The Mental Game of Tennis and Choking vs Gamers

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.

Hi. This is Dr. Patrick Cohn for the Tennis Psychology Podcast. Today I have a special guest on the show. His name is Joe Dynefer. He's a master professional in both the PTR and USPTA, and he's also received the prestigious 2006 USPTA Tennis Industry Excellence Award. He's the author of 16 books and more than 45 DVDs, and he writes on a regular basis for Tennis Smash, Tennis Life and Racket Sports Industry. He's also the founder and president of of on court offcourt. That's oncourtoffcourt.com which offers training aids and educational pieces like DVDs and books for tennis players. Joe, thanks for joining me today.

Thank you, Patrick.

You know, the most common question that I receive from my listeners is they have trouble taking their practice game to competition. In other words, their strokes feel smooth and effortless and they perform much better in a practice situation. But when they go to the match scenario, it's not the same and they underperform. What would you say are the biggest mental challenges that hold players back from being able to perform their best in tournaments?

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.

I think that's a great question, Patrick. I think the first step, before we even get that far, is for players to identify what level of play they expect of themselves. One way to do that is to have a 1 to 10 scale, which is a really big baseline because it's easy to grasp for various factors. For example, they could have a 1 to 10 scale when they practice that they identify for their own movement, the intensity of their movement. They could have a 1 to 10 scale for their swing speed on their serves and ground strokes. They could have a 1 to 10 scale for how aggressive they're playing, if that's their style of play. If they're a grinder who hangs back and hits the ball with a nice amount of air or arc over the net with spin. Then it could be a 1 to 10 scale for their level of shot, target tolerance, or patience. And then once they have that in practice as a reference point, then the question is, in a match, okay, the ball is not coming to them like it could in practice. Or if they're on a ball machine or if they're getting fed balls or if it's a practice partner that's controlling the ball. Well, how close are they getting to that standard that they've set for themselves?

Yeah, and that sounds like one of the things that I do is breaking it down for athletes. Talking more about what I call manageable goals and not so much looking at the overall am I winning, how am I doing in this tournament, but breaking it down for athletes and say, you know, let's work on first serve percentage or let's work on controlling more points or being more consistent. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Yeah, exactly. I mean things. People get overwhelmed when they are thinking anyone of the big picture, when it's too big for them. Anyone that's ever gone on a long hike, for example, there could be two walkers or running a marathon. Anyone who's thinking, oh gosh, this is going to be so long, it's going to take me four hours to run this 26 mile marathon. Those are the ones that don't finish the race or if they do, they're injured or something close to that. The people who are just flowing and staying in the moment and staying in the present always perform better. I think you'd agree with that too.

Yeah, absolutely. I often find it's the players with the fear of failure where they worry too much about the outcome. They worry about disappointing a parent or they worry about letting down a coach or they worry about not playing up to their potential. Simply that those are the players that struggle the most because they're so wrapped up into what if I lose to this lesser player, this player that is not as good as me and I know others expect me to beat this.

Person and if I might, that is is exactly the point because what they are focusing, they haven't identified their goals. A player who, for example, if it's a junior player or somebody who is an adult but is looking to improve their skills and their game, their satisfaction from competition. That person needs to identify what their performance goals are. And this is why, for example, as well approach that 1 to 10 scale that I mentioned can be very helpful whatever tools you use. Because let's say that I want to maintain a minimum swing speed of a seven on my ground strokes and I just do not slow down now that's going to force me to. If I tighten up, I'm going to slow down. And if I recognize, for example, in a tennis match, typically an average set, there are going to be about 150 swings of the racket by each player per set. So what does that mean? It means it's really digestible. It's not that much hitting when you think about it.

Let's look at the other end of the equation about the gamer. The player that steps up his or her game in competition. That's the player that doesn't get excited about practice. Maybe isn't the motivated, the most motivated person in practice, but when they get into competition, they really shine. They up their game and become that gamer. What's behind the mindset of that person? I'm sure you've been around those type of players as well.

That was me as a junior. So funny you should bring that up. You know, some people I think are just naturally more competitive than others and their intensity builds. As you're saying they don't shine in practice, they don't feel like it's real. So the question is, okay, does that person need too much help in the competitive arena? Typically not. But that person is typically, usually the person who has stroke and technique limitations and therefore their ability to improve is compromised by their mentality, which is, let's just play, I want to compete. And they lack the patience and grasp that they need to improve their technique also, which will allow them to perform better in competition.

