What can we learn from the French Open finalists?

What did Rafael Nadal, Robin Soderling, Francesca Schiavone and Samantha Stosur play well, what was the mindset that produced the play we saw and what really made the difference between both winners and both losing finalists?

Let’s start first with both losing finalists and what we can learn from their losses…

Samantha Stosur was the big favorite in the Roland Garros final since she beat Justine Henin and Serena Williams and those two wins really proved that she played tennis of her life.

Her kick serve and her forehand didn’t look like women’s shots; they looked like shots from the men’s game.

And when Samantha played against Henin and Williams, she was not a favorite and she was able to play with abandon. She had nothing to lose and just focused on what she wanted.

But in the final she was the favorite. Her play did not reach the levels of play from previous rounds. She seemed very stressed, deadly serious and did not enjoy the occasion.

She was forcing the game too much and probably felt that her normal tennis was not going to be good enough to beat Schiavone – which I believe was not true at all.

Schiavone is not a dangerous player that could punish every short ball especially on her backhand side. If anyone plays to Schiavone’s backhand, they don’t have to worry and they can patiently build the point. She is neutralized and Samantha could have calmly built her points and wait for better situations to attack with her forehand.

But she was risking too much and tried to attack from almost every possible situation and that produced too many unforced errors. Again, I believe this was all the result of her negative mindset and not trusting her “ordinary” game enough.

She also did NOT want to lose this opportunity (winning a Grand Slam) and that creates tension in the mind and body. On one hand she needed to let go when she attacked and on the other hand she was afraid to let go – since she didn’t want to miss.

The tension then prevents the fluid and effortless movements of body parts and errors start to creep in.

What could Samantha have done better?

She would need to know that she could calmly build points against Schiavone, that she is in no hurry, that she should only focus on her goal and NOT on what she doesn’t want to happen.

Francesca Schiavone on the other hand did everything right.

The most obvious was her courage. She was not afraid to take Stosur’s kick serve’s on the rise, she even approached the net a few times and put pressure on Stosur and hit aggressive forehands when she had a chance.

Francesca also allowed her emotions to flow more freely and was therefore able to get rid of nervousness faster. Stosur on the other hand kept everything inside and that negative energy could not be released throughout the match.

If you ever play a very important match, remember Francesca’s approach; play with courage, play with the goal in mind, never consider losing at all and focus on playing in the right way instead of playing not to lose.

Rafael Nadal played his standard high level tennis in his final against Soderling. His groudstrokes are heavy and fast enough to put opponents in trouble even if he doesn’t risk much.

It was obvious that Nadal felt the nerves too in the match (his serve was the best indicator of that in the first set) and was also not good at playing aggressively.

It’s much easier for Nadal to get rid of nerves because he defends most of the time against Soderling which means that he plays with instinct and that’s when the nerves don’t have any effect.

The nerves are the most devastating when a tennis player has enough time to set up for the shot and think what to do. It’s at those moments when conscious mind (worries about missing and losing) has enough time to disturb the unconscious process of performing the stroke.

So Nadal simply focused on keeping the ball in play and hoped that Soderling wouldn’t be able to play at the same level when he beat him last year.

After Nadal won the first set, he relaxed more, he believed more in himself and that’s when he was able to play much more aggressive tennis too.

While some players freeze when they come close to winning the match, Nadal typically (but NOT always – remember his lost service game against Melzer when he served for the match!) becomes more and more confident and aggressive.

Robin Soderling was in my opinion dealing with the same mental conflict as Samantha Stosur. He needed to attack and let go of the worries of the outcome and yet he was worried that he would lose another final.

I am not sure Robin could have found that ideal mental state in this situation. I don’t think he could have removed from his mind the thoughts of not winning the title again and losing in the final.

Those thoughts and worries kept returning back to his mind and interferred with his game. He missed many shots that he usually made against Federer for example a few rounds earlier.

When he played against Federer he didn’t have much to lose. He lost to him every single time they played in the past and he simply let go of fear of missing and losing and kept hitting those massive serves and groundstrokes.

But he couldn’t let go in the final. The serves and the big forehands didn’t work because of that slight tension in the mind and in the body.

Perhaps he could have tried to play a slightly more percentage tennis since even Nadal cannot immediately finish the point with one or two shots.

While we can discuss what the ideal mindset and the ideal approach would need to be for Soderling – which is to play with abandon and the conviction that he has nothing to lose – we must also be realistic and know that this state if mind is almost impossible to achieve after you have lost a Grand Slam final a year before and you really don’t want that to happen again.

I hope Soderling wins at least Grand Slam once in his life but at the same time I also feel very sorry for all these great tennis players like Soderling, Djokovic, Murray, Roddick and others who are playing in the era of Federer and Nadal.

These two have won 23 of the last 28 Grand Slam finals and it looks like they’ll be around for a while. So it’s going to be extremely difficult for any player to win a Grand Slam in this the next 3 years while Federer and Nadal are still able to play at their peak.

Your thoughts are welcome!