Coping With Frustration in Tennis Matches

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Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn with peaksports.com or Peak Performance Sports. You're watching sessions with Doc. In this video, I'm going to talk about how one tennis player gets frustrated with his game and what he can do to turn it around and not tank the match.

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So Mac had the following question for me about his tennis game. He said, I'm a skilled and talented tennis player. When things don't go my way during the match, I become very disappointed and frustrated. Then this also affects my next game and even my training sessions. During a match, a lot is expected from me at all costs and that puts a lot of pressure on me. As a result, I simply can't play to my peak. Mac, this is a very common question that I get from tennis players. When things aren't going their way and they're losing or they're hitting it poorly or they're making mistakes, they tend to get very down and disappointed. So hint, you may have some perfectionism there. Perfectionists in tennis have very high expectations about how they're supposed to play the game. What that means is they tend to not like to miss, right? They tend to not want to hit the ball in the net. They don't like to shank simply. They don't like to make mistakes. They think they're supposed to be perfect out there, make all their shots, hit all their short balls, not double fault. You get the idea. Well, when you carry those type of expectations with you out to the tennis court and you don't perform up to those expectations, guess what? You're going to either lose confidence or question your ability or become frustrated that you're not playing up to your expectations. Very, very common trap that I find in tennis. So what's the solution? Well, the solution, number one, is to not carry those strict or high expectations out there when you play. Now, the other thing that you have to do is you have to understand what are the situations or the shots in particular. Let's just use hitting a short ball. If you hit a short ball into the net, is that a trigger for you, for you getting upset and frustrated? Well, most likely it will be if you have the expectation that I can't miss any of my short balls. Alright? So what you have to do is you have to think differently in that situation. Remember, hitting a ball into the net is just a fact. It's a trigger. It doesn't mean you have to become frustrated. So what I do with my students and my athletes is, is I help them create what I call a new reaction. You can call it a coping reaction, a different reaction to that situation. So what can you tell yourself in that moment that you hit the ball into the net? Remember, that's just a trigger. It doesn't cause frustration. You cause yourself frustration. No one can make you feel frustrated but yourself, as Albert Ellis, the great psychologist, said. So in that instance, you might tell yourself, I'm not perfect. No one expects me to nail all my short balls or hit winners on my short balls. Just let it go and move on. That's a much different response to what you're doing. Currently getting dejected and frustrated. Hope that was helpful. If you want more information, jump over to sportspsychologytennis.com check out more tips and audio programs that I think you'll like.

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