If I had arrived in a Mercedes Benz, the organizers of the 79th Mercedes Benz Cup Tournament would have refunded my parking fee. Not quite motivation enough to run out and buy an E320 but a nice touch anyway. With one top twenty-five player in the field and only three seeds left after the first round, I’m sure the organizers would have offered E320’s as doorprizes if their sponsor had been willing to donate them. Luckily for the organizers, the top seed, Andre Agassi, made it to the final and their tournament had the third largest crowd in its history.

Agassi is returning to the tour for the first time since his painful exit at the French Open with a bad case of sciatica. He seems to have settled into a rhythm as the week has progressed dropping one set only to Paradorn Srichaphan. His opponent today is Gilles Muller of Luxembourg. Muller is the first Luxembourgian to get into the ATP top one hundred. Anne Kremer has been as high as eighteen and Claudine Schaul as high as forty-one in the WTA rankings. Not bad for a population of less than half a million.

If you want to go far on the tour, it’s helpful to have a wide variety of strokes and at least one killer stroke. Either that or absurd left-handed spin like Rafael Nadal. Muller is left-handed but he’s not a spinner, his ground strokes are relatively flat. Also unlike Nadal, he has a power serve.

After you get all of the strokes, the next skill is to win the critical points. Agassi is going for his sixtieth title today, we know what he can do. Muller has yet to win a tournament though he did beat Agassi to reach the final of the Legg Mason Tennis Classic last year. Let’s see how he plays the critical points.

Winning the first game is critical and Muller fails to do that. He sprays the ball long, wide and into the net to go down a break. He faces another break point in his next service game but gets out of it with an 86 mph second serve winner. Agassi is such a good returner that he usually takes a step inside the baseline for the second serve but here he backs up at least six feet behind the line for Muller’s high kicker. It’s his second service game and Muller already has five aces.

Muller uses the backhand slice to take the pace off Agassi’s shots and shows a good drop shot. Somebody may have forgotten to tell him, however, that Agassi has one of the best backhands in tennis history because he keeps attacking it. Both players hold serve through the rest of the first set and Agassi wins it 6-4.

After you get all of the strokes, the next skill is to win the critical points.

The start of the second set is full of critical points as both players have trouble holding serve. Muller saves a break point with a good serve in the first game. He gets a break point in the second game but makes a backhand error and loses his opportunity. In the third game, he fights off three break points to stay even.

Muller hits three winners, including a beautiful drop shot approach, on Agassi’s serve at 5-4 to get a set point. It’s bad enough that he fails to get the next serve in play and loses an opportunity to even the match. Even worse, he loses the next game at love to allow Agassi to serve for the match. This is the mother of all critical situations and costs Muller the match. Agassi wins, 6-4, 7-5.

What is the critical point tally for Muller? He failed to win his first service game, failed to convert two break opportunities – one of which would have evened the match, saved five break points, and lost a super critical game at love. That’s five for nine. Not bad but not good enough. Muller’s critical point tally says more about Agassi than Muller. Agassi seldom puts himself in critical situations. He faced only two breaks points and needed only one break in each set to get his fourth Mercedes Benz Cup title.

Sometimes playing critical points well means avoiding them altogether.

Today we’re going to watch the top ten play the bottom one hundred in the quarterfinals of the RCA Championships. Andy Roddick is ranked number four in the world. Robbie Ginepri is ranked number ninety-eight. Ginepri is one of the American players who arrived on the tour at the same time as Roddick but haven’t kept up with him. Ginepri has been ranked as high as twenty-five but he’s having some problems with his confidence at the moment.

Don’t look for too many Spanish and Argentine players in Indianapolis this week. They’re still in Europe racking up more clay court titles. Rafael Nadal won his eighth title of the year and 34th straight match on clay in Stuttgart. Fernando Gonzales beat Agustin Calleri to win in Amersfoort. They might want to get themselves to the United States pretty quickly. Indianapolis is the first tournament in the U.S. Open Series: ten hard-court events for men and women leading up to the U.S. Open in late August. The player with the most points at the end of the series doubles their U.S. Open prize money. That could be two million dollars – not a bad payday at all.

Tennis is a big sport in Europe, not so in the U.S. We only pay attention during the grand slams. The idea behind the Open Series is to increase our attention span by offering a large payout to attract top players, getting a regular television slot on ESPN – finals will be televised every Sunday in August at 3 and 5pm – and increasing television coverage.

Oh, and one other thing. Every tournament in the Open Series will be played on a blue hard court surface. For a minute there I thought I was watching a Boise State football game.

Roddick is still recovering from Wimbledon, he had to play the entire two weeks unlike Ginepri who lost in the first round. It’s a good start as he wins the first set 6-4. Ginepri doesn’t usually get to the quarterfinals, he might want to thank those clay court players for staying in Europe, so I haven’t seen him play very much. He’s a baseliner who moves well, hits the ball very hard and has a good enough serve. If you took Roddick’s first serve away you’d get Ginepri except that Ginepri is in better shape and attacks more. His main problem is patience. When he’s pulled wide he tries to hit a winner as if it would be beneath his pride to hit the ball safely to the middle of the court. I can relate. I also think I’m a much better player than I am.

Things are even in the second set until Roddick gets a break point in the third game. Roddick gives away one then another break point then screams at himself. He might not have the energy to go three sets today, he wants to close out now. Ginepri doesn’t help himself with another difficult shot from an impossible position. But Ginepri is smart. Roddick stands way behind the baseline to receive serve and Ginepri is spinning the wide serve sharply enough to push Roddick into a lot of return errors. Ginepri finally hits an extremely sharp angle off a high looper to get a game point then wins the game with a good forehand approach. He has just fought off three break points to avoid going down a set and a break. A huge lift for a player with confidence problems.

