The Importance of Mental Toughness in Tennis

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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 Mazarakis. He's a tennis instructor and mental coach. He's also a certified mental game coaching professional. He's a. He has a master's in human behavior, and he won six ATP titles from 99 to 2005 and four ATP doubles titles. He was a member of the Olympic team for Greece in 2004, and he was a Davis cup participant. Vasilius, thanks for joining me today.

Thanks for having me.

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Hey, so how important is the mental game when it comes to your career and being able to be able to pull through or even when you're up in a match or when you're down in a match, the ability to just stay mentally tough and hang in there? Because I think players have issues on two sides. One is when they're leading the match, they can get a little bit protective. Right. Or on the other side, when they're down in the match, they can sometimes. While juniors tend to tank. Not so much professionals, but juniors can tank. So can you think of any experiences in your career where that mental toughness and the mental game is so important?

Yes, of course. I believe the mental part of the game is the most important, especially for tennis players. I would generalize it even a little bit more because the whole life of a tennis player is very challenging. We're always alone. We're traveling around the world week after week, and a lot of negative thoughts come through our head. So staying committed, staying tough mentally for individual matches, or for pretty much our entire career, it's almost mandatory. There are many experiences that I could share, but some that come into my mind. First of all, in relation to certain injuries that I have, there were some tough moments that, you know, I wasn't sure how to manage to come back from the injury. You know, I had a specific goal in my mind. I worked hard. I stayed, you know, disciplined and pulled through that. And then individual matches, there were so many experiences that I was even against great players, maybe a set and, you know, five, one down, and, you know, I just hang in There I was staying committed to my game plan. I was trying to stay calm. I realized the importance of staying at the moment and we are all at a very high but very close level. So I knew that if I could just hang in there for a few games, my opponent possibly would get a little nervous. And that happened a few times. So I managed to come back from certainty situations that I was very close in losing the match. So I would say mentally it's super important for any junior or any player that even wants to play professionally or in a college level. They need to emphasize the mental part of the game.

Yeah. So that's really important. I think a lot of tennis players, when they're down in a set, maybe they tank or maybe they don't try their hardest or they give up at some level right when they're down. So how do you keep grinding it out and knowing that maybe your opponent's going to get injured, maybe your opponent's going to get tired, maybe your opponent's going to get tight? I tell juniors all the time, you don't know what's going to happen across the net. Maybe they break some strings and it rattles them or something. So how do you stay mentally tough when you're down a set or you're down 15 in a set? How do you hang in there?

I think the most important thing is having the confidence and the belief in yourself and understanding that staying in the moment is the only thing that matters. The same way you manage to be down a set then five one, let's say things can turn around and the differences are not really big. So as long as we manage to handle our thoughts and don't get extra self destructive, there is always a chance, there is always a chance that we eventually will tire the opponent out or there is always the chance that we may win one or two games and the opponent is going to start getting nervous and won't be able to close out the match. But most importantly, it's with me where it worked the most was the ability for me to stay within my game plans. And you know, I tried to stay disciplined at this. And I was always thinking, look, if the opponent is going to beat me while I'm playing, you know, within my limits and do whatever I can, then, you know, today's not, it's not meant to be, but I was trying not to get self defeating and it worked many times.

And how much of it is changing your tactics or your game plan versus just hanging in there and continuing to do what you know how to do when it comes from coming from behind.

From my experience reaching that point, I would never let the match go that far from a scoring perspective without having already changed something beforehand. Right. Like, it's an important. It's a very important quality to have to be aware of the moment and aware of the situation. Right. So I would very quickly try to adjust my tactics. I would always have different game plans already before entering the court. I would have game plan A pretty much to D or E of potential, you know, solutions if plan A doesn't work. And I would always try to, you know, switch as quickly as possible. Still, in some cases, there are days where nothing works, so the scoreline will not look pretty. And that's where the mental toughness comes into play. And understanding that there is always a chance, we just need to keep on grinding, keep on giving the opponent, you know, the extra challenges, physical and mental challenges within the match, and opportunities will come. We just have to be there, aware, and use them whenever they appear.

Excellent. And I want our listeners and our viewers to note that we have Tennis Confidence 2.0 coming out this fall of 2020. It's got 10 full mental training sessions, which I think you've seen some of those mental training sessions, too, and you like that workbook. So please jump over to peaksports.com and contact us or get on our newsletter and pick up a free tennis report while you're there and we'll notify you when that new program comes out. Do you suggest that players then go out there with a couple or three different game plans and be ready to adjust quickly if it's not working for them and they're down early in the match?

