Tag Archives: elite tennis coach Frank Giampaolo

How to Close Out A Match- Part 3

Posted on September 19, 2022 by in The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
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Scenario Number Three:

Mr. Johnson sends me another 4 page text Saturday afternoon. Essentially claiming that his little Kristin, the best athlete in the tournament, has choked away another match… She was up 5-1 and missed two shots and went off! “She was killing her opponent and then… I don’t know?”

Here is how he described his daughter’s mindless play: fast anger walking, choking, then more choking, racquet cracking, hitting harder and harder and then screaming at herself game after game as the opponent is handed the set 7-5. He writes, “Kristin didn’t even sit during changeovers!”

Solution Three:

First, let’s review choking versus panicking because it is confusing. It’s important to recognize that choking is caused by over-thinking. Dozens of irrelevant contaminants jumble the brain. These include outcome thoughts like: “Who will I play next?”, “What’s my ranking going to jump to?” and “I wonder if I’ll qualify for the Easter bowl after I beat this seed?”

Choking is entertaining irrelevant thoughts during the match instead of the task at hand. What Mr. Johnson described wasn’t over thinking (choking), it’s choking’s evil twin- panicking.

Panicking is the opposite of choking. It’s under thinking. As Kristin’s frustration tolerance level reached its peak, she didn’t think at all. She rushed mindlessly through the rough patch hoping that the quicker she played the quicker she would get out of this bad situation. Unfortunately, the opposite holds true.

 

An analogy to panicking is attempting to get off an iced over road as quick as possible. The faster you move, the more you fall. Slowing down is required…the same goes for panicking in a tennis match.

 

In this panicked state of mind, slowing down to a crawl is the answer. It would serve Kristin to develop pre-set protocols to slow down play and establish her very own between point rituals and changeover rituals. After all, the negative behavior Mr. Johnson described was happening in-between points. Panicking is an easy fix if Kristin is willing to re-focus her attention on the practice court. If your child occasionally goes brain dead and panics in matches, I suggest meeting with their coach and organizing practice sets where your child’s only focus is on their between point rituals and changeover rituals. The art of closing out matches requires players to stop avoiding head to head competition on the practice court. Closing out sets and matches is a learned behavior. It requires dedicated practice. Remember the old saying “Practice doesn’t make perfect…practice makes permanent.”  So, if you want your youngster to be permanently excellent at closing out matches- customize their training accordingly.

How to Close Out A Match- Part 1

Posted on September 13, 2022 by in The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
Available through most online retailers!

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HOW TO CLOSE OUT A MATCH

 

Imagine that it’s a hot summer day, 102 in the shade.  Every electrical device is on to capacity inside your house. There’s so much stress on the electrical system that it blows a fuse. “Click” … lights out, AC‘s off… everything shuts down.

Under extremely stressful conditions, uneducated junior tennis players do the same. When a junior tennis player over stresses their emotional system, the same total shut down occurs.  Stress plays havoc on their psyche.

 

As contaminants jumble the brain, simple motor programs are lost in the inner chatter. Basic functions like “move your feet” and “just breathe” begin to cease because the brain is cluttered with dozens of irrelevant thoughts. Well-rehearsed performance patterns and plans are nowhere to be found. Heck, some players are so unknowingly stressed they can’t even remember their name.

Below are three real life scenarios and their solutions to help your child identify why they’re not closing out matches.

 

Scenario Number One:

Molly is a strong starter. She routinely performs her aggressive baseline style of play as she opens the set with a 4-1 lead. Once a lead is established, the trouble sinks in. Molly gains the lead by keeping her foot firmly on the gas pedal with a “play to win” attitude. As she begins to see the finish line, she takes her foot off the gas and unknowingly slips into a “play not to lose” mentality. Her amazing ground strokes dramatically change from 80 mph with extreme depth to 50 mph balls landing mid court in the perfect strikes zone for her opponent!

Her thoughts race from “Ok, you got the lead. Now just don’t give it back.” to “The last 5 times I had a 4-1 lead I choked ….so, just be safe and don’t choke another one away.” Molly unknowingly gets tight, begins to push and once again, blows the lead and hands the seed the match.