Despite a few more ill-advised shots, Ginepri gets into the second set tiebreaker. Ginepri’s hold in the third game was crucial because Roddick now looks tired – he’s hitting balls into the net. A tennis match is made up of waves of momentum. One player gets tired or dejected and goes through a low point. The opponent sees this immediately and bells go off. Here’s an opportunity! Their confidence goes up and they rise with it. Ginepri takes the opportunity. He hits two winners and finishes with two aces to win the tiebreaker 7-2.

Clearly a champion should be able to recover from an egregious error and win a match against the ninety-eighth ranked player. But I’m sympathetic. This is a situation begging for the introduction of Shot Spot technology.

Serving at 3-3, 15-30 in the third set, Roddick pulls Ginepri wide then gets passed by a beautiful backhand passing shot that snakes around him and drops into the corner. That point tells Ginepri that he can beat Roddick today. Not necessarily a good thing. Ginepri is unnerved by the thought. He gets the break but then he plays a loose game and gives the break right back. He’s on a walkabout at the moment, one of those low points. He puts balls into the net and over the baseline and hangs his head. Serving at 4-5, he double faults to give Roddick his third match point. Ginepri manages to pull himself up long enough to get a game point when all hell breaks loose.

Ginepri serves wide for an ace but it’s not an ace. It’s clearly out. Roddick is furious. He scratched and crawled his way to three match points on a day when he doesn’t have his best stuff only to have a lineperson gives a crucial game to his opponent. It’s not like it was a Pete Sampras serve either, there’s no excuse for that call.

Now it’s Roddick’s turn be unnerved and it costs him the match. He wins only two more points and Ginepri gets to the semifinals with a 4-6, 7-6 (2), 7-5 win.

This is an old problem for Roddick. His meltdowns have cost him grand slam matches. Even when he doesn’t have a meltdown, he can’t beat players like Lleyton Hewitt. Roger Federer has more game than Roddick. Hewitt doesn’t. He’s just mentally stronger. Clearly a champion should be able to recover from an egregious error and win a match against the ninety-eighth ranked player. But I’m sympathetic. This is a situation begging for the introduction of Shot Spot technology.

As for Ginepri, winning in a competitive environment takes luck and skill. He lucked out with the bad call but he also pulled himself through a walkabout and three match points to get the most important victory of his career. This is the kind match that can change a player’s mindset. Next time Ginepri will feel comfortable with the thought of beating a top five player and that might be enough to lift him into the company of the seeded players on tour.

Ginepri went on to beat Taylor Dent and win this tournament. He’s on his way.

Lanny Bassham trained five hours a day, five days a week for ten years before making the 1972 Olympic Team as a rifle shooter. He came in second. A silver medal. Most people would be happy with a silver medal but he was devastated. He felt that he had disappointed his family, his country and everyone else including himself. He wasn’t prepared for the pressure of the Olympics. He was nervous and lost his concentration. He couldn’t perform up to his usual standard.

There were no mental training courses at the time so he spent those five hours a day interviewing Olympic Gold medal winners for the next two years. He asked them what they were thinking in training and competition and what set them apart from other competitors. Why did they win when others lost? He used that information to streamline his training and prepare himself for the 1976 Olympics. He won the gold medal, goal accomplished. He also won the World Championship two years later.

He used the information he gathered to develop a system of mental training that he uses to train Olympians and other athletes. You can read about in With Winning In Mind.

What does Lanny Bassham think is the biggest error that people make in competition?

They try too hard.

Last week’s Sports Illustrated included a column containing quotes from athletes promising to give 110% effort, 140% effort, and even, in the case of golfer Jerry Kelly who wanted to make the Ryder Cup team, 1000% effort. He didn’t make the team. What is 1000% effort anyway?

When I studied martial arts, I used to read translations of ancient martial arts texts. Books about the Japanese martial art of Kendo described competitions that lasted through the night and required sword fighters to push themselves to their limit.

I studied tai chi. Don’t be fooled by those slow, measured movements, tai chi is one of the most effective fighting arts in existence. What did the ancient tai chi texts say about effort? Do 70% of what you can do, not 100%. Don’t bend your knees and go as low as you possibly can, don’t kick your leg as high as it’ll go, do less. Not only are you less likely to injure yourself, you’re also in a better position to move with the fluidity and grace the practice calls for. Imagine moving gracefully when your knees are shaking and your muscles are strained. You can’t do it.

Tai chi is a reactive martial art. You read and disarm your opponent instead of kicking the stuffing out of them. That requires relaxation.

I remember watching Fred Lynn play for the Boston Red Sox in the 1970s. You’d swear he had cork in his bat the way the ball jumped off it. He didn’t lunge viciously at the ball or corkscrew himself into the dirt swinging for the fences, he swung the bat with a smooth, relaxed motion. He looked like he could have been in the batting cage taking batting practice before the game.

Bassham says that this is a good model for level of effort in competition. Work as hard as you do in a good practice. If you try harder, you’ll be adding a level of unnecessary pressure. You might even try shots that you don’t usually hit in an effort to do more. A true recipe for disaster.

Come on now, tell me how much you swear and smash your racket in frustration on the practice court. Someone as volatile as Marat Safin doesn’t even do that. Use the level of relaxation you have in practice to give yourself the best opportunity to win in competition