The Between-Points Routine: The 25 Seconds That Decide Matches

A tennis match is roughly 70% time between points and 30% time in points. Most coaching attention goes to the 30%. Most matches are won and lost in the 70%. The space between points is where physiological recovery happens, where the last point is processed, where the next point is planned, and where the player either holds their composure or loses it. It is also where the largest, cheapest performance gains in tennis are available — and where almost no club-level player has a deliberate routine.

What the rules say and what the routine has to fit into

The current ITF and tour rules allow 25 seconds between points and 90 seconds at most changeovers (120 seconds at set breaks). At club level, the actual time varies more, but the 25-second frame is a useful planning target because it forces discipline. Your between-points routine has to fit inside 25 seconds, end to end, including the walk back, the towel, the strings, the preparation, and the step to the baseline. If it takes 30, you’re cutting it close. If it takes 40, you’ve lost the rhythm and probably annoyed your opponent.

A well-designed routine has four distinct phases. They don’t have to be the same four for every player, but the structure has to be there.

Phase 1: The immediate response (the first 3–5 seconds)

The first thing that happens after a point — won or lost — is a physiological and emotional spike. Heart rate is at peak. Adrenaline is up. There is information arriving: did I hit a good shot or a bad one, did I read that serve right, what’s the score now. If the player does nothing deliberate in this window, the information gets processed by whatever default emotional pattern they have. For most players, that default is bad: a frown, a slumped shoulder, an audible exhale, a racquet drop, sometimes worse.

The single most useful piece of behavioral coaching here is what Jim Loehr identified in the 1980s and what every sport psychologist since has elaborated: deliberately project a positive physical response, regardless of the outcome of the point. Walk back to the baseline with head up. Hold the racquet in the non-dominant hand to relax the playing arm. No visible reaction to the last point — neither celebration nor frustration. The body language teaches the brain how to feel, not the other way around. This is one of the few things in sport psychology where the evidence is strong and consistent.

This phase is short. It is over by the time the player has taken three or four steps back from where the point ended. But it shapes everything that follows.

Phase 2: The relaxation phase (about seconds 5–15)

Once the player is moving back toward the baseline or the towel, the goal shifts. Now you want the body and mind to drop down from peak arousal. The classic move here is to look at the strings, adjust them, breathe out slowly. This isn’t a placebo. The slow exhale activates the parasympathetic nervous system. Heart rate starts to drop. The fingers loosen on the racquet. The visual focus narrows to the strings, which is a deliberate de-focusing from the court, from the score, from the last point.

This is also the phase where the player can use the towel if it’s a long, hot match. The towel break is not just hygiene. It’s a way to break the rhythm of escalating arousal that long matches produce. Top players who are notable for their composure — Nadal, Djokovic, Swiatek — use this phase with extreme discipline. Every action has a place.

What you don’t want in this phase is rumination on the last point. If the last point was an unforced error, the worst possible thing is to spend the next ten seconds replaying it, asking yourself why you missed, telling yourself you should have done X. That just keeps the negative emotion alive. The rule of thumb I teach my players is: one quick technical thought (“I dropped my head on the forehand”) is allowed; everything else is rumination and it gets cut off.

Phase 3: Preparation (about seconds 15–22)

Now the player turns to face forward. Eye contact with the court. This is the phase where the player decides what they are going to do on the next point. It does not have to be elaborate. In fact, the more elaborate it is, the worse it usually works. The decision is two-part: the serve (or return), and one tactical intent for what comes after.

For a server: target, spin, and one image of what they want the point to look like after the serve. Example: “Wide kick on the deuce side, then forehand to the open court.” That’s the entire mental plan. It fits in five seconds.

For a returner: where the opponent is likely to serve (based on what they’ve done so far and the score), and where I’m going to put the ball if I get a clean look at it. That’s it. Two thoughts, not twelve. Tennis players overthink between points constantly, and overthinking is the enemy of execution.

This phase also includes the physical preparation — the bounces of the ball, the look up at the box for serving, the split-step timing for returning. These are the rituals that anchor the next point. Players who suddenly skip their rituals when the match gets tight are the players who lose tight matches. The ritual is what tells the body that the next 5–10 seconds are going to look exactly like the last 100 5–10 seconds. The familiarity is what dampens the arousal of the moment.

Phase 4: Commitment (the last 2–3 seconds)

The final phase is the smallest and the most important. It is the moment of full commitment to the plan. The body is set. The decision is made. The eye is on the ball or the toss. Whatever doubt the player had during the previous twenty seconds is now closed off. The shot is going to happen.

The cue here is usually a focus word or a focus image. “Through the ball.” “Brush up.” “Heavy.” Whatever it is, it should be the same word every time, and it should be about something external — the ball, the target, the contact — not about the self. The evidence on external attentional focus is now decades old and very clear: external focus produces better motor outcomes than internal focus (Wulf, 2007, and a great deal of subsequent work). “Hit the ball through the cone” beats “keep your wrist firm.”

The single most common mental failure in tennis at the amateur level is what I call decision drift — the player gets to the baseline without having actually made a decision about the next point, and then they hit a half-hearted shot that’s neither aggressive nor defensive. The four-phase routine prevents drift because it forces a decision to exist by phase three.

Putting the routine together

A complete between-points routine, end to end, looks like this:

1. Point ends. 2. Three to four steps away from the position, head up, racquet in non-dominant hand. Neutral or positive face. (5 sec) 3. Walk to the towel or back fence area. Strings adjustment. Slow exhale. Eyes on the strings. (10 sec) 4. Turn to face the court. Decide serve/return plan. One tactical intent for the post-serve sequence. (7 sec) 5. Step to the baseline. Final ritual — ball bounces or split-step prep. Focus cue. (3 sec) 6. Execute.

Total: about 25 seconds. Repeatable. Boring. Effective.

Why this beats motivation

Most amateur players try to “stay positive” or “be tough” or “play big points like big points.” These are aspirations, not techniques. The four-phase routine is a technique. It works whether the player is feeling great or feeling terrible. It works at 1-0 in the first set and at 5-6, 30-40, second serve in the third. The whole point of having a routine is that it carries the player through moments when their internal state can’t.

This is why pros stick to it so rigidly. Watch Nadal’s between-points sequence in any match. It looks neurotic; it isn’t. It’s a precise, repeated sequence that produces a known outcome every time he steps to the baseline. That known outcome — the state he is in when the next point begins — is the thing that lets him play the next point the same way regardless of what just happened. That’s the entire purpose of the routine.

One thing to do on court tomorrow

Pick one of your players, or yourself if you’re the player, and watch the next practice match with a stopwatch. Time the gap between points. If it’s varying by more than five seconds between points — twelve seconds after a winner, twenty-five after an error — the routine doesn’t exist yet. The fix is to design it explicitly: write down the four phases, walk through them off-court, then apply them on-court starting from the first point of the next session. The discipline is to do every phase, every point, regardless of the score.

About the author: Emre Köse is a tennis coach at Beykoz Tenis Kulübü and GDTennis in Istanbul. He holds a BSc in Physical Education Teaching and Coaching from Marmara University.

Related in this series: Choking: what it is, what causes it, and how to reduce it · Pre-match arousal regulation · Focus cues for each shot · The third-set tiebreak mindset

Selected reading:

• Loehr, J. (1990). The Mental Game. Stephen Greene Press.
• Wulf, G. (2007). Attention and Motor Skill Learning. Human Kinetics.
• Crespo, M., & Reid, M. (2007). Coaching Beginner and Intermediate Tennis Players. ITF.