What Tennis Players Can do to Stay Composed

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.

Are you the type of tennis player that gets mad on the court and that snowballs into making more errors? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn. Today I'm going to talk about what why tennis players get upset and what you can do to stay more composed to play your best tennis.

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.

One of the questions I get often from tennis players is how do I stop getting mad on the tennis court? So why do tennis players get mad? First of all, in my opinion, if you have very high expectations for your performance and then you miss shots or you hit a shot in the middle of the net, or you double fault, ultimately you get upset with yourself because you feel like you're not reaching your expectations or what you show in practice or what you think you should be doing in the match. And that's the key one. What are your personal shoulds and shouldn'ts? I shouldn't miss an easy short ball. I should be able to rally for a few shots. I should be able to get to wide balls. I shouldn't double fault. I shouldn't miss an easy volley. So those shoulds and shouldn'ts ultimately undermine your ability to stay composed because ultimately you're going to get frustrated with those triggers. So step one is to find out what are your personal triggers. Is it making an unforced error? Is it double faulting? Is it missing an easy short ball? Maybe it's a tactical error that you felt like you should have went down the line instead of cross court, for example. So what are your personal triggers that are ultimately going to lead you to feel upset? The second part of that is you have to know that just because you miss an easy short ball, that doesn't mean you're automatically frustrated. So there's something that's happening between that miss the trigger, I call it, and ultimately your frustration and what you're feeling. And that is your interpretation and your reaction to that short ball. So, for example, you have to think differently or react differently. There's something in there that's causing you to be frustrated. And I call that the frustration producing thought or feeling about that miss. For example, if you think I should never miss an easy short ball that was too easy of a shot for me to miss. That was potentially a winner on my side. That's going to cause you to be frustrated and upset. Why? Because you're not reaching your expectations once again for being able to execute that shot like you do 10 out of 10 times in practice or 19 out of 20 times in practice. So the second part of that, once you know the underlying reaction that's causing the frustration, is you have to change that reaction to something that's more accepting of yourself we can say, or something that's going to allow you to move on to the next point without dwelling on the last point. And that's the key, is we want a thought. We want a new reaction that's going to allow you to move on and not have the monkey on the back. So for each trigger, find out what's causing you to feel so upset about it and then create a new reaction or a new response. For each trigger. Memorize those new reactions or new responses so the next time you get in that match and you miss that easy short ball, you'll know what to say to yourself.

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