Tag Archives: Coach Frank Giampaolo

Tennis Getting Good Versus Earning Good

Posted on March 9, 2023 by in The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

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ebook with lightblue background_3DExecuting Momentum

In high-performance tennis, understanding psychological momentum plays a key role in closing out matches. Momentum is a bi-directional concept affecting either the probability of winning or losing. Gaining then keeping positive momentum (where almost everything seems to go right) and stopping then reversing negative momentum (where nearly everything seems to go wrong) are skills worth educating. Maintaining psychological momentum keeps your athlete’s confidence high and helps them play at their peak performance level longer.

Unfortunately, manipulating the momentum is difficult to do. Often your athlete experiences a momentary lack of focus or a setback due to the opponent’s intelligent tactical changes. After momentum is lost, teaching them how to recapture it is part of the software package and will most likely have to be the parent’s job.

Following, you’ll discover steps to finding momentum when it’s lost.

Solution: Educate your athlete that recapturing the elusive skill when lost starts with a time-out. Typically, your athlete’s positive momentum is nowhere to be found when they lose three games in a row. This lack of focus signals it is time to take a legal bathroom break or trainer break. Hitting the pause button extinguishes the opponent’s fire and changes the game’s flow as their winning rhythms are interrupted. Teach your athlete to utilize legal time-outs to control the momentum of their matches.

So, what influencers stop your athletes from building momentum and giving that precious commodity over to their opponents?

  • Negative Body Language and the State of Mind
  • Being Judgmental About Mistakes
  • Wandering Mind Which Causes Unforced Errors
  • Choosing to be Combative
  • Match Awareness Mistakes

 

What should your athletes do to hold on to the hot commodity called momentum?

  • Apply Bold Body Language
  • Focus On Their Script of Top Plays
  • Maintain Intensity
  • Physical (Heart Rate Management)
  • Verbal Self Encouragement

 

Building positive momentum should be of utmost importance in match play. Unfortunately, match play momentum fluctuates throughout the match. Your athlete’s job is to keep that energy flowing in the right direction for as long as possible.

 

Tennis – The Psychology of Listening

Posted on March 3, 2023 by in The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

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The Psychology of Listening

For a youngster to mentally process your message, the athlete must pay attention to the essence of the ideas. Most children never get past their parent’s tone of voice and nonverbal clues. Digesting the message isn’t easy for most junior athletes. Once the message is perceived as negative, they stop listening. So, use a bit of reverse psychology and apply optimistic solutions instead of the laundry list of their problems. This method detaches the athlete from their ego.

Young athletes are typically lost in their judgmental thoughts, so the listener often distorts the message.

 

“One who understands what to say has knowledge; one who understands when to say it has wisdom.”

Magnifying the negative and forgetting the positive is a typical communication obstruction. Every athlete, parent, and coach have a unique communication style. There are four basic communication styles (passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, and dominating). It’s important to understand that if your style isn’t working, change your communication system to fit your listener.

Solution: Understand your communication system. Try to downgrade your tone of voice to a calm, relaxed cadence to get your meaning heard. When choosing to discuss their failures, switch the problems with the solutions. Add player accountability to problem-solving using the “Ask, don’t tell.” teaching method. After all, top athletes are nurtured to solve their problems.

Try to focus on giving without expecting, argue less, stop comparing your child with their peers, avoid participating in gossip, eliminate judgment, and choose not to live vicariously through your child.

Tennis Skills Development

Posted on February 27, 2023 by in The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

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The Investment

Andy: “My kids are getting interested in tennis. Why was your daughter so into it?” Did she win all the time?”
Frank: “While she was top in the National rankings and played the US Open by 15, she lost most weeks.”
Andy: “So, why did you keep her in it?”
Frank: “To help me teach a moral compass, positive character, and life skills.”
Andy: “I hear tennis is an expensive sport?”
Frank: “Chasing greatness in anything comes with a high price. Being mediocre is easy.”
Andy: “So what did you and your athlete get out of it?”

