafa should have done is say you know what you are troubling me and making me very uncomfortable by being at the net why don't I just take it away from you and and mitigate all of the you know the problems I'm having there so we never problem solved back in 2010 Rafa owned Novak Djokovic, owned him. At the end of 2010, Novak goes home to Serbia, has Christmas dinner, and goes, you know what, let me think about this for a second. Rafa has the world's best forehand. I have the world's best backhand.

But, you know, it's like a battering ram. He just beats me down with it. And what he does, what he used to do back in 2010, 27 through 2010, he pushed Novak back. He'd get the ball up with the spin. and Novak would go that cross-court on defence, and he got nowhere. So at the start of 2011, Novak adjusts. He steps in.

He takes the ball on the rise. He takes it down the line. He makes Rafa hit backhands. For seven straight matches, Rafa never adjusts. For seven straight finals through to the Australian Open in 2012, he never won a match. And Rafa, halfway through that, he's going, at his press interviews, he's going,

nothing I do hurts this guy anymore. The problem was Rafa was playing the 2010 version of Novak. That 2010 version fails to exist anymore because Novak adjusted and took him over a year to figure it out. Wow. That's what it's about. It's about making the adjustments. By the way, the Joker is my favorite tennis player.

So I was very happy. He's the best. By the way, Craig, I've got to know now you've said that. Who is the best and who has been the best at in-game management? The intuitive identification of this is dialing up my kryptonite. I can't allow that to beat me. I need to change this way, this way. Who is and who was all the very best? Okay, so back probably before 2010,

when I'm putting all this together and I'm learning and I'm studying, I remember a lot of people would come up to me. Let's say it's 2008. In 2008, you come up to me and say, Craig, who's the best thinkers of all time? Who's got the greatest tennis IQ? Who can make the changes in the court? And I came up with three guys. One of them was playing at the time, Rafael Nadal.

His ability to problem solve, especially to dominate Roger Federer through his mind, was incredible. So I put Rafa in there. The second guy who I learned a ton from that was a tennis mastermind, Andre Agassi. Just incredible at how he would break down opponents. And we saw him break them down physically, but the match was already over two hours before that. He'd already figured it out. Now, the third guy will surprise you.

The third guy is a left-hander from South America, did ascend to number one for a brief period of time. I studied about 15 of his matches when he was at his peak. His ability to just pick apart an opponent mentally and then do it physically. He beat Agassi in the 1998 Miami final to become number one. He took over from Pete Sampras when he did that. The guy's name is Marcelo Rios.

Now, Rios. I remember the name. I can't remember his game, but I do remember the name. Yeah. He had a bad temper. I like him. He was an ornery kind of fella on the court. He got a bad rap.

A lot of people didn't like him because he didn't really care much out there. He didn't appear to care. But, boy, I tell you what, the guys that I – when I watched him playing his big matches, winning Indian Wells, winning Miami both in 98 to become number one in the world. One of the smartest players I've ever seen. Wow. Well, we've got to wrap this up, man. This is fascinating talking to you. I could just talk tennis with you all day long.

It's just so great to listen to you. Hey, enjoy the U.S. Open, sir. It's been a pleasure talking to you. And I say enjoy the U.S. Open with Chuck Nice. Yeah, very good. Gentlemen, thank you. It's an absolute pleasure to be on the show. Pleasure's all, sir.

