Keeping Up Your Endurance in the Middle of a Match

           Have you ever been in the middle of a match and you just felt like you couldn't keep playing because you were so out of breath? About a month ago I was playing in a USTA tournament and the first set of my quarterfinal match took about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Luckily, it was at night so the sun wasn't an issue. However, I live in Florida and we always have to deal with humidity here. To get through that grueling first set and play through the rest of the match, I had to find a way to "grind it out." By this of course I mean I had to play through the fatigue and rally the ball. Here are the two ways that I fought the fatigue:

1. The drink: The key to having your drink keep up your endurance is limiting your sugar intake. All sports drinks have sugar in them. Sugar is a great source of energy, until it wears off. Then, your body just shuts down. In order to keep down the sugar intake, you can try diluting your Powerade or Gatorade with water. It may not taste as good, but it will be more beneficial to you and lower the amount of sugar you drink per sip. Another alternative would be to put fruit into your water. Fruits have natural sugars which are better for you than the processed sugars in sports drinks. In my match, I used the diluted Powerade method, and it worked wonders.

2. Heart Rate: You know that when people get nervous, their heart rate skyrockets. Well that also happens when you're running around on the tennis court for 2+ hours. If your heart rate stays that high, you are going to make sloppy errors and your body is going to feel more tired than it really is. In the short period between points, you need to get your heart rate back to a relatively normal pace. To do this, take a deep breath in, but exhale in short bursts. If you have trouble doing that, you can also breathe out slowly while saying "Shuh Shuh Shuh Shuh Shuh," very fast. The latter method is the way I prefer.

   I used both of these strategies in my match and the effects kept me physically in the game. I pulled out the first set in a tiebreaker and won the second set 6-2 in a match that lasted 2.5 hours.When you step on to the court, you want to feel that the length of the match will not be an issue for you the same way that it wasn't for me.