Solution One:

The system of “playing to win” with Molly’s foot heavy on the gas was working brilliantly. She was winning 66% of the points and controlling the match. Taking her foot off the gas and playing it safe actually changes the exact winning style that earned her the lead. The answer for Molly is learning not to be afraid to lose with her “A” game plan. If her “A” game plan is winning 2 out 3 points- it is a winner!

Sadly, by slipping into her “now be safe…don’t blow it” mode, Molly is elongating the actual drama she is trying so desperately to avoid. Her probable victory turns into a probable slow torturous death. I strongly suggest that when you gain a lead, have the guts to take the match with the same gusto that was used to build the comfortable lead.

 Playing to win for the entire match would earn Molly approximately 70% of her sets. But she doesn’t. Why? Because, Molly doesn’t deeply trust her attacking style of play. Instead she chooses to repeat her reoccurring nightmare – which is switching to playing it safe after gaining a lead. With this mentality, she is earning a 30% winning record. Molly has to have the guts to play to win.

So why does she play so safe? In the younger age divisions, Molly could push and retrieve her way to victory as the under developed opponents simply self-destructed. However, at the higher levels, top seeds have not earned their high ranking by choking against a lesser player. Molly needs to believe in her game and play to win – essentially wrestle the trophy away from the top seed. It would serve Molly well to “over cook” under stress versus “under cook” with her shots.

 

“Molly should play practice sets starting at 2-2 and rehearse over cooking in the later stages of each game and set.”

 

Practice Sessions Dramas- Part 2

Posted on September 5, 2022 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

 

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
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PRACTICE SESSION DRAMAS

 

QUESTION: Even after a practice set, the first thing my Dad asks is, “Did you win?”

 

Frank: I must say, parents being too outcome oriented is the number one stressor that talented juniors report. This seemingly simple question, did you win, is sure to grow only one thing…the athlete’s performance anxieties. From your child’s perspective, this is seen as an interrogation. Asking such a question stems from the mindset of uneducated, old schooled tennis parents.

 

“Champions are performance oriented, not outcome oriented.”

 

The majority of the very best professionals on the planet only win a handful of tournaments each year. That means that even they go home a loser most weeks. They seek improvement, effort and playing at their optimal performance level over stressing about having to win every day. In sunny Southern California, a typical girls 14’s designated open tournament may have as many as 250 participants. Only one player goes home the winner and two hundred forty nine go home losers. Yes, everyone’s primary objective is to win. Parents have to lead the way in focusing on performance goals. The players who can focus on the process are controlling the controllables versus worrying about issues out of their control.

 

“Control the controllables and let the uncontrollables go.”

 

It’s important to note that children aren’t born naturally obsessing about the outcome of a tennis match. It’s a learned behavior. The parental job is to shift this behavioral focus. Remember the previous question regarding the old school parent that didn’t want their child to smile and laugh? The same performance anxieties are magnified by a parent who only cares about winning. It’s the parent’s primary role to DE-STRESS their athlete. By injecting worry and fear into every practice session, an ill-informed parent adds stress that ultimately increases muscle contractions, decreases fluid movement, impairs judgment and reduces the athlete’s problem solving performance skills. Athletes improve at a quicker rate in a calm relaxed mental state.

 

“Neurological studies prove that worrying about the need to always win sabotages any real chance of reaching peak performance.”

 

Parents and coaches interested in maximizing potential at a quicker rate and dramatically increasing the family’s enjoyment, should flip the question, “Did you win?’ with more constructive statements like: “You inspire me; I wish I could have been able to watch you today.”, “How do you feel you played?”, “Did you hit your performance goals?”, “Did you have fun?”, “Would you like me to go over your match logs with you?”, “Is there anything I can do to help you achieve your tennis goals?”

