How to Turn Around a Match When Losing

You're listening to the Tennis Psychology Podcast with Mental Game of tennis expert Dr. Patrick Cohn. Do you want to improve your mindset for tennis? Then join us on the Tennis Psychology Podcast.

Have you ever witnessed or been a part of a match where a tennis player is cruising to victory? They're up 6 1, 52 and then all of a sudden, bam, it changes and that player loses after being up big. Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohen, a mental performance coach. Today I'm going to talk about how you can close out the match when you're up big in the match and why this happens in the tennis game and why this happens in the tennis world. You're listening to the Tennis Psychology Podcast.

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Here's the question I received from Tom. I'm not sure you've covered this topic yet, but I've seen tennis players get run over, but not out of the match. Like they get up six one, five two and then they turn the match around and beat the opponent. How the heck did they do that? Well, Tom, I've witnessed that myself in the junior tennis world. It's rare you're going to see that at the professional level or the collegiate level, but certainly at the junior level that happens quite a bit. What's the dynamics behind? Well, often what will happen is when a player gets up big in the mat, they can get complacent, they can lose focus, they can go through the motions or they can protect their lead. I put it under this issue of comfort zone, meaning that athlete didn't expect to be up so huge with a set lead and up 52 in the second. It doesn't match what they expected prior to stepping on the court. And thus that forms the basis of a comfort zone. That athlete's a little bit uncomfortable and then starts to think about how great it would be to win that match against that opponent. And ultimately that leads to what I call protect mode. Sitting on the lead mode, slamming on the brakes. Those are all synonymous for me. That athlete will start to protect it and play really passively, hit high balls down the middle of the court and allow the other opponent to come in the mat. Well, if they're cruising the victory, how does the other player turn it around so fast? What happens in tennis is called changes in momentum. You see it all the time. Someone will go up a couple of games, they'll break serve and they'll be up a couple games and they start cruising in that set. So ultimately, if you get momentum back from your opponent, that means confidence square. So once that momentum changes and that opponent sees that you're playing passively, then ultimately what's going to happen is that player is going to take advantage of that, start hitting winner. And then what it does is the athlete that was up now starts to think, oh, oh my God, I was up 5:2 in the second and I'm blowing this mat. Now he's making a run on me. What if I lose after being up big? So that's the second phenomenon that happens with the player that had the lead, is now they're thinking about how awful it would be if they don't maintain the lead and close out the match. And they'll feel embarrassed, they'll feel stupid, they'll feel like they failed at some level. And now they're thinking more about outcome and worrying about the outcome of losing, which creates more tension, which creates more short stroking and, and then giving once again the opponent more energy, giving the opponent more momentum to be able to close out that mat. What do you do in that case when you're up? Number one, don't look at it as I'm up big. Don't look at it as I'm up 52 in the second, look at it as I'm going to play another game, I'm going to play another point, I'm going to play one point at a time. In addition, can't get ahead of yourself in thinking about the outcome, how great it would be to win big against this opponent. Next, you, you got to stay aggressive, Continue to work the same game plan, the same approach, the same strategy that got you into that winning position. Often players will abandon that because now they're playing protective, as I mentioned earlier. So you got to stay aggressive. My recommendation is to counter that need to play protective is go out there in that next point and think about how you're going to close out the point quick, not irrationally, not over aggressively, but stay aggressive and think about, for example, let's say you're a serving volier. Continue to serve and volley if that's what you've been doing throughout the match. If you've been going for winners down the line, continue to go for your winners down the line. Stay aggressive. Think about closing out the point in as few balls as possible to stay aggressive. But once again, play within yourself. Don't go over aggressive. Just keep doing what you were doing. That got you in the lead. All right, thanks for your question. You want more information about mental training mental coaching for tennis, jump over to sportspsychologytennis.com where you can read articles, listen to podcasts, watch videos there as well. Or if you want more personal approach, you can jump over to peaksports.com our main website and contact us about our mental training mental coaching program for tennis players from 12 years on up to professional. All right, thanks for listening.

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