Andre Aggassi's poignant recollection of his haunted childhood and straining career in his recent autobiography gives us an insight into the importance that professional sportsmen and women place on routine. A game of tennis can be won psychologically; before the first ball is hit. It can be won in the changing room, in the media, even in the hotel room the night before. Routine and ritual are psychological factors that are often key to a player's success. Aggassi taught me that if a player's routine is not perfect, if it does not match what he or she sees as normal for them, then a poor performance on the court can follow, often catastrophically.
Rafa Nadal has spoken of his pre-match ritual, describing it as "like a matchstick stucture: if every piece is not symmetrically in place, it can all fall down." Much like Nadal, Aggassi stuck to a delicate yet intense routine prior to a big game. Three showers a day, freshly gripped and stenciled rackets, and different coloured drinks in different bottles are just a few of the career- long habits which these two professionals share.
While in the locker room prior to a match, Aggassi used to have his third shower of the day. This shower was different to his morning and afternoon showers, both of which were prolonged and of a regular temperature; used for self-talk and psychological visualistation. He didn't shower in order to get clean, but rather to find privacy in which time he would motivate himself. His pre-match shower was brief, cold, and used to find that last minute positive state of mind before he stepped out onto the court. This is coincidentally similar to Rafa's shower ritual: his pre-match cold shower helps him "enter a new space in which I feel my power and resilience grow".
Describing himself as "a new man" when he steps out of this shower experience, Rafa recalls feeling "activated, a new man". This 'flow' that he speaks of is the psychological state of optimum alertness and concentration, "in which the body moves by pure instinct...nothing else exists but the battle ahead".
What is interesting is the way in which both Aggassi and Nadal recognise the practical element of what they do in their pre-match trance, but at the same time how it is just another moment in the ritual. Rafa has his white bandanna which, in a practical sense, keeps his hair away from his eyes and face, but is also part of the routine, described by himself as "another decisive moment of no return...soon I'll be entering battle". Aggassi recalls the moment when his trainer would tape up the calluses on his feet, while Nadal has his fingers bandaged. Both are practical and preventive moves, but both are routine.
Nadal grips his own racket, he always has done. Aggassi tapes his own wrists, he always has done. Both players have custom grips fitted to their rackets just before match-time, and have the factory grips removed. Nadal speaks of how he wraps his white grip around the racket handle with no thought, "as if in a trance", while Aggassi had his grips fitted and racket stencils applied the day before the match. Wet stencils can rub off on the balls, and Aggassi was obsessed with "order and cleanliness", so no stencil-marked balls. "Disorder is a distraction, and every distraction on the court is a potential turning point."
From reading Aggassi's recollection of his final few matches, it is clear that he and Rafa have contradicting fitness levels. By the end of his career, Aggassi's back was in such a bad way that he "couldn't so much as courtesy", whereas an ever-youthful Rafa speaks of his "violent" exercise routine before a game. Andre's gentle "jog down the hall" is a stark contrast to "short bursts" of intense "mini-sprints", in which Nadal is "activating his explosiveness". Despite being different levels of excercise, different intensities for different individuals, both players stress the importance of getting themselves physically moving before a match. "All systems go", says Aggassi.
More routines follow. Aggassi mixed his own vitamin and electrolyte-packed water, while Nadal will have two bottles of water, sipping from the first and then the second, repeating the sequence every time; before the match, at breaks between games, and at the end of the match. Without fail. He speaks of how he places the two bottles to the left of his chair, one neatly behind the other, diagonally facing the court. This importance of order is a mirror image of Aggassi's. Ordering the surroundings to match the order they seek in their heads.
It is apparent that a tennis player's pre-match routine is not habit, not superstition, but part of the match itself. If it was superstition, players would not continue the same ritual once they had lost a match. From the importance of Aggassi placing his rackets in his bag himself, to the fine details of Nadal's socks being exactly the same height on his shins, it is evident that a professional player sees these steps as vital, the potential difference between winning or losing. Every player will have his different formalities, her own unique routines, but every player takes part in these rituals for the same reason: to be psychotically ready to take part in a tennis match. Matches can be won in the locker room, in the shower, in your head...and it is critical to have that mental advantage over your opponent before the first ball is hit.
It is apparent that a tennis player's pre-match routine is not habit, not superstition, but part of the match itself. If it was superstition, players would not continue the same ritual once they had lost a match. From the importance of Aggassi placing his rackets in his bag himself, to the fine details of Nadal's socks being exactly the same height on his shins, it is evident that a professional player sees these steps as vital, the potential difference between winning or losing. Every player will have his different formalities, her own unique routines, but every player takes part in these rituals for the same reason: to be psychotically ready to take part in a tennis match. Matches can be won in the locker room, in the shower, in your head...and it is critical to have that mental advantage over your opponent before the first ball is hit.