Thank you. Craig O'Shaughness be on the show. Pleasure's ours, sir. Thank you. Craig O'Shaughnessy, and if you didn't know already, the reason why he's the world's number one tennis analyst. We are going to take a break. When we come back, psychologist and mental performance consultant Leslie Sherlin. Oh, you're not going to want to go away, are you? See you shortly. Welcome back to Playing With Science today. As you know, we're exploring the tennis brain. And joining us now is sports psychologist and mental performance consultant, Leslie Sherlin. Leslie, welcome to the show, sir. How are you? I'm very good. Thanks for having me. Man, thank you for being here. So you're one of the world's leading experts in

neuroscience and high performance assistant professor of psychology at Ottawa University in Surprise, Arizona. I got you. Surprise, Arizona. You have to say it like that. You know that, right? That's right. Everybody does. It's okay. You know, you're also the co-founder and science officer of Neurotherapeutics, a leader in research on the use of neuroscience for improving human performance. Yeah. I mean, you don't do anything without the brain. Even I have that much knowledge, but I think that's the limit. So how do you go about improving performance and taking out all of the musculature and just focusing on how the brain operates? Well, it's really straightforward when we think about it.

If you ask any athlete or even you guys, any person who is performing at any level, whether they're a parent or an athlete or a business executive, you can say, to what degree does the mental side of things contribute to performance? They're likely to give you a very high percentage, even in all the athletes that I've worked with in the most physical types of professions, rugby and football and things that you can't imagine the mental side of it so much. They all say the thing that makes them different from their competitor is not their physicality, but in fact, their mental discipline, their capacity to be smart about the game, engage at the right time, disengage at a high end, an elite performance, but without engaging certain processes in the brain, nothing happens. So how do I dial up my body to be in peak performance mode, but bring my brain to a point where I am so comfortable in the way that I assess

every single thing that's taking place in front of me. Yeah, that was really well stated. In fact, if this whole interviewing thing doesn't work out, you could shift into sports site consulting because that's in fact the essence of what we're trying to get people to conjure up within. And it varies. There's some certain strategies, some mental skills techniques that we teach but in general the athlete each individual and even a team has to figure that piece out and that's um one of the reasons why sports psych is kind of by and large to some people squishy because there's not like a set recipe to follow to create that but there are are certain techniques and really what you're doing is

creating a flexibility or creating that stamina, creating the strength from a mental standpoint, in much the same way we work with our body and our muscles. So by going through specific exercises, by going through specific skills, and also practicing and implementing those things, that's ultimately how we get there. So it's a bit of work, but there are some strategies. What I'm hearing is we've got this athletic body and we've trained it, we've worked it. It's packed full of muscle memories and that allows us to compete at a very high level. What I'm feeling is you're doing the same with the brain, although I can't call it muscle memory. What terminology do you use? Because you are exercising

this brain to work in a better way every time. So that's the way it's engaging. So how do you describe that to someone like myself, please? I call it mental mental discipline and it's for a couple of reasons one because not only are you teaching the brain how to be strong how to do something like uh the the physical analogy works out really well here so if we think about the brain is not a muscle it's not comprised of the same tissue it's very different but the analogy works very similar that just like your strength and conditioning your body you can do the same thing with the brain. You're giving it good nutrition. You're challenging it. You're asking it to be in a very high-intensity state of focus or concentration. You're giving it the opportunity to recover.

So there is that physical component. But then just like in a sport, you're coaching skills. You're teaching the person how to do the particular activity, whatever it is, how to be successful at it. Well, that's where then the mental skills, we will call them, lay on top of the brain physiology. So it's very much the same. We have two systems. We have the physical piece of the brain and then we have what we've been taught, what we're implementing from a thought process. implementing for my thought process. Wow. This is so fascinating talking to you. I got to flip that script right now. I mean, you know, this is great. Gary just made me think of a really great scenario. This is where I am just the opposite. Okay. Where my brain thinks I can do things and my body cannot.

It's called being a fan. So how do you deal with that? Cause I swear that is where I am, man. It's just like, no, of course I can do that. And then I go to do it and I fail miserably. For many people, that's the easier problem to solve because we can put you in the gym. We can put you with the right coaching. We can put you with the right team and ultimately find that success. So that's actually an easier position because it's tangible. We can watch you on film and know where your weaknesses are

and teach you how to succeed in that sport, where the mental side of things gets squirrely for a lot of people because they can't see it. They don't know, am I doing this right or not? So, in fact, I think you're probably in a good spot. Man, that's so cool. What a great answer. Cheered him up.

