The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
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QUESTION: After a loss, why should athletes go back to the tournament site and watch the other athletes?
Frank: Great question. Unfortunately, because of the emotional hit, most parents and players make a beeline for the car as soon as the athlete loses. In my opinion, this is an incredible waste of a valuable learning opportunity. First of all, the brain mirrors events it recognizes. Viewing the top seeds and/or final rounds creates a mental and emotional picture for the athlete to absorb and become comfortable with… One of the keys to peak performance under stress is to be comfortable…being uncomfortable!
It is very common for up-and-coming athletes to experience complete performance meltdowns in the final rounds of their first big tournaments. Why? The finals are an unknown entity. We know that the unknown is avoided because it is scary.
Walk with a child through a haunted house during Halloween and you’ll witness something interesting. During the first walk through, the child’s staying close, their heart rate is elevated, and they’re scared to death because they don’t know what’s coming next. By the third and fourth walk through, the very same child is relaxed, calm and smiling inside the same haunted house. The scenario didn’t change, the child’s perspective changed. The same need for familiarity is found in the later stages of tennis tournaments.
“Be comfortable…being uncomfortable.”
The more the athlete physically, mentally or emotionally gets dialed into a situation, the less uncomfortable the situation becomes and the more comfortable the athlete becomes performing in the manner in which they have trained- regardless of the round.
From a parental or coach’s point of view, there are hundreds of lessons to be learned from other competitors’ successes and failures. Pointing out the player’s strengths may sound like, “Kelly, look how she took that moonball out of the air for a swing volley instead of running backwards and lobbing it.” And of course, highlighting the player’s weaknesses, such as, “See Joey, on most points, the top players don’t get 5 balls in. You’re that good already!” The goal to take the mystery out of the top player’s game.
NOTE: If your child is attending an academy and suffers an early round loss- encourage them to chart a top seed instead of simply hanging out at the site.
Smart players and parents often go one step deeper and actually have their athlete chart the later rounds so that later they can do a comparison study.
On a personal note, I remember when my daughter was 14 years old and was #2 in the nation. There were 5-6 video cameras filming her matches. These were placed by parents of her rivals attempting to either learn how to have their child play like her or to organize a game plan in case their child plays her in a future event.
