Types of Tennis Player Temperament
Temperament determines emotional stability, motor activity, speed of mind, level of performance, speed of perception, speed of attention switching, ability to self-regulate.
helpTemperature is a genetically programmed form of behavior. We owe the separation of temperaments to the Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377 BC), who expressed the idea of the presence of four “life juices” in the human body: blood (Latin for sangvis), bile (Greek for chole), lymph (in Greek – phlegm) and black bile (in Greek – melaina chole). According to the theory of Hippocrates, various proportions (from the Latin word tamper – proportion) of these fluids determine the behavior of a person.
The prevalence of blood makes a person mobile and cheerful – a sanguine person. The prevalence of bile makes a person impulsive, “hot” – choleric. The dominance of a person’s lymph is calm and slow – phlegmatic. The prevalence of black bile makes a person sad and fearful – a melancholy.
A more complete description is as follows:
Sanguine – a strong, balanced, mobile type. This is a lively temperament. It has a quick reaction, but attention is not stable. Sanguine people quickly and easily switch to other matters. They are proactive, sociable, cheerful. They willingly take up an interesting thing, are capable of enthusiasm, love novelty, a variety of situations, and change of places. Productive in work when it is interesting to them. It’s easy to experience failure. However, if the matter requires patience, they can retreat.
Choleric is a strong, agile, unbalanced person. He is quick-tempered, aggressive, new at the same time, initiative. The movements are fast and sharp. It is characterized by a sharp change in emotions. He is inclined to overestimate his strength and underestimate the obstacles to the goal. Slow and calm pace of activity for choleric people is not suitable. For them, work that requires quick execution is most acceptable.
Phlegmatic – a strong, balanced, inert person. Phlegmatic works slowly, rhythmically. His attention is steady, attention is delayed. Outwardly, she practically does not show feelings, emotional excitability is weak.
Melancholic – quickly gets tired and stops responding to too strong or prolonged irritants. It is characterized by high emotional and motor sensitivity, increased vulnerability. Failures suppress it, all experiences are slow, but deep enough, and the psyche is easily vulnerable. This is the least common type of people.
People, and in particular athletes, most often do not belong to the “pure”, but to the “mixed” types of temperament, but still some kind of temperament prevails.
Briefly consider the features of tennis players based on the main types of temperament.
Cholerices are explosive, impulsive, initiative, they feel good in competitive conditions. They have an attacking style of play with clearly defined technical and tactical actions with a predominantly successful game in general, as well as the first and decisive (with the most nervous tension) sets. As a drawback – a rather large instability in the game. It is easiest for choleric to achieve the highest results in a tennis career, but they need to especially pay attention to controlling their emotions, both during competitions and in training. Their successful sports growth largely depends on this.
Tennis players with a predominance of sanguine properties play in an offensive manner, expand the arsenal of technical techniques, try to diversify their game, strive for a quick point draw and are distinguished by the most stable game. They are very efficient, especially in extreme conditions. Exhausting training and intense competition do not scare them. But sufficiently developed braking processes prevent them from successfully rising to the heights of excellence.
A phlegmatic game is characteristic of defense, a long point draw, the accuracy of tactical combinations and, of course, perseverance in the fight. However, a successful game in attack is not excluded. The performance stability of these tennis players is also low. They do not manage to maintain the points balance in their favor during the match, which means that by the end of the match they experience the greatest (compared with other types of character) mental stress. Strongly developed processes of braking prevent them from succeeding in such an active game as tennis.
Melancholy players can play the ball for a long time, but the indicator of the difference in points between them and the opponents is the smallest, which characterizes their game as especially uncertain, and, accordingly, with the highest mental stress. They have a significant drawback – they feel bad in the extreme conditions of competition. The instability of the game among tennis players, as well as phlegmatic people, is also high. But due to the high nervous sensitivity, they easily master the technique, the most complex movements are available to them.