No end there. There's hope for me. Yes. I'm just thinking about this. With the brain acting in a certain way, it's acting slightly different to the way it was acting

because we've worked on it and developed it. It must then be transmitting, I'll call them brain waves for the lack of a better term. But can you then differentiate and see and prove to an athlete, look, this is your brain working in this way. And then you can, you're nodding, I can see you,

and you're nodding. So please explain that to me. Yeah, so actually, you were right on target with the idea of brainwaves, because the electrical activity of the brain is reflective of the state that we're in. So just imagine when you're focused, you have a different electrical signature than when you're relaxed, and that looks different than when you're drowsy, and that translates not only to trait characteristics but also the state that you're in. So if I'm feeling particularly nervous about an event that's coming up or I'm feeling really confident, there are different electrical signatures that fit that.

And so we can literally put a person into a scenario and monitor the EEG. And that's where this quantitative electroencephalography comes in. So that's the process of measuring that electrical activity and identifying that signature. Say, now let's push you. activity and identifying that signature, say, now let's push you, let's train your brain to perform to match a signature that's more likely to be successful in that particular scenario. And then we can monitor after and we can see them. And how exactly are you monitoring that activity of the brain? How are you recording and capturing that data? Yeah, so we'll put little electrodes on the scalp, and then it goes into an amplifier, an EEG amplifier, and then that data is captured via computer. And it's not dissimilar from the type of procedures that you historically might have been aware of in a medical community from like a polysomnography or sleep studies.

It's that same electrical activity that they're monitoring. We're just condensing it into smaller, more portable technology that can be transported into the field. And is that in the form of a headset? Yes, exactly. So you can do it in a number of ways. There's the traditional type where there's electrodes and wires that are attached to the scalp,

but then the way the technology is going now is it's condensed into mobile devices that are worn that look like headphones, only they have sensors attached to them. And it's, you know, just simply put on the head and walk around with it. And it's Bluetooth. And, you know, the technology is really allowing us to get in the moment of sport, as opposed to looking at things in a laboratory. Some of the work you've done has been with Mike Bryan, one of the Bryan brothers, probably the most successful, you'll know better than I about this, the most successful men's double act at the moment. Well, right now they are without a doubt. Yeah, without a doubt.

He and his brother. Yeah. So one of the Mike comes to you and he wants to dial up or dial down because he sort of gamehead. I'll call it the gamehead that he's he's using to compete with. He brings with him off court and it's still gamehead that's on. And he's very intense and very competitive, most likely. How do you work with athletes like that? Because normally it's a case like I need to rev this guy up guy up or I need to get this woman in a competitive state. But there are other instances where you are asking them to be able to select as and when to use it. How do you work with that? Does he have game rage?

It can translate over for many people where they take that same state that is successful in a competitive environment and they take it into daily life and it's not as successful there. And that's in fact I would say by and large most of the athletes with whom I've worked, they are in fact in that competitive state. They're very successful in that area, but it's about being able to recover, kind of turn it off when they're not in that moment, which lends to, you know, dysregulated sleep and recovery cycles. And that's one of the areas where, you know, it can be most beneficial. For me, the tool and the modality that I use is, again, based on these brain waves, which is teaching the brain to do something different. My exposure to these elite performing athletes has been that, by and large, they have a good mindset. They understand what's going to be successful. They understand the competitive

environment and what they need to do, but they sometimes get stuck in a particular place. So if we think back to those electrical signatures, they have that game, that competitive signature, and now to down modulate that or turn it off or dial it back in between sets or rounds or games or even in between plays if we're in a fast moving sport, figuring that piece out can be really challenging because the body is less tangible for us to measure. And so by placing those electrodes on the scalp, we can see what that electrical signature is. And as they learn to transition or shift it into a more desirable direction, we give them feedback saying, yes, that's the direction of more calm or a more, I hate to use