Solution: Parents, you’re not paying for tennis. Let’s be clear; tennis is just a vehicle. You’re paying for opportunities to help you develop life skills. The investment is in their physical, mental, and emotional hyper-growth. These attributes developed through tennis are what college coaches and later employers seek. Participation in sports covertly helps develop world-class leaders. You are spending money placing your athlete into challenging situations, such as when they want to quit but persist. When they don’t want to go to practice at 6:30 am, but they do. When they’re “too scared” to battle but they learn to fight on and preserver.

Parents investing in raising an elite tennis player are also investing in superior life skills, such as:

  • Building the discipline required to develop the physical, mental, and emotional skills necessary to be abnormally great.
  • Gaining the learned experience of personal goal setting, resiliency, and dedication to a craft.
  • Learning good sportsmanship- to be humble when dealing with victories and be classy in defeat.
  • Instilling a strong work ethic through years and years of hard work on and off the court.

 

Accomplished athletes will have more success and life experiences in their teens than some people achieve in their entire lives. Developing a world-class person is difficult at best and doesn’t happen overnight, but what is the alternative? Your child can be on the tennis court or sitting on the couch in front of two screens thumbing through social media on their phone, eating cheese puffs while playing the latest video game on their computer.

Parental Dialogue

Posted on February 20, 2023 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

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Post-Match Banter

Remember that every use of force, even the smallest, creates a counterforce. Like Newton’s third law, “For every action… there’s an equal opposite reaction.” Parents’ match play observations delivered to an athlete right after the competition create a love of competition or distaste for competition. Here’s an insightful question for us adults: What if our boss gave us their list of everything we did wrong at the end of every day? I know I’d be looking for a new job ASAP!

Solution:

  • Spend a week practicing not giving unsolicited advice to your young athlete.
  • Stop yourself and choose silence.
  • Give your child the time to organize their solutions.

 

Here’s a fact, your words become your child’s inner dialogue at future crunch time. So, if your post-performance banter is repeatedly heard as “you’re not good enough,” guess what they’re thinking as they’re trying desperately to close out another match?

Parents unknowingly destroy the inner belief needed by their junior athletes. Analyzing performance is terrific for those detailed data collectors, but please follow up the analysis by texting your findings to the coach instead of sharing them with your child. Post-match, your child only needs to hear one question from you: What kind of ice cream are you getting today? All they need to feel from you is how much you love to watch them play and how proud you are of them.

Tennis Emotional Regulation

Posted on February 16, 2023 by in The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

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Emotional Regulation

As Jenna Hanson’s match begins, her father, Steve, starts to pace the cage. By the first game, he’s offering illegal advice to Jenna “Jen, toss higher…come on!” Next, he’s offering “advice” to the roaming official, “Ref, my daughter is being cheated on court #5 … let’s go, get out there!” After the referee stays for two games and disappears, Steve begins yelling at Jenna’s opponent. “Do you need to cheat?” In his hijacked state of mind, Steve is asked to leave the facility once again.

We’ve all had firsthand experience witnessing our youngsters get cheated. We’ve all lost perspective and momentarily felt like Steve.

Regulating our emotions when our little babies compete isn’t easy. Our self-worth and self-esteem are on the line as a silly junior tennis match feels like the Super bowl. Powerful protective instincts rise as we try desperately to react with just the right amount of emotions not to upset our precious phenom.

Solution: The very nature of tennis tournaments are mentally and emotionally intense for children and their spectator parents. A tennis match is a helpless experience for parents as we sit and only smile when our child’s crying in anguish. Tennis tournaments have rules and even roaming officials, but a few bad calls inevitably occur in every match.

Emotional regulation is about controlling our reactions. Staying calm under attack in a Zen-like fashion is a tennis parent strategy. Fake it until you make it is an emotional strategy. Managing one’s mindset, facial expression, and body language is a vital tennis parent job description.

Tennis Coaching Nurturing Happiness

Posted on February 12, 2023 by in The Psychology of Tennis Parents

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Nurturing Happiness

 

 

 

“Winning isn’t the way to happiness … Happiness is the way to winning.”


