Can you see the prize?

I’m always been nagged at by my wife. Every prize that I've ever won is lying about the house somewhere. She thinks I should be clearing this lot up.

This isn’t a confession page. I’ve heard that if your wife doesn’t nag you she doesn’t love you. So I take her nagging with a lot of reassurance!
 

The psychology of winning

I never chuck anything out. It is true I’ve got a workshop where pride of place is my stringing machine on its own little table, and a huge long workbench along the back wall. Every now and then I drag everything off the workbench and leave a clear space, but in a short time it is full of boxes and tins and tools. Every time I feel a serious nag coming along, I am able to clean the workbench.

There are some shelves at the end of the workbench. On the biggest, lowest is a big crate. In there you will find various cups I have won over the years, all higgledy-piggledy, unloved, dusty and scratched. Just in case you’re wondering, I do have a mantelpiece, AND a presentation cabinet, where I can put them.
 

Winning a prize

The problem with the mantelpiece is that the cups start to dominate the room, and visitors to the house start asking pesky questions, out of politeness I’m sure, about the special day in my life when I won such and such a cup. I can’t think of anything more tedious.

I could of course put them in a presentation cabinet, slightly out of harm’s way, where I could maybe install a spotlight if I felt like reminiscing, which of course I never do.
 

The learning process

I don’t like my cups for two reasons. Firstly, they are nearly all awful. They are made of the cheapest, tinniest metals, with the tackiest, nastiest little labels. I can only then think that the tournament I won was the cheapest, tackiest, easiest, poxiest tournament in the world. I am frankly a bit offended to be given such cups.

They don't bear any real relation to the effort involved in winning.

Cup from the referee

Often in the cup on presentation day was a little envelope with a cheque, or worse, but quite acceptable, a money order to go and spend at a shop I’d never normally visit. At least that gives my wife an excuse for a day out. And we usually manage to buy something, but I can guarantee it won’t be for me.

Once I was even given a cup by my local club at a cute little ceremony, and I discovered that same cup had been given to someone else in some previous year, who most generously had returned the trophy (probably out of disgust). Cup recycling. Quite a good idea in fact. Maybe I should do that.
 

Money for tennis

My son’s first cup was achieved at the local club. We were so proud of him, he included. A couple of the matches had been quite a struggle. However, we also all knew where the cup had come from, so despite all the photos, and the significance of the day, the cup was not the star of the show. It was the first real proof that my son had arrived. That knowledge was the prize.

Other cups followed, and, of course, they are never like the first one. A little bit tedious, not another cup. Clap, clap, clap.
 

Set a new goal

So that brings me onto the second reason why cups are no good. A tennis player moves on. He moves on tennis-wise, and in his general life. You may have a happy memory of your first recognisable achievement, but you know how you hit balls in those days, you know how you trained, how you set a match up. How embarrassing! You are now so much better.

There is quite a solid principal here. Your most recent tennis match is your best, your most important. That is your starting off point for tomorrow. It isn’t some match you played back in 2003 when you could hardly hit a forehand cross court. And if your most recent match wasn’t a spectacular affair, never mind, it was still a tennis match. The tennis match itself, in fact, any tennis match, is a privilege, and so it should be treasured.
 

Put together your marketing mix

Further, if you didn’t get a cup for that most recent tennis match, be thankful, because the value of that match is not the prize, not even the winning, it is what you did. If it wasn’t exactly what you had in mind (it rarely is), then that gives you a big kick up the backside to go and get some serious practice in.
 

Tennis clubs

There are exceptions. Here is one.

My son Mark played in a tournament at the beginning of 2011, in February, a perishing cold day. It was a tournament in the middle of nowhere, so there were no well-ranked players in the draw. In fact through the seeding system, Mark only had one match to play. This looked like it would be a non-event. Then he discovered that his opponent, someone we didn’t know, had a lower ranking than him. Mark was going to win another meaningless tournament apparently.

Far from it. His opponent had recently been moved to a Tennis/Studies college, so had been hitting balls three hours a day, every day, for the last six months. He had been doing fitness, matches and the rest. His ranking was completely wrong. He rallied superbly confidently, was distributing the balls with great precision into the corners, hit hard and soft with aplomb.

Mark lost the first set, but he was well into it. He was struggling with the regularity of his opponent, no surprises there. But he was fighting, trying out ways of winning points carefully. I was enjoying the match a lot, but this sort of opponent was going to be a lot of trouble for Mark. Mark simply doesn’t hit, had never hit, this many balls.

However, Mark managed to hang in the match, playing with great patience, working out where and when he was going to get his points. He sneaked the second set by playing a phenomenally positive tiebreak where he took a couple of calculated chances that paid off, then served it out. Brilliant.
 

Sponsor site

The third set didn’t start too well, but still Mark was in it. I’d never seen him stick in a match of this type so well. It was hard for him, very hard. He was sticking with it. Around the middle of the set, Mark found another gear, managed to reel off three games in a row with some positive hitting. His opponent, shocked, kept hitting his balls regularly and reliably as he had trained himself to do, but it wasn’t enough. Mark held his game together and was looking so so strong at the end as he won the last point. I wanted to hug and kiss him so much. It was a sensational performance.

Off to the prize ceremony for the dreaded routine and cup. Mark received a big plastic bag of goodies, balls, key rings, which isn’t bad – it gives you a bit of fun rummaging through all the stuff. Mark enjoys goody bags.
 

Show character

In the bag was a cardboard box. He opened it. Inside was the most beautifully engraved glass, big brandy glass size. In the town, we hadn't known before, there was a luxury glass factory, the sponsors. The glass was admired, photos taken, and delicately put back in its box. We returned home. It is now the only trophy in our presentation cabinet.

It was the best match ever.