this term, but we'll call it relaxed state. And as their brain moves in that direction, they get the feedback and they go, oh, that's what that's like. And so we're creating the opportunity for them to figure out what did I do to make that happen? And now let me take it into the field and then I can be able to regulate and have to create this flexibility of being very intense when I'm in, and I'm about to take that serve, that laser beam of concentration. But then when I'm stepping back, waiting for the ball to be returned to me, how can I take that moment and relax for just the right amount of coming down to save and conserve energy rather than burning it all up in the beginning? See, from an athlete's point of

view, having been one many years ago, I could lose my mojo. If you dial me down, I could lose my mojo. That's what's got me this far. And do you find to begin with, athletes will cling to this competitive state that they've had all this time? Yeah, very much so. And the thing that I really try to emphasize, and we'll make a point here, is that it's not that we're taking the other – that real high competitive state away. It's that you're creating an increased repertoire of state. So I can do that at will rather than my environment pushing me there. And so you probably experienced the time where the mojo wasn't there and you feel kind of helpless towards it.

And you're like, well, what do I do? How can I conjure it up? And we, you know, bump chests or whatever we do to kind of pep ourselves up to get there. We're creating that flexibility internally allows you to go there when it's ideal, but in the moments where that isn't the best state for optimal success, you can dial it down, but it's within their control, not being pressured

by the environment. Wow, man, we could have done a whole show just one question before we have to let you go. Um, sadly we do. You have, uh, a situation where you've got a computer generated car, I believe, and you get your athletes to power that car by just setting themselves up in a certain brain state. Have I manufactured that in a dream or is that actually true? That's exactly correct. And it's this process where we're saying, all right, we know what the electrical signature looks like to be highly engaged. We know what intense focus looks like.

And we also know what it means to kind of be alert and ready but not actively burning up all that energy. So we set those parameters in the computer program, and then as the athlete or the individual shifts their brain state into that desired direction, the car moves forward. And so that's that feedback. And for them, they're figuring out what did I do to make that car move forward. And so that's that feedback. And for them, they're figuring out what did I do to make that car move forward? And that process, it's called operant conditioning. They begin to learn how to create that.

And then they can do it at their own will. And it's neat to be able to move a race car forward. That's fun. But more important than that is that when they're in the field, when they're on the court, then they can say, OK, I need to step it up. And they know internally what it is that they need to do to create that. So you're literally giving them gas and brake pedals for their brain. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. Very cool. Yeah. Did you come up, did you personally come up with the idea of being able to move the car forward? Cause I think that's whoever came up with that genius. Cause it that genius because it's so

oh it's so that's how i do it look at my this is the result this is me actually my brain power has now i can i can see it doing actually something it's amazing yeah and and i know if i were to take that simulation my brain would call triple a so but mind you if your brain just dialed triple a that I'd be quite impressed. I really would be impressed by that. All of a sudden it's just like, hey, that wasn't written in the program. Where'd that tow truck come from? Are we, are we, while we discuss this, I'm thinking, I mean, this, this wasn't it.

I mean, I worked with sports psychologists in the eighties and at no point did I have a conversation like the one we've just had. and at no point did I have a conversation like the one we've just had. And I'm wondering how far at the forefront are you in this particular field? Because I think this is really where sport's going to be redefined. We've done all the bodybuilding. We've done all the stretching, working, endurance, and all of the physical sides. I think now... The last frontier.