 

Teach Happiness

At the heart of a tennis parent’s job description is to teach happiness. Happier athletes are more likely to play longer, develop deeper skill sets, perform more freely, become successful tennis athletes, and become accomplished adults. Neuroscientists report that just hearing another person laugh triggers mirror neurons in the brain—these mirror neurons insight laughter. Interestingly, to date, Harvard University’s most popular class is a happiness course taught by Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar.

Solution: Parental guidance greatly influences an athlete’s success, especially through modeling – children do what you do and not necessarily what you say. So, if you want to nurture happier athletes, the first step is to show happiness. Focus on the positive and avoid stressing the negative. Your happiness or disappointment affects your athlete tremendously. Joy and laughter are contagious, so laugh with your children daily. There is a time and a place for correction but be sure to lighten the mood on tournament days and enjoy the journey.

Available Now The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

Posted on February 2, 2023 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

Released on January 28, 2023

The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

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INTRODUCTION

 

It’s our job as parents and coaches to teach the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. The Psychology of Tennis Parenting will help the reader uncover how to juggle both topics. Your family’s happiness depends on your ability to navigate the waters. As I’ve said a thousand times:

“Educated parents about the developmental process are the ship’s motors…uneducated parents about the developmental process are the ship’s anchors.”

If your athlete is already competing, you have seen that winning titles requires more than just athletic ability. The prerequisite is a healthy mental state: emotional fitness and psychological strength matter. Our emotions determine our course of action, and these pages assist you in shaping the mental and emotional state of the athlete and their entourage of coaches and trainers.

The Psychology of Tennis Parenting is a tool to assist the parents and coaches in forming their athlete’s life skills and positive character traits. Changing bad habits is the prelude to winning higher-level matches. After all, winning and losing doesn’t just happen. The quality of one’s preparation determines success.

This book will teach parents how to educate their children to advocate for themselves, be assertive under pressure, make good decisions, and, most importantly, apply gratitude along the journey.

More Expert Industry Testimonials

Posted on January 24, 2023 by in The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

Released on January 28, 2023

The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

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EXPERT INDUSTRY TESTIMONIALS

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In our ever-changing world, raising an exceptional athlete seems to have more and more challenges. Frank paints a beautiful roadmap that navigates the difficult relationships between player, parent, and coach. He gives parents some tremendous ideas on how they can best help their child reach their potential. Frank has done a number of camps with our high-performance juniors and their families, and we receive nothing but rave reviews. I highly recommend this book for all families with young athletes.

Bob Hochstadter, President USTA Southern California

 

“Frank is a big asset to the Southern California Tennis Association in the world of player development and The Psychology of Tennis. Our parents, players, and coaches are lucky to have his knowledge, drive and passion front and center. Those that work with his philosophy and understanding of the game; instantaneously become better. I have seen it over and over. There are very few coaches that capture your attention and make the game easier to understand at any level. I wish that I would have had him with me as I pursued my dreams and aspirations. Simple and realistic concepts that will help you, the parent/player, navigate the game successfully. Take advantage of every opportunity you get to hear Frank speak or read his material. You will get better.”

Trevor Kronemann, Executive Director SCTA/USTA

 

The Psychology of Tennis Parenting is amazing! Every parent and coach need to read this book repeatedly and apply its lessons with their children and their students. Kudos to Frank for bringing his knowledge and wisdom to the world to help parents and their most prized possessions, their children. I highly recommend this book if you want to improve in all areas of life.

Jeff Salzenstein, Former Top 100 ATP Singles and Doubles Player, Stanford All-American, USTA High Performance Coach, Performance Coach, And Speaker

 

“This is a must-read for every tennis parent. Frank cuts right to the chase on navigating the tricky times ahead and creating a game plan as a supportive parent. He not only gives real-world examples but also backs them up with science. This will be my go-to recommendation to anyone looking to step up their role as a tennis parent.”

Danny Bryan, LSU Mens Head Coach, Louisiana

 

“For decades it has been abundantly clear that parents can play either a very positive or even a very negative role in the development of tennis playing juniors. Most fall in between but ALL can improve but most need help. Frank has stepped to the plate once again to assist. It is safe to say that any parent who reads and applies even a small part of this book will benefit for a lifetime.”