 

 

Losing Versus Getting Beat

Posted on September 1, 2022 by in The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
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LOSING VERSUS GETTING BEAT

 

For every 64 talented juniors that enter a six round tournament draw- all 64 have the same outcome goal: “I want to win!” Unfortunately 63 of those players go home losers. Although the nature of the draw format dictates only one champion, not all 63 lose- some of them get beat. There’s a big difference between getting beat and losing a match. Being defeated should be viewed from a new perspective.

 

“Attempting to never make a bad shot stops your athlete’s flow of great shots.  Great winners and correct errors come from the same relaxed, free zone.”

 

Let’s look deeper into the cause of the loss:

In my book, being outplayed by someone is getting beat. It is absolutely fine to get beat by someone who is:

  • Executing their best style of play.
  • Performing their best strategies & tactics.
  • Working harder.
  • Controlling the mega points.
  • Choosing to utilize the rituals they’ve developed.

 

In the above situation, the opponent may actually deserved the victory. On the other side of getting beat, is losing. It is much more painful to lose a match when:

  • Your child is more talented but their opponent is a harder worker.
  • Your child chooses not to employ their best style of play or falls into their opponent’s style of play.
  • Your child makes too many reckless, unforced errors.
  • Your child is too passive to compete at crunch time.
  • Your child doesn’t bother to spot and attack the opponent’s weaknesses.

 

Making your opponent beat you while applying your best style of play is actually a win-win situation. It’s what I call a mental and emotional commitment. When your player is confident and committed to playing their patterns and tactics, they often beat even the top seeds. But even if they don’t win the match, they’ll have no regrets. They will have attempted their best systems and that is all that can be expected.

Parents, please promote that learning to win or getting beat by confidently playing their best style of play is learning to “compete” correctly.

 

“There is a difference between missing the actual shot the moment demands and missing random, reckless shots.”

 

Parents and coaches must acknowledge that by taking the risk to compete, your child will likely lose in almost every high level tennis tournament. Parents must reinforce that losing the correct way, playing the game systems they have been trained, is their best shot at beating the best players.

Between-Point-Rituals and Change-Over-Rituals

Posted on August 22, 2022 by in The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
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Frank Giampaolo

BETWEEN POINT RITUALS AND CHANGE-OVER RITUALS

 

Most intermediates think, “What’s the big deal with these between point rituals? The balls not even in play!” Unfortunately, this is a result of not properly educating our youngsters about the importance of rituals- early and often. Athletes that neglect to implement rituals are missing an important opportunity to dissect the opponent, relax and recover, and organize future patterns. Their mind is too caught up with contaminating thoughts regarding the ramifications of the future outcome, whose winning on court #6, or any of their invented performance anxieties that have been keeping them from getting the results they deserve.

 

It’s estimated that during a match, the athletes are actually playing in-the-point approximately 20-30 percent of the time that they are on the court. Seventy-eighty percent of the time they’re in between points.  That’s a staggering amount of time. Wouldn’t it be wise if they learned how to put that time to good use?

 

In the 25 seconds allotted in between points, it’s advisable to create a customized 3-part routine that the athlete is comfortable performing each and every point. There are two forms of these rituals that are performed simultaneously:

1) Internal Rituals: I refer to internal rituals as the mental/emotional doorways a player must pass through. I have categorized them into 3 phases: Getting over the last point, planning the next point’s pattern and applying a relaxation ritual.

 

2) External Rituals: These rituals are the routines outsiders see. They commonly consist of taking the racquet out of the dominant hand to relax it, time management routines such as taking extra time to prepare, toweling off, or looking at their strings to relax the eyes. Once an athlete buys into, understands and develops these rituals they’re on their way to a higher level.

 

Parents, along with your child’s coach, schedule time for practice sets with the mandatory between point and change over rituals firmly in place.

 

The second most important “down time” in match play is during the 90 seconds allotted for changeovers. While this is a physical rest-break, it is not a total mental/emotional detachment from the task at hand.

During changeovers, there are, once again external rituals like toweling off and hydrating. It is during this phase of the of the match cycle that important internal routines should be executed. I recommend beginning by briefly thinking only about the previous two games. Assess what went right-what went wrong in the previous serving game as well as the return of serve game. Make a strategic plan to repeat what’s working and to re-vamp what isn’t. After the athlete performs their external routines, they go internally once again and review.

