Play Winning Tennis, Not Perfect Tennis

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.

When playing a match, do you think too much about playing the perfect shot? The shot that's just right for that situation, rather than trying to get the job done and get through the point? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn and this is session number 77 of the tennis Psychology Podcast. Today I answer a question about winning tennis and how to play more functional tennis instead of playing perfect tennis and how to let go of missed shots or opportunities.

How can I play winning tennis instead of perfect tennis? I tend to try to play my best shots all the time. Even when I'm in trouble, I don't think about what is working and what is not. I think too much about the last point, especially after errors, how to not dwell on mistakes I made in previous points. Improve your mental game quickly by visiting sportspsychologytennis.com today and claim a free tennis psychology report titled Six Unforced Mental Game Errors Tennis Players Make Between Points.

Okay, I see we have a perfectionist here, and perfectionism has its advantages and disadvantages, certainly. And you outlined some of the disadvantages of perfectionism to trying to play perfect tennis all the time and hit perfect shots from anywhere on the court and losing confidence or getting frustrated when missing shots. Those are certainly a couple of the big characteristics of perfectionists, but perfectionists typically have very high expectations and very fragile confidence as well. Alright, so let's talk about the first part of your question about winning tennis. What you have to understand here is that tennis is about winning the point and not necessarily hitting perfect shots. I call that functional tennis. In my new program, Tennis Confidence Mental Toughness for Tournament Players. I have a section on playing functional tennis and it's very similar to the idea that Brad Gilbert posed in Winning Ugly. It's the idea of getting through the match any way you can. If a shot's not working, it's okay to abandon that shot instead of try to fix it and make it more perfect. In that situation. Functional tennis means just getting through the match any way you can, and it also requires that you have some type of tactics or strategy where you're going to pick on or take advantage of your opponent's weaknesses as well. As playing perfect tennis really doesn't do anything more than help you work on your strokes and hitting perfect strokes, that's very small part of the game. When it comes to actually the competition and competing, you work on your strokes in practice. You trust your strokes in practice or what you've done in practice. Then it becomes a matter of focusing more on tactics and getting through the match and winning any way you can. If something's not working, you have to abandon that strategy and go for Plan B. Let me address the second part of your question about dwelling on mistakes. Dwelling on mistakes is another characteristic of perfectionists. The problem is the mistake doesn't match what you think you're capable of. In other words, you carry certain expectations into the match and when you don't perform up to those expectations, it's easy to dwell on it, become upset, become frustrated, become obsessed with the past, and therefore it's hard for you to focus on the next point. The easy solution, or the simple solution is you have to make that mistake okay in your mind. Temporarily. You have to blow it off and say, I'll address this after the match or I'll address this next practice. Essentially, you're parking the mistake to analyze it, think about it, and improve your game for next week. That requires that you work on your thought process after the mistake. Instead of saying, this is unacceptable. I should never miss an easy down the line shot, you say to yourself, it's okay, I'm not perfect. I'm going to miss a shot occasionally. Let it go. We'll work on it next week in practice. That's it for today. Thanks for the question and good luck with your game.

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