Mental Toughness for Tennis Players

Welcome to the Tennis Psychology Podcast with your host, Dr. Patrick Cohn. Dr. Cohn is a mental Game of Tennis expert. Do you want to improve your mental toughness for tennis? Then join us on the Tennis Psychology Podcast sessions with doc.

Are you a junior tennis player or do you have a junior tennis player that you perform much better when you play older players in the men's tournaments versus players at your own age in the junior ranks? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn. In this video, you're going to learn why this particular tennis player struggles with playing at his own level but is far superior player when he goes and he plays older, more experienced players. You're watching sessions with Doc.

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So here's the question that I received from William. William said, I'm a junior tennis player. I play better in men's tournaments than in juniors because I feel no pressure to win, pressure to perform my best. In the junior tournaments, I tend to play really tight. I don't want to lose because they're the same age and have no advantage over me. So therefore I feel more pressure to win and perform my best. This makes me play tight, go for dumb shots and get really frustrated. Anything that I can do to compact this and play how I do in the men's tournaments like I do in the junior tournaments? Well, once again, great question. What this says is you're changing your style of play. You're changing your performance based on what your opponent is. For example. In other words, you go in there with no expectations when you're playing the men in the men's league because they're older than you and maybe they're supposed to win. Well, if they're supposed to beat you, that allows you to free it up and just play your normal game. Now at the junior ranks, the problem is you probably have expectations about beating the other kids your age or maybe younger kids that you play in the junior ranks. And so for me, this question is all about the expectations that you have in a tennis tournament or in a tennis match. Essentially, what you have to do is throw away those expectations about who's supposed to win and who's supposed to lose. That sets you up for failure. That puts you in a comfort zone that's not going to be helpful for yourself. Instead, you have to replace those expectations with something that's going to be more process oriented. For example, ask yourself what do I need to do on a point by point basis in order to win that point? That's the most important question. It doesn't matter who's across the net, only to the fact that you know that that person's strengths and weaknesses that will help you. You know where they're going to serve to, so you have some type of awareness of what type of shots they're going to come at with you. That information helps. But the age of the person, how much experience they have, whether it's a junior or whether it's someone in the men's league doesn't matter. That's irrelevant. What's relevant? Playing to your strengths and focusing on your game plan and your tactics. So you have to get square on what your strengths are, what your tactics are, and when you go in there, you have to answer the question, what do I need to focus on? One point at a time. And that may be things like, well, maybe you're serving volley and you like to go to the net. Well, I need to get to the net as soon as I can. I need to set up a good approach shot, make an approach shot, get into the net, hit a good volley. That is way, way, way more important than worrying about who's supposed to win and who's supposed to lose that match. So you're way ahead of yourself thinking about the pressure you need to win when you're playing in the junior ranks. So go out there and treat it as another opponent. Focus on your game plan, your tactics and what you need to do when One point at a time. Thanks for your question. Good luck with your game.

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