Experienced competitors visualize both their upcoming service game as well as their upcoming return of serve game. They choose to plan on running the same past successful patterns and avoid past failures. Applying this change over rituals will keep your athletes attention in the present-task oriented, peak performance state of mind.

Remember the boxing analogy, “Stop the bleeding”- Shut down their winning patterns and “Cause more bleeding”- Keep pounding away at their weaknesses.

IMPROVING CONFIDENCE AND LOW SELF ESTEEM- PART 1

Posted on August 15, 2022 by in The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

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IMPROVING CONFIDENCE AND LOW SELF ESTEEM

 

Regardless of the reason, athletes who begin to doubt their true capabilities need to flip their negative outlook before their negative beliefs ruin their practices and performances.

 

“A positive outlook is a prerequisite to positive performances.”

 

A lack of confidence can stem from a singular reasons or a combination of reasons. As always, solutions are dictated by their cause.

Typical Causes of Low Confidence:

1) Athlete has slacked off in their weekly training regiments…

2) Athlete has not trained efficiently (quantity not quality)…

3) Athlete is injured, sick or are returning to the game after an injury or sickness…

4) Athlete’s pessimistic attitude is getting the best of them…

5) Athlete has under-performed in recent competition and lost a few close matches to players they believe they should beat…

 

Rekindling confidence starts with a rebuilding of the belief systems.

 

“Confidence is a progressive spiral of numerous positive inputs which leads to a positive attitude…
which in turn leads to new positive actions that leads to positive results.”

 

CURING PERFORMANCE ANXIETY

Posted on August 12, 2022 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
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CURING PERFORMANCE ANXIETY

 

Overcoming performance anxiety is a very common developmental issue. As you have probably witnessed, this component is most often ignored by intermediate players and coaches. If physical or emotional danger is perceived, the fear pathways short circuit rational processing and basic motor programming is lost. Meaning even if perfect form is seen on the practice court, stress can often de-rail it.

So how can parents and coaches spot performance anxiety?

Many parents report that their athlete’s extreme competitive anxieties are masked with pre-match physical illnesses, fake injuries and/or preset excuses before each important match. Yet their player avoids any talk of solutions to remedy their anxiety issues.

 

“Even on the playground, young children who fear competition fake an injury as an easy way out.”

 

Intermediate competitors often choose to avoid these topics, which is the worst thing they can do. Avoidance only magnifies their anxiety and keeps competition scary and uncomfortable. This growing fear fuels the player’s lingering self-doubt. Fear of confrontation is extremely typical in the world of junior tennis. Conquering that fear is actually quite simple.

 

“The best way to alleviate performance anxieties is through exposure not avoidance.”

 

Psychologists report that the central nervous system decreases its arousal state with extended exposure to the same stimuli.  In other words, if ones nervous system is exposed to the same arousal stimuli… the feelings of excessive performance anxiety are reduced. It is worth noting that every athlete experiences some degree of anxiety and nervousness in the competitive arena, but excessive uncontrollable anxiety destroys athletic performance. To ease a player’s fear of competition, the player needs to devise protocols that will deflate their arousal state during competition. By dodging and evading their fears, the player is actually increasing their anxieties. Every time a player side steps their issues, the thoughts of possible failure multiply into an unreasonable lack of confidence and self-esteem, which is later magnified during competition. Apprehension to compete will actually increase until the player agrees to stop avoiding their fears.

 

“The familiar becomes commonplace, both positive and negative. This is human nature.”

 

If extreme performance anxieties exist, protocols to implement before important competition may include:

  • Arrive at the tournament site days early to get comfortable in the environment.
  • Drill and play practice sets with other competitors on site to get comfortable in the environment.
  • Meet, mingle and hit with as many “new” people as possible to get comfortable with varying ball speeds and trajectories.
  • Stay on-site and profile the top seeds after your match is complete to take the mystique out of the top seeds.
  • Ask your athlete to chart the competitor’s cause of errors. Documenting opponent’s cause of errors will prove to your “stressed out” player that their opponents are beatable.