Joe Dinoffer, President, On Court Off Court, Texas

Pre-Order for Only 0.99 Cents

Posted on January 20, 2023 by in The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

Released on January 28, 2023

The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

Pre-order your eBook copy for only 0.99 Cents on Amazon

CLICK HERE

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“As a coach, navigating the relationships between Coach, Player and Parents are tricky at best. Everyone wants the best result for the player, and The Psychology of Tennis Parenting provides a clear road map. A must-read for serious parents and coaches!”

Chuck Gill, USPTA President (Past), Florida

 

“A much-needed book about a very important subject. Frank organized years of expertise and knowledge in a masterpiece for any tennis parent”.

Cassiano Costa, Ph.D. Costa performance, Florida

 

Being a tennis parent was the most challenging job in my 50 years of tennis coaching and playing. We care so much for our junior players that we often don’t realize the consequences of our love.

Frank has a unique perspective that can assist you in being the best tennis parent you can be. In turn, your junior player will get the best care, direction, and love from you – to be the best they can be. This is a MUST-READ for every tennis parent!

Ken DeHart, PTR Hall of Fame/PTR International Master Pro, 2 Time PTR International Pro of the Year/USPTA Master Pro, USPTA Life Time Achievement Award Winner, 4 Time USPTA Divisional Pro of the Year, California

“If your child loves tennis and is competing, do yourself a favor and invest in Frank’s newest book, The Psychology of Tennis Parenting. Frank walks you through the competitive junior tennis minefield so that you and your child will enjoy the process.”

Jorge Capestany, master coach, owner TennisDrillsTV, Michigan

The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

Posted on January 17, 2023 by in The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

Released on January 28, 2023

The Psychology of Tennis Parenting

Pre-order your eBook copy for only 0.99 Cents on Amazon

CLICK HERE

INDUSTRY TESTIMONIALS

“Frank Giampaolo has done it yet again. I have had the pleasure of reading most of his 10 great books, but “The Psychology of Tennis Parenting” is his best and most relevant publication to date! He absolutely nails it when addressing one of the most important challenges facing youth sports today – that of the role of the parent in the development of the athlete.

Frank understands the importance of the parent’s role in this development. We all want the best for our children, but often our good intentions produce less-than-desirable results. This is the main reason that 70% of our youth leave their sport by the time they reach high school, and tennis is no exception.

The vast experience Frank has gained working with athletes of all abilities and with their parents has given him valuable insight into specific and positive ways to address the challenges of competition. Parents of successful athletes play a critical role in their child’s development and in their ability to thrive under pressure, both on and off the court.

“This extremely well-written book provides a tangible and indispensable road map for all – the athlete, the parent, and the coach. It feels good that information is presented in a positive manner we can all take to heart without feeling we are being talked down to. In fact, it is a “must-read!” Thank you, Frank Giampaolo, for this incredible contribution!”

Dick Gould, Emeritus: Men’s Tennis Coach; Director of Tennis Stanford University (1966-2018), California

 

“Few coaches have Frank’s experience and expertise when it comes to understanding the mental and emotional components of high-performance tennis. More than just technique and tactics, he delves deeper to develop a player’s psychological capabilities. This book will be an indispensable resource if you’re a parent or coach with an aspiring junior.”

Jon Levey, Editor Tennis Magazine, Tennis.com, Connecticut

 

“Success in junior tennis and beyond requires a ‘Trust triangle’ between the player, parent, and coach. Each can maximize their potential by understanding their role. People go through all sorts of schooling and education to be prepared for any field of endeavor. Unfortunately, parents are thrust into the minefield-laden world of junior competitive tennis with less education than even the simplest jobs.

Frank’s new book provides a practical guide for the critical job of tennis parenting. Good intentions don’t cut it. This is required reading for any parent serious about doing what is best for their child and not adding to the current high drop-out and burn-out rate statistics.”

Wayne Elderton, Tennis Director-North Vancouver Tennis Centre, Tennis Canada Head Course Facilitator-British Columbia

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