MAX TO THE MURRAY

The pilot of the Boeing 737 bound for Genoa gunned the engines and the passenger in 1c, as racing drivers like to say, took a bite out of the seat.

Max Damioli glanced across at the nervous flyer and smiled.

“You don’t like it?”

“No.”

“I used to be like you but then I learned how to fly an aeroplane and now I understand how safe these things are.”

And so began a conversation about the fear of flying, smoking, fencing, shooting and the fourth best tennis player in the world.

Max is a hypnotherapist and gave 1c a few tips on how to deal with the rational fear of putting his life in a stranger’s hands and moving at high velocity.

1c said he had given up smoking using hypnotherapy and Max mentioned he was also a sports psychologist and worked with Olympic fencers and shooters.

Now, 1c knows little about anything except sport and he only knows a little about that but he is curious so he asked Max about Andy Murray.

The 23 year old Scot is the most gifted player from these islands since Fred Perry who won eight Grand Slam titles between 1934 and 1936.

He is a counter puncher who uses his opponent’s pace, moves well and plays with imagination. He is fun to watch.

Murray has won 14 times on the ATP tour and has reached two Grand Slam finals. In 2008 he lost the US Open final in three sets to Roger Federer and earlier this year he went down, again, in straight sets to the world’s number one in the final of the Australian Open.

Leave aside those two matches and Murray has won six of nine matches against the best player to pick up a racquet.

Last year at Wimbledon Murray lost in the semi finals to Andy Roddick and after the match Roddick’s coach Larry Stefanki identified a tactical weakness in Murray’s game.

“He is going to have a great future if he gets to the point of recognising balls to attack and to come into the forecourt and play there rather than 15 feet behind the baseline.”

But there maybe another reason why Murray has yet to win the final point.

During matches, when he makes a mistake, Murray berates himself. The more mistakes he makes the more frequent and louder the berating. Murray is by no means unique in this but none of the other top players do it.

When asked about this tendency Max said,

“His conscious is split in two. One is judging the other. One expects to make a mistake and the other part makes the mistake. It is dividing his energy.

“ The more tension in a match the more intense the other voice becomes and the more mistakes are made. Instead of supporting him the other voice tells him off and pushes him towards making errors. It goes downhill from there very quickly.”

“Everybody is different and the solution to the problem depends on the character of the individual. Tennis is similar to golf and shooting events in the Olympics. These contests can be very long and there are plenty of opportunities for the part of the person that judges to raise its voice.

Max said the solution is to stay in the present.

“He must succeed in believing in THE point. Not the one before nor the one after. It is the power of now.

“If he asked me I would recommend he creates an anchor in training. An example would be to close his eyes, take three of four breaths and smile or tell a joke so that when he feels tension during a match he can go back to his anchor and prevent the judging side of his conscious taking over.”

Maybe this is too simple.

After all, when Murray was seven years old he survived the deadliest mass murder of children in British history when a gunman killled sixteen fellow pupils and a teacher at his primary school in Dunblane. His parents also separated around the same time.

But Max knew nothing of these events. He was talking solely about a professional athlete struggling with his other voice and 1c is a much better flyer now than before.