The Difference Between Male and Female Tennis Players

I have often been asked during media interviews if there are differences between male and female athletes and the answer I give is “Yes.” Beyond the obvious differences in physiology, there are also subtle but real psychological differences as well. And the answer to what these differences are can be seen in the way boys and girls are raised. Girls are usually raised to be compassionate, cheerful, gentle, loyal, sensitive to the needs of others, tender, yielding and warm. They are taught these traits by parents, by teachers, by books and films. And the training starts at birth. Research shows that even as infants, parents pick up and handle girls differently than boys. Girls are given dolls and doll houses and toy tea sets and are encouraged to be sweet and giving, not the picture of a warrior athlete.

Throughout childhood, boys are encouraged to be aggressive, ambitious, assertive, athletic, competitive, independent, strong, dominant and forceful. These traits are inculcated with toys like guns and tanks and soldiers. Parents are more apt to engage little boys in rough and tumble play.

The combination of differences in physiology and upbringing results in a different mindset on the court. If you watch a tournament you see very fast that men tend to curse, throw rackets and generally behave badly. Too much aggression and too much anger are the key flaws seen in male tennis players. Too much anger and aggression makes you over swing, become reckless, lose focus and finally lose the match.

The opposite issue holds for women. Since they are trained to be gentle, sweet and compassionate they will repress or shut down their aggressive side when they get into the lead. They hesitate to dominate others and do not want to seem masculine so they soften up when leading and lose focus.

To discover more about these sex differences in tennis, I contacted Mike Pavlides who is the Massapequa High School Varsity Tennis coach for boys and girls. He was the 2003 USTA Eastern Long Island Region Nassau County Coach of the Year and has plenty of experience observing the differences between the boys and the girls. To the question of differences, he said, “Male players never concede defeat which is good, but they can also become too aggressive and angry which is self-defeating.” He told me that they have a tendency to get angry with opponents rather than focusing simply on winning the match.

And he felt that for females they show more resiliency and can let go of defeat after losses better. He added that their fatal flaw was in their compassion and fear that they ought not to be too aggressive. He remarked that they can sometimes have a tendency to give up leads based upon this issue. He went on to say that these issues are often not seen in the champions since they have worked out these issues.

The remedy? We can conclude that their probably are differences between the way the male and female play tennis. As Mike suggested the males’ Achilles Heel is his anger and the solution would be to try to play the match but not the opponent. Focusing on the point rather the man across the net would allow for one to control the anger better.

For the female, we see that they are usually programed to be nice, sweet, giving and compassionate. These traits do not seem to be the emotional tools of the tennis champion. Giving often translates into giving away a match. I usually try to help the female athlete to create a new identity while on the court, one that is focused and aggressive and supportive only of herself. This means that she is trained to talk and smile less, while playing and she is told there is time enough to be sweet while off the court.

So to the question of sex differences between male and female tennis players I think the answer is yes. The male is at times too much in love with aggression and the female doesn’t love aggression enough.