Playing with Confidence even After a Losing Streak

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.

When you lose a couple times in a row to a different team on the court, you tend to think they have your number and and that you're on a losing streak. Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn. In this episode, you're going to learn how to not create generalizations based upon past matches, whether it's singles or doubles. You're listening to the Tennis Psychology Podcast.

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Here's the question that I received from Karen. Karen said, my main problem is when my partner and I lose twice to a specific team, we let that losing streak into our heads. And when we play them the next time we think that they've got our number and they're going to win. How can I leave that behind? Also, I did teach myself tennis, so I know my strokes aren't traditional or perfect, but most of the time they work for me. Do you think I should try and change them or concentrate on doubles playing? Karen, thanks for your questions. Both of those are great questions. So what you're describing is when you lose once or twice, you create a generalization thinking that you're going to continue to lose to that team. It's actually an over generalization based upon past experiences. You think that you can't beat that team. So you got to be very careful about making generalizations and getting those generalizations into your head. Well, why? Because they're a different team the next time you play them. You're a different team the next time you play them. A lot can happen in a match, whether someone gets tired or whether someone has a nagging injury or whether you're feeling great with your strokes, for example, or you're working together with your teammate or maybe you change your strategy. So the thing is, is don't automatically let it get into your head that we're not going to win against this particular team. That to me is outcome thinking as well. We've talked quite a bit about that on the podcast is you can't get ahead of yourself and think about, oh, we're going to lose or we really need to beat this team. You need to stay in the moment and play one game one point at a time. I can't stress that enough harder to do, obviously, than to execute on the court. As for your second question about untraditional strokes that you've taught yourself and you don't know whether you should change your strokes or not, well, here's the thing. If you do a full revamp of your strokes, well, your confidence and your trust in your strokes is going to go down in the short time and you may take two steps forward, but you're going to take a step back. And hopefully the idea is to take two steps forward. Now, if you have completely untraditional strokes and a tennis instructor wants to change your strokes completely, it could be six months or year process or for you to continue to trust those strokes once you've had all those lessons and you work on it. In addition, if you do take lessons and you want to change some aspects of your stroke, you have to practice it. You can't just go out and integrate it into your matches. It's too late. Then you have to get the repetition, what we call the motor memory, coaches call it muscle memory, into your system so that you can rely on that muscle memory or motor memory when you go out and and play the match. So my recommendation is really focus on having fun on the court. Focus on good strategy, good teamwork on the court, and focus on playing doubles rather than I need to revamp my strokes. If you got a year to do that, do it. All right, thanks for your question and good luck with your game. Hey, if you want personal one on one mental coaching, contact my team and I@peaksports.com or sportspsychology tennis and there you can find more videos and articles and podcasts that we've done at Sports Psychology Tennis or you can jump over to Peach Sports. If you want more information about our one on one mental coaching programs, please contact my team and I. Thanks.

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