There you go. Is this it? Is this the next frontier for sport? I think it's definitely the next frontier. I wish I could take credit for having been more instrumental or being more important than I am in reality. This has been around for a long time, this idea of conditioning, the physiology. The technology is what's making this concept that's been around for a long time now applicable to sport. Athletes are a different type of population than just either pathological states or healthy individuals. There's a unique characteristic about them, and we're just starting to learn what does high performance look like physiologically how does the brain operate and how is that different so technology has been the

catalyst and then implementing these techniques is just an overlay where i just happen to be at the right time at the right place and said oh these two things should go together so i think it's definitely the next step allowing someone an, to see how their brain is performing in the same way that we've been looking at their body composition for decades. We'll allow them to just have one more way, one more window of being able to optimize performance. Well, I got to tell you, this has just been a fascinating conversation. Thank you to Leslie Sherlin. It's been a pleasure, sir. You have, I will say, opened our minds. And that was intended. Right. We're going to take a break. Up next is coach Sarah Stone. Take a look at how you develop world class tennis players. Don't go away. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to Playing With Science. We've been exploring the strategy and mental game in tennis. And joining us now to give the coaches' point of view is Sarah Stone, currently coaching Serbia's number one ranked female player, Aleksandra Krinic, as well as many others. Yes, Alexa Glatz, who is American. She works with her. Actually, why don't we just welcome Sarah, and she can tell us all about who she's working with.

Hey, Sarah, how are you? Hi. Hi, guys. Thanks for having me on the show. It's really nice to be here with you. Welcome. Thank you. We're super happy to have you. And who else do you work with? We mentioned, too, there's a third player. I spend a little bit of time working with a couple of different juniors,

so the main thing that I'm doing right now is working with the pros. I'm back home at the moment actually working with Alexa Glash. She's been out American player for the last year and a half. She played the Qualies there last year and she got injured actually. So part of what we're talking about today is really interesting, the mental health side of tennis, particularly when you're out injured so I'm doing a fair bit of everything and coaching a few different players and you're a good friend of Craig O'Shaughnessy's as well we just found out yeah I've known Craig for a really long time I I said to you guys I think it was since I was uh

14 or 15 when he was working in Australia and he's coached quite a few of my friends and he's a phenomenal guy and he's super knowledgeable he's really changed the industry so I always love learning from him and spending time with him you're not alone we've just realized just how knowledgeable he is so yeah we were in agreeance going back to Alexandra and reading her profile she started to play tennis at age three. Yeah. At what point do you get, and I want to say serious, but I guess from a very early age, she's been quite serious with the way that she's gone about her game.

How do you make a racket for a three-year-old? Small hands? They're pretty small. My dad's a tennis coach, actually, and I started playing when I was three as well. And back then, there weren't really small rackets, I guess, so he cut a full size down for me with a hacksaw. So that's how it was done and manufacturers have got on to making small rackets.

But a lot of players start pretty young. I think specialising in tennis too soon is not the best thing for players. It certainly doesn't help you with skill acquisition. There's a lot of other sports that I suggest that players should be playing or kids developing. Alex is very young at three. I'm not sure if she knew she was going to be a professional then, but it's not uncommon for players to play from a pretty young age. You know, speaking of that, so talk about young, and you talk about the developing brain,

and you talk about how mental tennis is. I mean, it's just so mental. How do you develop a kid to deal with that kind of pressure and then develop them so that they can go pro? Yeah, well, I think that, you know, you want to make sure that it's fun. That's the biggest thing that tennis is all about. It's a game and you want to ensure that they enjoy the sport. Otherwise, they end up dropping out anyway. I mean, the number of girls actually rapidly declines from around 12 years of age. So participation drops.

So particularly in the girls' side, I think instilling enjoyment and communicating that with the parents, that's the big thing. You don't really prepare someone to be a pro. I think that you encourage the kid to enjoy the sport and get as good as they can. And if they're a professional, they're a professional. And if they're not, they go to college and they have a very successful life regardless. Okay, so let's do a little role play here, Sarah, okay? I'm a player. I'm a player. I'm a player.