Yes. I mean, we always need to have a certain number of backup game plans. However, everybody's different, right? Some players like to keep it a little bit more simple or they have an extreme confidence, let's say, in their first two possible game plans, and they just want to be committed to those at all times. And of course, it also has to do with our opponent. What. What challenges is our opponent going to give us? Is it. There are days where unexpected things will happen. We may have certain game plans based on what we have seen in the past from that specific opponent, but then on one day, exactly the opposite happens. And sometimes it's, you know, it's super important to adjust on the fly. And that comes, though, with a lot of experience, a lot of confidence in our abilities, but at the same time, we always have to stay within our capabilities. We cannot try and do stuff that we simply cannot do or have unrealistic expectations of the shots that we can hit. We always have to stay within ourselves. But yes, the more we can change and the more we can, the more different looks we can give them, the better it is.

Is the mindset about just battling on that one point and trying to stay in the moment and just try to win one point, get some momentum going? Are you thinking about trying to get momentum or are you just thinking about winning that point in front of you?

Me, personally, I was. I was trying to always win this one point. The momentum sometimes comes naturally. There is nothing that we need to think about that. Just focusing one point at a time, and maybe one, you know, game plan at a time allows us to win certain points. Maybe the opponent will get frustrated, maybe he won't find a solution to our game plan, and then naturally the momentum will come. And for my, I was very disciplined to stay with the same game plan as long as it's working. And that's something that I think it's very important. And professionals do that very well. It's not important to win pretty. It's just important to simply go through, you know, so I want everybody to know, all the juniors that are listening, it's. They don't have to win playing great or beautiful tennis. They just have to find a way to just go through that match and, you know, next day there will be another match anyhow.

Well, how do you teach them to let go of the score, let go of the last point and just go out there and focus on that one point? What's the key when it comes from the mental skills? What do you want them to know?

I just need them to understand that there are a lot of areas that they need to work on. Their mental game that starts from practice already in advance, within their training, in practice, and then during the matches, they kind of need to train these mindsets all the time. And eventually they need to trust their skills. And during the matches, obviously, they cannot have any more a training mindset. They need to have a functional, competitive mindset, which means whatever I have right now, I'm just going to use to simply go through and win the next point, the next game or the match. I cannot worry too much about my technique. I cannot worry too much about my strokes not working at the moment, but instead they should focus on what works and then use it as efficiently as possible to go through this moment. And the important thing is to really trust the training that I have put in and simply let go and play.

Yeah, interesting. As you were talking about that. I see someone like Roger Federer sometimes, you know, he goes into lulls, right? His strokes go off for whatever reason. Maybe it's focus thing or whatever. So how do you help players get through those lulls and not worry that something's wrong with their strokes and then get them back to that practice mindset that you don't want them in during the match? How do they get through that lull?

First of all, everybody gets through those moments, regardless of the level. The best players in the world get through those moments. What they do very well is they're focusing on certain process goals or performance cues that allow them to get out of it much quicker. So they don't think about irrelevant cues or tasks. They are only at the moment they're trying to figure out how their performance will improve. Not by thinking of any technique, but having certain goals that they have already pre planned in advance and trained in advance. So the moment they have distractions, the moment they have things not working, they go back completely to basics and they just give themselves, you know, remind themselves the process goals and that kind of keeps them within a plan, within themselves and then very quickly comes back again.

Yeah. And I tell players, hey, don't start analyzing and fixing your strokes. Just think about higher margin over the net or think about maybe changing your targets a little bit more inside the baseline, if you're hitting it long, for example, and try to see the shot that you want and allow your body to adjust that way.

Of course. And one advice that I can also give to players that I used to do, I had days, for example, that let's say my backhand was not working right, so my mindset would be changing. Okay, what type of tactic can I use or strategy that I'm going to avoid hitting backhands, at least for the moment. So my serve would be placed in a specific way that I know it would be very difficult for the return and to guide it to my backhand so I can play mostly with my forehand. So instead of trying to fight this and try to correct the shot on the spot, it is actually a good thing to try to avoid it for a little while, build a little confidence through the correct game plan, which must be obviously adjusted on the fly. And then anyhow they will hit, in this case more backhands and it will be for sure better.

Excellent. Those are some great tips. I've been talking with Vasilis Mazarakis. He's a tennis instructor and mental coach. I'm sure to have you back again. Thanks for your time.

Thank you for having me.

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