Right. And Joe, in the sports psychology arena, we call it really an under motivated underachiever. But however, that particular athlete has a lot going for him or her because they have a lot of confidence and they have a lot of trust in what they do have technically. And often they can outlast or they can perform better than a player that has a lot of technical skills but doesn't use those skills to their ability in competition. So the challenge is getting that player to buy into the idea that you can be a better player. Because I think often they think it's God given talent. I just got this talent, I just go and I play and I use my talent which works great for them in competition. But like you said then it undermines the motivational effort to improve and get better in practice. So how do you work with that individual? You said you were that type of an individual as a junior yourself. How do you get through to that person?

It's great. There's so many great stories that every tennis player has. I was partially like that for sure, but as I matured, there's no question that I worked on my game. I remember as a kid, if you play at a tennis club of any sort, typically there are club championships and I remember being 14 or 15. And I was a ranked junior, so I was good compared to the adults and playing in the adult tournament. And there was one guy there that could play a whole match and hit like one backhand and he had good legs. He was probably in those days, I thought he was an old man and he was probably in his late 20s. Remember he was a schoolteacher, very, very steady. He did not miss a ball and he hit a lot of spin on his forehand, covered the whole court. Didn't hit huge, but just did not miss and had a lot of arc and spin. The question you ask is how do you motivate those people to improve? And you put them in a bigger arena and they see compared to others their limitations. Because those players typically can be exploited. The name for them often is hacker. You know, but people, when they say hacker, sometimes, you know, there's good hackers and there's bad hackers. Some of the players that look a little unorthodox can appear very awkward and so forth, but they can be tremendously effective. The player that has technique on their side and so on has to use their intelligence and understand the weaknesses of those players and how to exploit them.

So you said throw them in a bigger stage. That means show them how much they have to learn. That's what I'm kind of interpreting.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you gotta do it. Or are you just. I mean, some people will never. They're afraid of change. They're not people typically that are that open and you know, it's obviously it's going to come from a couple of things. One is throw them in a bigger stage, playing against people who do have more skills than them and they will lose to them. The other thing is to appeal to their intelligence and try to help them set some long term goals.

Yeah, and I would call, I would call that, rationalize with them and show them that if they did have a little bit more work ethic and worked harder, they can be a better, much, much better player than they are.

You know, it always impresses people, Patrick. You know, you think of a guy like Rafa Nadal or a Federer, you know, these people are working on their games all the time and it seems impossible, you know, because they're so great as it is, but they are working on their games all the time.

Okay, so let's wrap it up and let's talk a little bit about mental preparation. What would be one, maybe two things that you would want a player to do to get mentally prepared for a match? Because I talk to My students all the time about, you got to do a set of things to get yourself ready for the match. Mentally, it's just. It's not a physical warm up. Well, it is a physical warm up, but it's also a mental tune up as well. What would be your number one or two things that you would want players to focus on prior to a match?

You know, I'm going to share one of them. And I put this not to promote a dvd, but I put together three shows for the tennis channel and it's an hour and a half DVD called World Class Junior Tennis. And at the last segment of it covers some tips on the mental side for tennis and the one that I like the best that seems to work. Everyone has a water bottle. And what I would do and recommend with players is that they type out or handwrite on a sheet of paper. Very concise performance goals. Absolutely. It could be active feet or feet if they like that. One to ten scale feet minimum, seven swing speed minimum. Like that smile on changeovers, relax, breathe as you hit whatever their cues are. And they can have 3, 4, 5. We used to see Serena and Venus Williams read notes. They take pieces of paper out of their racket bags and review the notes on every changeover. So it's not just for beginners or intermediates to do this. And what I would do for the water bottle is we would laminate that piece of paper, which is easy to do. And usually for players it could last a month, you know, because they're going to have these goals and work on them and then they'll modify them and do it again. And then you take big rubber bands and you put it right on the water bottle. Because when people take notes to the court, what I've seen is they'll get so absorbed in the match and distracted by being in the middle of competition that they will not even look at the notes. But if it's on the water bottle, as soon as they sit down, take a drink, it's right in front of them. And that's the tip for the day that I would share.

Interesting. Yeah, great tip, I think. Did you do a video that on YouTube that I saw?

Probably, yeah. It could be the segment from that same dvd.

But I'm going to add to that Joe and I'm going to say not only, not only performance goals, but mental game goals too. I got to stay patient. I got to stick to my game plan. I got to change it up when things aren't working. So I also like my students to think about what do they need to do from a mental standpoint. But I love the idea of performance goals. I talk about process goals or manageable goals and also having some mental game goals out there as well.

Very good.

Yeah, well, great. I've been talking with Joe Dynefer, a master professional in the PTR and USPTA and founder and president of on court offcourt. That's oncourtoffcourt.com Joe, thanks a lot for joining me today.

Patrick, you're awesome. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the Tennis psychology podcast with Dr. Patrick Cohn. Discover the secrets to superior tennis confidence. Visit www.sportspsychologytennis.com for practical mental strategies to improve your mental game of tennis.