All tennis experts agree: high level of mental skills are needed to achieve great results and win important tournaments.

Unfortunately even with this popular knowledge not too many players and coaches do specific drills and exercises to get stronger in mental area. Additionally the question we should ask: Is mental improvement possible only while working with psychologist or while doing specific psychological activities?

Marcin Bieniek

Tennis players have busy schedules. They spend 2-4 hours per day on the court doing cross-court drills and learning new tactical solutions. Apart from tennis training they have to also include 1-3 hours per day for physical components like gym sessions, stretching and foam-roller recovery techniques. Adding school to these hours we can clearly see that there is not much time left for other things e.g working with psychologist. The good news is that qualified person is not always necessary to make visible improvements in mental side of the player. What counts is conscious work – work that can be done during every tennis practice session.

All training sessions should be planned and have clear goals to accomplish. Coaches have to step on the court with specific activities that can help each player improve at the fastest possible pace. Additionally all training sessions should be created to fit individual needs of all players. As we all know four basic areas have to be trained to allow players to make big progress in tennis performance as also to achieve good results during tournaments. These are: technical components, tactical decisions, mental preparation and physical aspects. In the old-school coaching all these areas were trained separately with 100% focus just on one part. Nowadays completely different approach is favorable. Modern tennis creates needs to work on all aspects to have gains in more than just one area.

All tennis experts agree: high level of mental skills are needed to achieve great results and win important tournaments. Unfortunately even with this popular knowledge not too many players and coaches do specific drills and exercises to get stronger in mental area.

Mental skills are different than any other because they are trained all the time. It doesn’t matter what and where we perform any activity because it always impacts our brain. It simply means that coaches have to teach players how many opportunities they have every day to get stronger mentally and build hidden advantage over opponents. Below I will show you how different areas of training have big impact on player’s mental side:

1. Technical training

How does Cristiano Ronaldo feel before the competition? He is confident, always believe he can deal with any difficulty and knows that he can control many things that can have positive impact on the final result of the match. Why is that? Because he has many skills at the highest technical level. He knows that his abilities allow him to use different methods to get what he want. The same happens with tennis players. When they have good technical skills it positively impacts their mental approach. On the other hand when there are weaknesses in technique players are aware of that and feel insecure. That’s why it is crucial to work on technical aspects to make players get stronger mentally.

2. Tactical training

How do we react when we know the solution of the problem? We are motivated to work hard even when the things don’t go smoothly. We fight to the end because we know we can change the result of the match to our favor. We better react to made mistakes because they are not failures – they are pieces of information that we can use to improve own performance. Coaches should work on tactical decisions with emphasis on correlation between this area with mental skills. It is impossible to make proper decisions when we don’t believe in ourselves or when we are really angry. Right decisions have to be based on strategical principles – not on current level of emotions.

3. Physical training

Physical training creates stronger and healthier body but these are not the only benefits that player gets from running or lifting weights. Physical training creates stronger mind too. When we push ourselves to the limits we get resilient. When we wake up in the morning to have a running session we get more responsible for our career. When we know we are faster than our rival we get into competition with positive attitude and high level of confidence because of this advantage. That is why it is necessary for tennis players to take care of own body because when they do it they also improve mental skills. Mental skills that will decide how successful their careers will be.

Preparation for tennis includes many training sessions. Every practice influences improvement but let’s not forget what really matters in competitive tennis. Strong mental skills will always be more important than any other area. Confident, positive, and resilient players have much better chances to achieve great results than players who don’t consciously take care of mental development. Next time you perform any activity think how it can help your inner voice and thoughts and make sure you get as much improvement as you can from this exercise.

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