Learning sound mechanical strokes and learning how to win are two distinctly different lesson plans. Learning how to win begins with understanding why you lose.
“Blowing a lead” is one of the most common mental and emotional match blunders seen day in and day out on the tournament trail. Learning to recognize the signs preceding the “Blowing a lead” scenario is the first step in correcting this blunder. Please read on…
We will take a peek into sports psychology to dig deeper into why your child had a top seed on the ropes, let them back in and lost another close one. Developing a pre-set protocol to handling these situations is what we call: The Art of Winning.
Below are Three Common “Blow a Lead” Scenarios and their Solutions:
SCENARIO: Top seed Mary Lee Chin just went down 2-5 to a relative nobody. Without a word, without any facial gesture at all, she calmly sits her racket down against the net and simply walks off the court. Mary is gone 10 minutes and your little Kelly’s mind is racing. “Where’d she go? Did she take a bathroom break? Did she quit? What am I supposed to do? Should I just sit here? Do I get a ref? Should I hit serves? Is she mad? Did I do something wrong? Maybe she thinks I’m cheating her and she is getting a ref against me? ”
SOLUTION : Kelly should take this time to remind herself that Mary knows deep down that stroke for stroke she doesn’t have the answer to beat her. Mary is hoping that her little “walk about” will pull Kelly’s mind away from her game plan and give her fiery strokes time to cool down. Mary Lee is hoping that random external stimuli will race through Kelly’s mind and she’ll temporarily forget about her current task at hand.
Kelly’s only job is to refocus her attention on the exact performance goals she is applying successfully. This includes successful serve patterns, return patterns, rally patterns and short ball option patterns. Any play that’s winning at a 70% rate, keep doing relentlessly.
SCENARIO: Your son, Mark, is playing in the zone. The opponent is even yelling “This dude’s treeing!!” Without even noticing, Mark had jumped to a 4-1 lead. During the changeover he slips out of his quiet, relaxed state of mind and begins an internal dialog that sounds like a rapid firing machine gun.” I’m killing this top seed…he’s not even that good. ..When I win, what are all my buddies going to say? What’s my ranking going to jump to? All those academy kids are going to see that I’m the man! Maybe now my dad will be proud of me?” The USTA will surely have to invite me to the high performance camps… I wonder how big the trophy’s going to be when I win this thing?
Mark walks back onto the court with a totally different state of mind. He looks like Mark, but he’s not Mark- “He’s a dead man walking.” Mark starts to play. He’s out of sorts, blows his massive lead and proceeds to lose the match. After losing, Mark’s opponent says” You’re getting a little better, keep it up.”
SOLUTION: Focus control is the learned behavior of rituals and routines. Mark’s loss isn’t due to stroke mechanics; it’s due to his wandering mind and his lack of changeover rituals.
Champions stay in their performance frame of mind during changeovers by applying a mental routine of only thinking two games back and two games forward. Thoughts include: Did I hold serve? Why or why not? Did I break the guy’s serve? Why or why not. Champions have taken the time to learn to how to eliminate external stimuli and only focus on the current task at hand. Mark should play 6 sets and only focus on the art of changeover rituals.
SCENARIO:
Opponent Justin has a bad reputation for gamesmanship. After your son Matt built a nice 3-0 lead, JJ or Jerky Justin, as he’s known in the tennis arena (and probably throughout his life…), starts his antics.
JJ is well versed in monitoring the location of the officials. If no linesmen are in sight, he’s a happy camper. Justin is also an expert at spotting an opponent who is emotionally vulnerable. Justin routinely hooks on line calls and does so, usually on game points. To make matters worse, he is well versed in accusing the opponent of hooking him on calls. How could I forget, JJ is also a master at changing the score and/or accusing the opponent of changing the score. I call Justin “type” players “creative line callers” – Unfortunately, they are found in every age division in every section. So, what’s the secret for Matt to overcome this situation and calmly closing out the match?
SOLUTION: The answer lies in discovering Channel Capacity.
Channel Capacity is a neurological term which refers to the degree the human brain is able to focus. The brain cannot successfully focus on two uniquely different tasks at the same time. A junior tennis player with his undivided attention on the drama of being hooked cannot simultaneously focus on the art of winning. (“Creative Line Callers” rely on this fact- even though they do not know why…) It’s a tough task even for a mature adult to focus on their performance goals relevant to the moment at hand, when all they can think about is the deliberate deception taking place before their eyes!
After a heated confrontation, I suggest taking a bathroom break of your own. Take 5 minutes to disconnect away from the drama and reconnect with your performance patterns that got you the lead. Once again, rituals and routines are the key to maintaining the proper state of mind. Rituals keep your mind busy focusing on the art of winning so it cannot wander off to the drama of the situation. Matt should play 6 sets and only focus on the art of between point rituals.
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
FGSA@earthlink.net
MaximizingTennisPotential.com
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