Does Your Tennis Player Tense Up When Serving?

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Do you have tennis players that tend to look a little tense at the service line and really don't perform the way they're capable of? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn for the Tennis Psychology Podcast. In this session, I answer a question from Eva about her daughter who doesn't really look like she's calm and relaxed at the service line. Here's the question from Eva. When my daughter gets into tournaments and she's on the service line, it looks like that she's not really focused or that she looks tight and tense and she often doesn't serve to the best of her ability. Do you have any recommendations for a service routine that she could use that might help her perform the way she's capable of in a practice setting when she's practicing her serves?

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Eva, thanks for the question. This is a very important part of the instruction that I do is teaching athletes pre service routines and also pre return of service routines as well as I find that when I'm working with my students on routines, I'll ask them to describe what they're doing in their service routine. And the answer I typically get is I get on the service line, I bounce the ball three times, I toss the ball and I hit the serve. Now certainly that's a routine, but those are kind of the physical components of the routine, meaning you have to do those to execute a serve. But hardly ever do I hear an athlete talk about the mental component of the routine. So for me, consistent performance comes from consistent mental and physical preparation. Just having a physical routine. You know, tennis players can do that in their sleep. They have to do that routine. Essentially they have to toss the ball. So what I teach athletes is, hey, look, that's the easy part. What you really need to do is you need to have a mental routine. And now we can also couple that with a between point routine. So I'd be interested in knowing what your daughter is doing in between points that makes her tense when she gets on the service line. But that's for another question altogether. Another podcast that we'll have for later. But in terms of the pre service routine, for me it starts with Letting go of the last point because you don't want the monkey on your back or you don't want your tennis player to have a monkey on their back when they stand up to the service line. And that's what they're doing if they're focusing on a mistake they made in the last point or some type of error that they made that they weren't happy with. So they have to clear their mind. Absolutely. Before they step up to the service line and get committed to the next point. I kind of tend to call that part of the between point ritual that is leading up into the actual service routine. Now, what are some of the other mental components that you want your daughter to have? Certainly you can have her take a deep breath and try and relax. So make sure that she's breathing and she's not holding her breath. That's more of a band aid for the worry and the anxiety. Most of the worry and the anxiety comes from thinking about the result. In this case, it's probably thinking about losing the game or double faulting or some type of negative outcome in her mind that makes her tense on the service line. So for that reason, that's why it's important for her to have some type of a mental routine to keep her occupied. What should that include? Well, a lot of my routines follow a specific process of plan, image, rehearse, confidence and then trust or focus and then trust. So this is a big step that a lot of tennis players will leave out and that is the planning stage of the serve. Often times they'll just get up there and hit a serve. They don't have a target in mind. They don't have a type of serve they want to hit. Well, they know it's a first serve and they know it's a second serve, but they often don't pick a target or have a specific type of serve. Most tennis players have at least two, maybe three different types of serves they can hit. So they have to get committed to a specific plan and a target. Are they going to hit it down the line? Are they going to hit it out wide or into the body? And once they have the plan now, they can move on with the image or the rehearsal of that plan. Being able to visualize and mentor, rehearse that plan. Now they've done the planning and programming stage of the routine. Very, very critical for athletes. And all this happens, you know, within 2, 3, 4 seconds. It's not a 10 or 20 second routine. As they're bouncing their ball, they can do the visualization component, for example, or the mental rehearsal component. Now they're in a position to maybe have a little trust in their stroke and that's really important that they think about the target and letting the stroke go. And they're not. She's not like pushing it over or she's not focusing too much on her mechanics or stroke at this point because all that happens in practice. So those are the ingredients. I would recommend helping her focus on a mental routine and getting prepared for the serve insulator from thinking too much about the outcome. And in addition, being able to let go of the previous point before she gets up onto the service line can help her focus her best as well. Thanks for the question and let me know if my tips help.

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