The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most on-line retailers! Click Here to Order 
PRE-MATCH VISUALIZATION AND IMAGERY
Warming up doesn’t stop at the physical. Players need to build up their “wall of defenses” in preparation for the continuous onslaught of mental and emotional challenges that competitive tennis encompasses. What we think about often dictates what we create.
A mental, emotional no-no is to obsess about the next opponent’s past success, ranking or seeding. Winning tough matches begins with a winning mind set.
“A winning mind set is a performance based plan.”
In the nights leading up to a big event, a great way to preset a positive mindset is to re-live a past peak performance experiences. Set aside 15 minutes a night for three nights in a row to allow your athlete to re-experience the feelings of coming through under pressure. This is known to calm nervousness and quiet fears. It also has been linked to motor programming the skills of applying the appropriate responses with little or no cognitive processing. It has been proven to improve the player’s physical, mental and emotional performance on game day.
Positive visualization includes the athlete imagining their strokes working to perfection, their tactics and strategies working like clockwork and their emotional state of mind calm and relaxed.
Pre-match visualization topics are unlimited, but some of the best visualization exercises include the following:
1) Perfectly executed primary and secondary strokes.
2) Top seven favorite perfectly executed patterns.
3) The three pillars of between-point rituals.
4) Successful patterns of play against the three main styles of opponents.
5) Preset protocols for common emotional issues. (Gamesmanship)
Ask your athlete to begin their pre-match visualization by arriving on site early enough to set aside 20 minutes to mentally rehearse the performance goals they’ve been rehearsing on the practice court.
Start this self-hypnosis by seeking out a quiet area away from other competitors and distractions- with closed eyes, ask them to take several deep relaxing breaths. Then create a vivid mental image of numerous tasks being performed successfully. Let’s call this your positive movie.
To build confidence and reduce pre-match stress, ask them to mentally re-run the “movie” several times to reinforce the positive thoughts.
“Positive constructive visualization actually trains a player to perform the skills imagined calmly, without hesitation.”
CONTACT: Frank Giampaolo
FGSA@eathlink.net
