This post opens the September installment of the Tennis Glow-Up series. Throughout 2026, we have been dedicating the first full weekend of each month toward intentional improvement of our tennis lives. Last month focused on consistency, including the idea that our typical level of play tells us considerably more than an occasional exceptional performance. This month we turn our attention to decision-making.
Tennis players receive almost immediate feedback on most of the decisions we make. Hit a drop shot, and a few seconds later we know whether we won the point. Go for a big second serve, and the ball either lands in the box or it does not. Eventually, every match produces a winner and a loser. Unfortunately, none of those outcomes necessarily tell us whether the decisions that produced them were good.
A player facing break point might decide to blast a return down the line. The ball catches the outside edge for a clean winner. That shot is likely to be regarded as a great decision. Move the exact same ball half an inch over, and the evaluation changes completely. Now it was a reckless choice at an important moment. Nothing about the original decision changed. The only difference was where the ball landed.
This tendency to judge decisions by their outcomes is generally known as results-oriented thinking. It is particularly seductive in sports because the results are so easy to observe. We know who won the point. What we cannot know is what would have happened if a different decision had been made. Maybe the safer crosscourt return would have started a rally the receiver eventually won. Maybe it would have produced an easy ball for the server to put away. We only get to play the point once.
There is a familiar tennis refrain that it is better to be lucky than good. I have certainly won enough points with shanks off the frame of my racquet to appreciate that philosophy. However, getting away with a poor decision does not turn it into a good one. In fact, success can make poor decisions more difficult to recognize because the favorable outcome provides reinforcement that the underlying process did not deserve.
The reverse is also true. A player can play a point with tactics driven by good decisions, execute well enough to earn a short ball, only to miss the sitter. The error may tell us something about execution, but it provides little reason to abandon the decisions that created the opportunity. Replacing a sound strategy because it failed once would introduce another problem rather than solve the first one.
This does not mean we should ignore results. If I make the same tactical choice repeatedly and keep losing points, eventually that collection of data points becomes useful evidence. Perhaps I have overestimated my ability to execute the shot. Maybe my assumptions about the situation are wrong. The distinction is one of sample size and interpretation. A single outcome contains information, but usually not enough to reach a valid conclusion.
That brings us back to luck. We cannot control whether a ball clips the tape and falls over the net. However, what we can do is make choices that improve our odds. Preparation helps us recognize situations we have encountered before. Hard work expands the range of shots we can reasonably attempt. Better decisions allow us to use those capabilities in ways that give us a greater probability of success.
Good decision-making is a vital aspect of being lucky. Over a single point, almost anything can happen. Across hundreds of similar situations, repeatedly choosing the option with better winning chances will eventually make a difference. Tennis guarantees nothing more than the opportunity to keep tilting the odds in our favor.
Tomorrow we will look at how players can improve that process through preparation, experience, and pattern recognition. Before getting there, however, it is worth becoming a little more suspicious of the easiest evidence available to us. Winning the point tells us that something worked. It does not necessarily tell us that we should do it again.
