The Biggest Challenges for Junior Tennis Players

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Hi. This is Dr. Patrick Cohn with the Tennis Psychology Podcast. Today I have a special guest. His name is Vasilios Mazarekis. He's a tennis instructor and mental coach. He's a certified mental game coaching professional and he has a master's in human behavior. He also won six ATP singles titles and four doubles titles. He was a member of the Olympic team for Greece in 2004 and was a Davis cup participant for many years. Today he teaches the mental game and the physical game to his juniors and adults. Thanks for joining me today.

Thank you for having me.

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What is the biggest challenge you see that juniors have today?

I would say the biggest challenge is related to their mental game. They have a lot of challenges mentally because they all, all of them, especially, you know, the higher ranked kids, they know how to play tennis very well. The problems that they encounter is more, you know, they cannot keep their composure. They lose control of their emotions, overanalyzing their strokes or simply thinking about the outcome, even sometimes before the match even starts. So that gives them a lot of pressure and causes them to start the match a little bit tight and you know, sometimes it's not pretty to watch.

Do you think that's because they put in so much time and effort and they want to win badly or do you think they're trying to win for others, for example, or do well for others? They want to do well for their instructor, they want to do well for their parents, for example, or they don't want to get embarrassed and lose 6060 by their peers. What creates a lot of that havoc, that pre match havoc for juniors today?

I think it's, you know, it goes by individual case. Everything that you mentioned is a part of it. Some kids, they simply want to play for their parents. They get a lot of pressure from home. Some have tremendous pressure because of the goals that they have put. Either the parents have put for them or they have put to themselves. Some, you know, I have seen everything. So I would say there are very few kids that manage to enter the court completely free and simply let go and play the game.

You know, our number one client here at Peak performance sports is really that perfectionist athlete that struggles to take their practice game to matches consistently. In other words, they underperform in matches compared to what they show or the skills they show in practice. What do you think is underlying that issue where athletes are underperforming in matches, maybe losing matches to players that they should be?

Well, being a perfectionist is probably one of the, you know, most difficult challenges as a tennis player. Right. Of course, there are some positives to it. Right. It's great for practice because usually perfectionists that love to practice, they love to repeat. Tennis is a very routine sport. So it's all about repetition. It's all about, you know, hitting a million balls the same way. However, the challenge of being a perfectionist is that usually as the name mentions, you want to be perfect. Right? So when they come to the matches, the first mistake or the first, you know, a little bit challenging moment can cause them to lose completely control of their emotions. They are afraid to simply even. They are afraid to even miss one ball. They get fear of failure automatically. That causes them to have physical consequences. They start getting tight. And in some cases, I've seen kids completely exploding.

Yeah, I think they played tight from the beginning. They can't swing out on the ball for maybe two or four games until they figure out that, well, my game's okay, so now I can start hitting it harder and swinging out on the ball. I think they play really cautious, that perfectionist athlete in the beginning, and they. They basically spot their opponent a couple of games, two or three games, because of that tightness or unwilling to risk or not wanting to trust their strokes. What do you think is going on there?

Like you said, one of the most important things in tennis is really trusting the strokes, trusting everything that you have, right? Have the confidence to just let go, have no doubts in your hand, in your head that your strokes are good enough and simply let go and execute the game plan. The problem with perfectionists is they're a little bit afraid. They are afraid of letting go. They are afraid to miss. They are afraid that, you know, the perfect image that they have in their mind about their game is not going to look perfect when they start missing. And automatically that puts them tremendous pressure. So they get super tight, and it can last actually way longer than two, three games in some cases, that is, they come to a point of no return and they simply lose.

So how do we help that athlete take that, that strong practice game consistently to the matches? What are some mindset changes or some modifications they need to make to perform better in matches.

