Be Gracious in Defeat, But Don't Believe What you Say

The title is provocative, yes.  However, there is a method and reasoning to what I said.

By all means, one should always attempt to be as gracious toward your opponent and their success against you when you are defeated.  Laud your opponent's play to them directly, and if it's a league match where you must wait among others for your teammates to finish, continue to be gracious during that time as well.  Juniors should also abide by this modus operandi.

However, whatever it is that you expel from the bowels of your mouth about your opponent's play should be immediately rejected, ignored, and forgotten with respect to what you need to do in order to improve.  If you continue to focus on "how great your opponent played," you will miss out on all the learning that can be done by focusing on your own errors and poor play.  Even if you feel you played well in defeat, this should not be the focus of your attention.  In order to improve you must focus on the errors, all the points you lost and what you did to contribute to those lost points.

Serena Williams generally draws the ire of most of the tennis playing public because she historically has not been very gracious in her defeats.  Invariably she will say something like "When you make 100 unforced errors, your opponent seems to play a lot better." While her savoir-faire leaves something to be desired, her approach towards her improvement with these statements is 100% the correct approach.  You, too, should be thinking like Serena once you have time to yourself to analyze the match. 

Dissect every point that was a failure, especially the "big" points.  Big points are game points, set points, and match points, as well as the points that set those points up. Determine what YOU (not your partner if you play doubles) could have done differently or better in order to affect the outcome of the point in your favor.  Find commonalities in your errors.  The most blatant should be the focus of your attention before your next match or tournament. 

At the end of the day, we only have 100% control of what WE do on the court when the ball comes to our side of the court.  So our decisions on shot selection, movement to the ball (or with our partner or the ball if doubles), technique, recovery, and mental/emotional state all deserve our scrutiny.  If you allow yourself to focus on how well your opponent(s) played or how well you played, you will miss the opportunities for improvement that exist after each match.

So being gracious in defeat is more like telling that family member you can't stand "It's so great to see you" when you see them at the family reunion.  It's just something you do out of courtesy.  Leave it there and focus on how you failed in all your matches in order to make a jump in level.