Tennis is a mental game. These words are repeated over and over again by experts around the world. Top champions confirm that mental preparation is of utmost importance especially at the highest level where all of the competitors know how to hit forehand and backhand. However, knowing that and knowing how to improve that are two different things so players should take time and energy to really understand what stops them from achieving the highest possible level.

Marcin Bieniek

Looking at the specificity of tennis as an individual sport, it is difficult to disagree with the importance of mental skills while competing. Players are alone on the court so they are the only persons that have to feel everything and decide about everything. Every winner is the reason to build confidence but every error can start the avalanche of negative thoughts. Every won match brings happiness while every lost match takes some mental energy out of the player. Players have to deal with stress, expectations, emotions and challenges that happen during every rivalry so mental preparation is necessary to deal effectively with these repetitious actions.

A lot of players tend to perform worse during the competition than during the practice session

It doesn’t happen because they forget to put skills into their bags while preparing for the tournament. The truth is that they underperform because they are not able to deal with mental obstacles that don’t occur in a comfortable training environment. During the practice, a player gets irritated only while making too many mistakes. During the tournament, a player gets stressed right from the beginning as also he doesn’t know many factors like a player on the other side, club’s environment, reactions of fans, etc. A mentally strong player will execute own offensive strategy even while serving and facing the break point while mentally unprepared player will hit the first ball after the serve with frame.

We have to remember that the body listens to the thoughts. It means that what happens in a player’s head will have big influence on player’s physical performance. That is why if players want to improve their quality of the game, they have to first pay attention to the internal talking and try to direct it to help them achieve the task.

A lot of players lose to themselves because they have destructive thoughts during the match. Here are the 3 most typical thoughts that can convert a solid tennis player into a coward person, who decelerates the racket and doesn’t control anything:

Please, don’t miss

That’s number one. Defensive thinking destroys everything. The modern game is based on power and speed so the risk has to be included to have a chance for lifting the trophy and the end of the week. Thinking about not missing the ball not only takes confidence away from the player but also sends a faulty signal to the body that it should slow down to control the shots more. However, tennis is not like driving the car. If you slow down your movement and racket’s motion, you will lose control over your shots because your technique will be broken and mechanical. Top players hit the balls fluidly without hesitation but to achieve the same level of quality, firstly proper thoughts have to be incorporated.

I can do nothing

Getting aced 3 times in a row. Missing 2 easy returns into the net. Losing every rally that lasts longer than 10 shots. In these situations, players tend to say these words because the score is negative as also they don’t see any possibility to change the momentum of the game. Destructive thoughts produce lack of motivation, slower reaction, emotional thinking and inability to find tactical solutions to change the score. By thinking how the opponent is winning the points, player can simply analyze own bag of skills and try to use different weapons to put more pressure on the rival. There is always a solution even to the worst time on the court – the question is how deep do you want to dig to find it?

I suck

Tennis players love to talk negatively but demotivating language is the result of negative thoughts. It is never separated. It means that before player says something, he has to firstly think about it. Telling yourself that you suck has a big negative influence on your mindset, actions and the score. It is like having coach next to you and telling you after every point how bad you are. Maybe for the first 5 times it wouldn’t affect you but after hearing these words for 10 or 15 minutes, you would start to believe in it. On the court, you are your own coach so remember to support – not to destroy.

Destructive thoughts can destroy players at beginner or intermediate level but we can also see that on the top level, players like Kyrgios or Paire also don’t have the skills to deal with internal challenges. It only confirms that before every tournament, you have to practice with the same intensity on your mental skills like you do on your technical, tactical and physical ones. You should never ever let your thoughts make you lose – they have to help you to achieve your greatness because you are the one who is in charge.