Yes. Well, we have to identify first of all the exact challenges, mental challenges that each player has. Get completely deep into each individual of those challenges, educate them to understand why, let's say one specific thought process is right or wrong, and then give them, you know, the tools to train with. To train with, and then take those tools and eventually bring them to the court and simply trust their game and let go.

Yeah. Well, and I think in our last podcast that we did together, you talked about helping tennis players play more functionally, which is, you know, kind of a spin on winning Ugly by Brad Gilbert. Right.

So it's exactly like that.

Exactly like that. So, so how do you get players that want to be perfect, want to have perfect strokes, and then you start talking about winning ugly to them. That seems like a hard do for them that you, you want them to go out there and win ugly, get the job done, perform functionally. So how do you get them from that perfectionist mindset to just getting out there and winning ugly?

Well, I usually share with them my experiences, and I had plenty of experiences that I never, you know, I didn't perform even close to what I was capable of performing. So I just explained to them they need to understand that this is actually normal, first of all, and there is nothing wrong with that. It's actually very normal to have days where you simply cannot play as you usually do. Once you accept that, now we're getting into the most important part of the game, which is, okay, what do I have today that I can use to simply beat the opponent on the opposite side of the net? So this is a completely different mindset of a perfectionist. This is very quickly accepting what you have, which obviously in that moment is not perfect, but it is good enough to use at this moment to simply go through. You just need to find the right formula. This formula can be a tactical change, or it can be simply trusting more our game plans or our skills and simply execute.

Yes. I want to mention to our listeners and our viewers that we have a new program coming out. It's called Tennis Confidence 2.0. It's a revised program, workbook and audio program of our popular Tennis Confidence program. And we'll have it out this fall in 2020, hopefully by Black Friday as well. So if you're interested in learning more about that, jump over to peaksports.com and check out Tennis Confidence 2.0 in the sport specific programs. The other thing I note about working with a lot of perfectionists is that they tend to have super, super High expectations about their performance. And I feel like that unravels them quite a bit because they want to hit every ball clean, for example. They expect to win every point in some cases. And I'm like, well, how's that possible, right? Win every point out there. They want everything to look good. They want everything to feel good. So beyond the playing functionally and winning ugly, how do you help them, in essence, I guess, be more accepting when they go play.

I think the mistake that some of the kids are perfectionists make is they always try to compare any performance to their absolute best performance they ever had in their lives. And what I say to all my students, in a full year, I was playing probably like 25 to 30 tournaments a year almost every week. I maybe would have, like, five days that everything worked exactly as I expected or exactly as I was hoping before that I would feel. My body, you know, was very energetic. I was running very well. My strokes were very clean. My timing was excellent. My tactics were working. I would really. No more than five days a year. You know, comparing any other performance to those would be very unfair because that's not something that is happening. It's not realistic. So what is more realistic is to understand that every day is completely different. Every day will provide us with certain challenges. And the advantage of a functional player is that they can actually make every day be a good day. Right. It's just like a completely different perception of how we see things. Instead of seeing the, let's say, the day that we don't have great timing as something negative, we can use our other weapons that work. We can move a little bit, let's say, more our feet, or we can adjust our game plans so we can make. In my experience, I learned that I could make everything that was happening to me somehow work. Right. And of course, it wouldn't be always perfect and it wouldn't always lead to a successful result. But the important lesson that I learned was that I was always competitive and I was always giving myself the best chance to win.

That sounds to me like you got to accept that on most days you're going to have your B game, and you got to figure a way to adjust and get it done out there.

Correct? Correct. Yes. It's much more realistic that we're not going to have always our A game. We, or at least not our A game in every possible area. Area involved with our tennis game. Right. Either physical or mental or with our strokes. Right. Once you have that understanding, I think it's very easy to simply accept it and just try to find solutions.

Excellent tips. I've been talking with Vasilius Mazarakis, tennis instructor and mental game coach. I'm sure we'll have you on again on the Tennis Psychology Podcast. Thanks for your time today.

Thank you very much.

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