Does Your Tennis Player Feel Nervous Before And During Matches?

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Does your athlete get so nervous or so tense prior to or during a match that his or her hands are shaking or their heart it feels like they're beating out of their chest and thus they Underperform? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn for the Tennis Psychology Podcast. In today's episode I answer a question from Tony, who happens to be a sport parent and his son plays competitive table tennis. Here's a question I received from Tony. I have a 14 year old table tennis player who has been playing competition since he was 4 years old. He feels nervous before and during competition which includes shaking hands. He's also extremely afraid of losing to lower ranked players. Other than your Relaxed Athlete CD program which I have already purchased, is there anything else that I can do to help him?

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Thanks for your question Tony, and also thanks for purchasing the Relaxed Athletes CD program. I think that's a great start. The Relaxed Athlete CD program was the fifth program in our series called the Confident Athlete series that brought together all the programs in one and talked about how athletes can have a good pre game routine and get into this state of mind where they're relaxed and focused and ready to perform their best. The particular issue that you're having with your student is that number one, the shaking hands, the heartbeat, the sweaty palms. I'd want to know if those things go away for him pretty quickly into the match. For example, sometimes athletes will get jacked up, will get juiced up, what we call the pre game jitters. And there's really nothing wrong with the pregame jitters until the athlete turns those pre game jitters or pre match jitters in this case into worry and anxiety that there's something wrong with them. So one of the solutions is to get him to look at those feelings as the shaky hands, sweaty palms, rapid breathing for example. Those are the things that are getting him up and into the match and it's going to help him focus. We call it embracing the pre match butterflies. However, in his case, if he's really afraid of losing the lower ranked players, and this is really common in tennis and I assume in table tennis as well, then there may be Other issues around fear of failure and fear of embarrassment that you're going to need to address with him and find out. So the first question is how quickly do the pre match jitters that he's feeling, the shaking hands, how quickly do they go away after the first few points of the match or do they stay with him for a good portion of the match? Then I would be concerned that we're not dealing with your garden variety pre match jitters, that it's more related to the fear of failure and worrying about maybe disappointing you, disappointing a parent, disappointing a coach, for example. And so that's the second set of questions that you need to explore with him, is to find out what this particular source of fear is about. So let's say he loses to the lower ranked player. I would want to ask him what's so awful about losing to that lower ranked player and I would obviously get a response from him and he might say, well, I feel like maybe I'm letting myself down or I'm letting a parent down or I'm letting a coach down or I feel embarrassed because a lower ranked player beat me. And that conversation is going to ultimately get you to what I call the core issue or the source of his particular fear. And then you're going to have to rationalize with him and address that head on, like we do somewhat in the relaxed athlete. I also think the fearless athlete, which is about fear of failure, perfectionism and lack of trust, could also be helpful for him in this particular instance because I think what you're describing ultimately is going to affect him in terms of his trust and what he's doing on the court. Well, thanks for your question. I hope that was helpful and good luck with your student.

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