“So… how did you do for trials?”

He asked as he slowly leaned back in his seat. Crossing his legs as he did, almost as if to hide the slight tremor in his voice. His eyes had widened a little, and his cheek turned slightly toward me, offering that perfunctory open ear.

In that brief moment of white space, in between his voice and the expectant answer, I couldn’t help feel as if it was his hope, that answered his own question.

I sighed. I didn’t come in #1 in the trial, so to answer the question in a plebian way—really. I didn’t clinch the spot. It couldn’t have been that great.

—

When the trials started, there was a weight about the air that was hard to shake off. Its name was Expectation. Hope. Desire. Its more commonly acquainted form? Pressure.

In early 2014, Ilona Sudak, the Polish coach I began working with, started changing my game to a style that would give me better chances on the bigger stage: the WTA tour. My old game of playing patience, looping balls and counter-pushing won matches on the local circuit, but would not last against more aggressive Russian, Korean, Thai or China girls on the international stage. I needed to develop stronger weapons and Ilona decided it was time to start teaching me how to fire harder arsenal.

It was a painful process though. What was essentially at stake was an evolution of style. For a pioneer in any field, one knows how arduous that can be. In sport, it is applying theory to practice (competition); that is the litmus test. Translation, evolution, these heavy processes take time. It involves playing out of your comfort zone. Learning how to play amidst discomfort. In spite of emotion. Learning how to do the right thing. Learning how to trust the process, your process, so much, you negate the end result.

That’s right. That you negate the end result. Because in your mind, you are crystal clear of the larger picture you are working towards. In this case, it was using the national tournaments as ‘testing ground’ to the translation work of my game. The nett result was losing to 14 year olds. Getting scorelines of 1 and 0. Walking off court confused and thinking, “I don’t know what went wrong”. Scorelines never reflect how close individual games can get, and Ilona reached a stage where she started putting her foot down. “Sarah, I don’t care what the score line is. I don’t even want to know the score. I just want to know whether you hit the goals that we set out for you to hit.”

Goals and process. That was her measure of success. And it was a fundamental shift from the previous preoccupation with winning. Until 2014, I had never met coaches who emphasized so much on process. Process, process, process.

If 2014 had a song, that would have been its beat. And as I took beatings during the national tournaments in the name of process, I held onto the hands guiding me through the woods. Kept trusting my trainers from Genesis as they strengthened my body. Kept listening to Ilona’s voice through the losses. Kept talking to Jinhong my sports psychologist when self-doubt, emotions and despair appeared. The weird thing is that deep down, even as I lost my matches, I knew the things I was learning to do in my game, these patterns and behaviors of play, were necessary for that larger, bigger, more solid game. And so overall, really. Objectively, it was a good thing.

But when you are so deep in the woods—sometimes you cannot see the sunlight. And you just need to hold on. Hold on to the hands around you. Learn how to trust the warmth in their palms. The calm in their voice. Because they can see. More than your emotions. Sometimes, even more than immediate results.

And so it was with that mental state, that I went into the SEAGames trials in the first week of January 2015. Of the six other girls competing for that one coveted SEAGames spot, I had lost to four through 2014. Jinhong understood my apprehension from the start. I had worked hard on my technical game, developed a sound tactical plan during training camp. I was strong and fit. But the cusp now, was the mental side of things.

“I feel the pressure, Jinhong. I’ve not beaten these girls before.” I spat the words out over lunch after my first loss in the trials. It was unforgiving that way. Lose one match—and you’ve pretty much lost your SEAGames spot. Jinhong glared hard at me. This was the same woman who worked with the Singapore table tennis team enroute to our nation’s silver and bronze medals at the past two Olympics.

“It doesn’t matter, Sarah.” She leaned forward and appraised me with her eyes. The corners of her lips pressed together—unimpressed with my confession.

“You must start again. Every match, is a new start.”

And for the next four consecutive rounds, that is exactly what she did with me. She sharpened my mind to learn how to deal with the pressure constructively. How to handle spectator distractions. What she taught me weren’t so much coping mechanisms (which belie an inherent failure of the mind to identify a problem before it happens, but instead lets the problem develop, and then tries to cope with it).

Instead, what I learnt was how to believe. How to truly, deeply believe in your game. A lot of it came from identifying thoughts that wouldn’t help me win. And blocking them.

Instead of thinking about what people were thinking about me,

instead of being afraid of the impressions I was making on others,

instead of being constantly hemmed in by a paranoia of not performing,

Jinhong started me instead, on something very, very simple:

“What do you want to do?”

Sans spectators. Sans pressure. Sans your opponent.
If you didn’t have to worry about them. What would you want to show on court?

She made me realize that my desire to perform as a champion on court, was independent of all these distractions. The consequence of selections. My opponent. The surrounding spectators. All those were like stars that faded into a distance when you focused on the moon and her brightness.

The moon, in this case, was what you, as a player, wanted to do.

What I wanted to perform on court.

And that performance comes, when you realise the freedom you actually have to exercise that chance to be on court. That this freedom, will always be independent of those distractions.

After Jinhong did that rejig—I took to the next round with a brighter, bolder spirit. After every match, we caught up over lunch and refined my mental approach to the previous and following round. Much of the strength of my mental approach to my game, was rooted in realizing how lucky I am to pursue tennis full-time this year (Yes. You read that right wink emoticonBut that’s another post, for another time :))

“Not many people have the chance to pursue their dreams, Sarah. Your confidence in your game should come from knowing that you have the freedom to be doing that. Not from the result of a match, or a trial.”

Phoa…. Really?

“True confidence comes from knowing you have the freedom to do what you want to do.”

In every round of talking and refining those aspects with Jinhong, I felt like my mind was that parachute that was finally catching the wind and coming to bloom. I had physique. My technical was there. My tactical was sound. The mental game had just booked its berth. Come let’s play now. What do you want to do, Sarah?

Under Armor’s tagline “I Will What I Want” started glowing in my mind with a newfound clarity. “So that’s what they meant…,” I realised. “Wow.”

With Jinhong’s guidance, I went on for the rest of the matches to break personal bests, beat girls I had lost to last year, and most importantly, play tennis with a palpable resilience that was both enjoyable and tenacious.

I came in #3 overall for the SEA Games trials, and even though we have four confirmed spots to the team, the Singapore Tennis Association is still deciding who they want to field. To that extent, no matter how their selection procedure may go—I have come to realize it does not matter. The trails were a great start to the first week of 2015.

This is the year for breaking into the WTA. I know what I want to do. And I started it by conquering a big mountain.

—

I looked him straight in the eye, and smiled.

“I did well.” I said.

His body slouched a little—probably relieved.

Feeling blessed, I meant it.