I'm, I'm pretty damn good. If you say so yourself. Thanks. Thanks, Gary. Thanks. I appreciate that. But I've, I've just lost a string of matches. Okay. I'm down on myself. I don't really believe in my abilities anymore because, you know, I was on top and now it just seems like nothing's working for me. How do you help me? I mean, do you, do you work on technique? Do you work on, what do you do for somebody like that? Are you a professional? Are we talking about a professional right now? You're on tour. Yeah, I'm on tour. Yeah, I'm on tour and man, you know, I was hot. I was hot. And now for some reason, I'm just dropping matches, ones that I shouldn't be losing. You know, what do you do for me? I think as a coach, you really have to listen to the player and see what's going on for them. It's not always about how they're hitting the ball. Okay. For girls, for example, it could be that they have really low iron and they just don't

have enough energy out there and they don't realize, or, you know, it could be that they have really low iron and they just don't have enough energy out there and they don't realize. Or they could have a thyroid condition that causes them to feel pretty tired. I mean, these are things that are outside of hitting the ball. So I would tend to sort of start there and just ask some questions, how are they feeling, what's been going on, do they feel a lot of pressure, and then you sort of can navigate it from there the WTA has awesome resources with people that they you know they can deal with uh outside pressures that they're coping with it might be parents it might be sponsors it might be all sorts of things

but there's a lot of programs in place where that's where I would steer my player towards is to talking with the people that the WTA has in place. And I think that's a great place to start. When you say the WTA, if you've got a young player that has an awful lot of potential, but they have, you know, they're looking at clouds, they're watching squirrels, and they're not quite focusing the way that you would like them to, to bring the best of their game with them. I'm right here. You don't have to talk about me like that. Were you looking at clouds when you went on that bad streak? Absolutely. Probably, yeah. would like them to, to bring the best of their game with them. I'm right here. You don't have to talk about me like that.

Were you looking at the clouds when you went on that bad streak? Absolutely. And honestly, I was like, that cloud looks like a squirrel. Okay, go ahead. See what I work with. Are there the resources to sit down with people who can help with programs to develop the concentration, to develop an athlete's focus? Yeah, I think for sure. The first thing you want to look at with young kids

is how much they're really into the sport. You tend to coach kids with parents who really push them in, and the parents want it more than the kids. So when you're looking at whether or not someone has the potential to be a professional player, a young player, is you have to see if they're motivated. If it's just the parents pushing all the time and they're kind of dragging their bag as they're coming into practice

and they don't seem that eager, I mean, the signs are there. You can see it. And I typically try to talk with the younger players and say, you know, what are your goals or what do you want to do? And just see what they share with me and ask a lot of questions because a lot of the time you'll get the answer of, oh, you know, I'd like to play college or whatever. They probably won't say that in front of their parents.

There's a particular type of character or person, these traits that you see with young players, that you know that they're going to be successful. I don't know if it's like a champion breed, but you get the feeling from that kid that they're really committed. And I haven't seen it too much. I've coached some top kids in the States, but it's rare. I've worked with a couple that have gone on to play college and going on from there. But it's pretty rare. For the number of kids that you end up coaching when you're in a club,

it's not that many. So I think you're looking for they're dedicated, they're really students of the game. A simple question would be do you watch tennis at home on TV? And the number of kids that tell me or their parents want their kid to be a professional and they don't even watch tennis on TV, I mean, they're just not they're not that invested in the game. You can see it right there. That makes sense. So let me ask you this,

speaking of that, you look at women's tennis and everyone for the past, God knows how many years has been waiting for the next Williams sisters. That seems to be the big deal. Like, who's going to be the next Serena? You know, is there anybody on the horizon as you see the sunset for some of these big names in women's tennis, which I believe has made tennis super popular? It's really the women, not the men, that make tennis as a sport super popular. Is there, as these women reach the twilight of their careers, is there somebody on the horizon that's going to take that mantle? Well, I think tennis has certainly changed and I hope Serena and Venus play for another 10 years. I don't know if that's on their horizon, but we probably never thought that 37 was on their horizon in the past either. So we have to see how long that plays out. And I think we all want them to play as long as possible.

Absolutely. It's kind of changed because there's a lot of, the players are a lot older now. I believe just a little while back, the average age of the top 100 was 27 for females. So if we're looking at who is the next one on the horizon, I think sometimes people look too young and maybe we should be looking at that 25, 26, 27.

