Take Your Aggressive Practice Game to Competition in Tennis

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Dr. Cohn. John, a sports parent asked a question about his son who is a tennis player. Here's his My son is a great player and does great in practice but loses to the lesser players. He has trouble with pushers, he doesn't fight it out and gives up easily. How can I make my son a fighter on the court?

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Well, thanks for your question, John. I think a lot of kids struggle with the ability to take their so called practice game to competition and this is the number one reason why parents and athletes contact me to work on the mental game because they realize something's getting in the way from the practice situation to the competitive situation. Now in your case, it sounds like he does play quite as aggressive as he does in practice and that's very common where kids will go out. They'll play more cautiously, more tentatively, may be afraid to make mistakes in tournament play or in matches and then they really underperform and get beat by kids who they probably can beat in a practice scenario right when it doesn't count. So when the tournament's on the line, kids want to win and they want to do well. There is often an expectation they have to beat lesser players. So that creates the pressure in and of itself. And also maybe that your son wants to win for you, for example. Often, you know, kids want to please their parents and they want to pay back their parents with good performances. And so there might be some pressure around that as well, maybe not wanting to disappoint a coach, for example. So you really have to get down to the bottom of what's changing for him from the practice to the competitive situation. It's often fear of failure is often the underlying phenomenon or issue here. But in his case, what I would recommend is set some specific but positive goals for him to play aggressive tennis, for him to go on offense. As an example, if he's struggling with pushers, for example, he's probably getting sucked into that game and maybe pushing back. So one of the things that you want to do is set a goal that he's going to control maybe three quarters, 75% of the points. So that's three out of four points. He's going to try to go on offense, control the point and do what he normally does in practice. So you want to define those specific behaviors that you see in the practice when he's playing aggressively and set those behaviors as goals for what you want to see in the particular match. The whole idea here is what he focuses on in terms of these small goals he'll improve or he'll bring to his game. So you don't want to go in there and say don't push the ball, don't get sucked into pushing the ball. You want to give some positive goals and objectives, like let's play aggressive from the start. If you get a lead, stay aggressive, those type of things that are very positive and indicate what you want him to do in that particular match. So there's really two parts to that your question. The first is identify what the underlying fear of failure is that's causing him to play more tentatively or with more caution, for example. Then the other part is give some specific goals centered around behaviors you'd like to see him display during those particular matches where he's not giving 100% or where he's getting sucked into a strategy which is not conducive for him to play his best tennis. Thanks for the question and good luck with your game. Hey, and be sure to subscribe to the Tennis Psychology Podcast on itunes. And if you like the tips and the guests that we've had on the show, please give us a five star thanks.

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