Do You Lack Confidence in One of Your Strokes

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Do you coach players that have a mental block with one of their strokes? Hi, this is Dr. Patrick Cohn and today I respond to a tennis coach that says he has one player that's scared of using her forehand, especially on winners.

Dr. Cohn Binks, a tennis coach, has a question about one of his players. I have a very good 15 year old that is one of the best players I have seen over the last eight years of coaching. She has a powerful backhand, a decent serve and is very quick. Though she is battling a bit with her forehand, she is developing a mental block about using it, particularly in situations when she is going for the winner. She will come up to the net and hit it out. I think she is going for the big shot instead of playing clever tennis. Is this a mental game or physical game problem?

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When you say your player has a mental block instantly, I think, well, there's probably some confidence issues going on with her forehand, especially when she's in those situations to hit a winner. And you also have to look at in past situations has she hit out and missed shots and according to you? Well, she has hit a few out and missed a few shots with her forehand. So often what happens is a player will start to develop a generalization, in this case a negative generalization. And that is when I have a chance to hit a winner with my forehand I mess up. And so that script plays over in their head over and over again like a broken record. And soon. Now every chance she has to hit a winner with her forehand, she's already on the defensive worrying about whether she's going to hit it out or not. And like I said earlier, it's probably eroded her confidence somewhat with her forehand. In those particular situations. I can't tell you whether it's a completely physical problem or it's a mental game problem. I suspect it may have started out with a small flaw in her strokes and then that led to a bigger mental game issue which again leads to bigger physical problems. Right. So she might have started out with a tiny little flaw that eventually got worse from a physical game perspective, but it is possible for players to overcome these mental blocks with particular strokes. What you're going to have to do really is get her to have enough successful situations with that particular shot, whether it's down the line or cross court forehand. When she's at half court, give her enough instances, enough success, so she can start to undo this generalization that she has what I call some of the mental scars or the negative images she's developed over the last few months of hitting shots out. That's certainly going to be an important part of her practice and gaining her confidence back with that stroke. The other part of that is once she's on the court, she has to have the trust in it. If she's controlling the shot, if she's guiding the shot, the then most likely she's not going to be able to draw from that positive practice those success pictures that you gave her in the practice situation. So it's not only how she goes about practicing, but it's the ability to take that practice and be able to hit that shot freely. So that means making it more simple for her, simplifying the shot, getting the mechanics out of her head when she plays, being able to look at her target or see the trajectory of the shot and just hit it. Thanks for the question and good luck with her game.

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