It's just not the same as it was in the past. So will they ever win as many slams as Serena? I mean, who knows? We never know. Wouldn't have thought that maybe she could have won that many herself. But I think the way that the style of the game is going, tennis on the women's side is definitely becoming more and more athletic, stronger players, you know, very physical game now.

And we'll look for more all-court players to dominate tennis in the future. I mean, a player like Kassakina, I mean, she's a huge talent. She can do everything around the court. Ash Barty, she's brilliant. When you speak to a lot of players they talk about ash party that she's just unbelievable all around the court so that's someone that i could see that could potentially dominate the game in in the future and you know players like alex and alexa i mean they're going to keep developing players are between 25 to 28 I think you can't overlook that group because

a 25 year old now at 27 if they hit their peak and they play like Serena they're going to be in the game for 10 years so I think we yeah it's always hard to predict but I think it's going to be an all-court player okay cool interesting so that's the player side of it how about coaches what for you is going to be the next big thing to maybe not revolutionize, but really take your ability to coach to a new level? I think all of the things that the WTA coach program are doing are really helping us as coaches get better and expand our knowledge. Certainly with all of the stuff from SAP,

when we can study the game from an angle that wasn't out there before and it wasn't so readily available then it it really enhances our knowledge and we can say more more fact-based the way that we're talking about tennis previously i think they'd say well you know this girl had kind of hits the ball about so high and this heavy now it's really specific so and they've got lots of great things in place also the program they have with the university that's also applies for coaches in their program we can go on and study maybe where you want to study exercise science or different sorts of things that can enhance us as coaches so i think more well-rounded coaches because everything's so readily available

there's a lot of online content that you can study and the more you're invested, just like a player, we want them to continue learning. And so the same goes for us as coaches. We need to continue to invest in our future, have great mentors, and then I think you'll see the level of coaching continue to rise. Fantastic. Isn't it?

Yeah. Wow, this has been great. Thank you so much. And we wish you the best of luck with all of your players. No problem, guys. Thanks so much for having me on the show. And it's always great to talk about women's tennis. So I appreciate it.

Oh, absolutely. The pleasure is ours. Thank you so much for your time. Women's tennis is the only tennis. That's what I say. Okay. I love it. See you guys.

Take care. Thank you so much. I mean, you see, Chuck, we're looking at the different compartments, the big data, the analytics with Craig. Sharon there, Sarah there rather, with the point of view of how you work with young athletes, how you develop it. And then with Leslie, who is looking at how you get players to work themselves.

Because as a player in a competition, you've got to be this high level of performance, but your brain's got to be all the way calm and thoughtful to utilize the sort of things that sarah's been talking about what craig was being talking about and you're saying to yourself i've still got to hit this ball back and i'm going to run i'm going to twist and then it's got to become a muscle memory got to be able to do this without having to think twice about it. Absolutely, yeah, which is why I don't play any sports at all. Don't be so down on yourself. Don't be so down on yourself.

It just made me sad. I was just like, God, no wonder I suck. No, what I'm thinking as I'm saying those words is how incredible. It's really such a feat to rise to this level. I mean, on all the sports that we talk about on the show, but for tennis especially. If you're not a tennis fan and you're listening to this, and thank you if you've stayed with us

all the way through the show, is if you get a chance now to watch the elite tennis players, hopefully now you will see their game in a slightly different way because there is so much more going on on court. In the most dangerous space in an athlete's game is the space between their ears. And so much more.

And that's great. I hope people did take away from this to watch the game differently because it really is what makes tennis exciting. It is. Tennis is exciting and it will continue to be so. Earn and I will continue to be Gary O'Reilly. And I shall continue to be Chris Rock. Fabulous news for all of us. This has been Playing With Science.

Hope you enjoyed the show, and we'll be back soon enough with a new one.