 

Plan on networking, mix and mingle with other teaching pros, parents and players. Why?

  • Finding better quality doubles partners.
  • Getting acquainted with higher level coaches.
  • Discovering new academies, programs or tournaments.
  • Meeting the current crop of USTA coaches- which hold the wild card power.
  • Increase personal communication skills- essential life lessons.

 

“Avoiding competition magnifies ignorance and multiplies fear, nervousness, uncertainty, distress and disorganization.
Although confronting performance anxieties is difficult, it’s the exposure to these fears that brings empowerment and reduces
performance anxiety.”

PERFORMANCE ANXIETIES IN TENNIS-PART 2

Posted on August 8, 2022 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

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Solutions and Cures

Individual personalities come with unique frustration tolerance levels. So it’s safe to say that symptoms and cures are often remarkably different. Listed below are the anxiety reducing strategies that I teach my students to handle pressure. Set aside time to discuss the below 6 performance anxiety busters with your team.

1) Pre-match preparation is essential. Prepare all strokes, patterns, one’s physical body and one’s state of mind properly before each match. Top professional have a specific routine before and after every match.
2) Keep your self-destruction notes handy. The mental section provided you with a list of ten “Self-Destruction Solutions.”
3) To avoid choking and panicking requires understanding the under arousal, ideal performance and the over arousal state of minds.
4) Emotional toughness is being bigger than the moment. This state of mind requires three months of practicing in the manner in which you are expected to perform versus simply hitting tons of balls back and forth.

5) Remember the acronym for WIN- W: What’s; I: Important; N: Now. Dummy up and only focus on what’s important now, from pre-match rituals, through each point of the match, to post-match rituals.
6) Be prepared in every possible way- technical, physical, emotional and mental.

  • Technical Preparation: The “tool belt” of primary & secondary strokes are all pre-developed and wired for tournament play.
  • Physical Preparation: Aerobic and anaerobic capacities are ready to handle the long standing suffering of winning six matches in a row.
  • Emotional/Focus Preparation: Pre-set protocols/solutions have been discussed and developed to handle any crisis.
  • Mental/Strategy and Tactics: Pre-set patterns to successfully pull all four different styles of opponents out of their comfortable system of play.

 

“The very best way to destroy performance anxiety is through growth.”

 

Confidence Is Nurtured by Positive Self Talk

Encourage your athlete to think positively, such as, I deserve my success, I have trained for it, I am a problem solver, I am resilient, I will do my best and/or I can.  A positive attitude is a critical first step when tackling performance anxiety issues. Sadly, I’ve found that many athletes are actually nurtured pessimism. This happens when players are raised by parents or trained by coaches that see the negatives in every situation- which is actually programing pessimism unknowingly to their children. Ironically, the very same parents and coaches often report, “My kids are so negative!”

If the family environment is becoming a bit too negative, a fun game to play for the entire family is an old psychology exercise called the “Flip It” game. Trust me, it could change your lives.

Hold a family meeting and introduce a one week exercise. Everyone is encouraged to say “Flip It” whenever they witness another family member saying something pessimistic or acting negative. Athlete example, “I don’t want to eat this healthy stuff.”- FLIP IT, “I hate this drill”-FLIP IT, “It’s too early…I don’t want to go for a run before school.” FLIP IT! Parental example “Yea, he won 6-2, 6-4 but he should of won 0-0”, -FLIP IT!  This exercise spotlights the negative behavior. It makes the negatron aware of his/her reoccurring pessimism and encourages optimism in a light hearted, non-threatening way.

 

“Learning to spot and flip pessimism and replace it with optimism is presenting the moral code needed to champion tennis and life.”

 

Control the Controllables

Another anxiety reducing emotional protocol is to encourage your athlete to focus on simply controlling that which is truly under their control and to ignore everything that is out of their control.  Understand that champions trim the fat and focus only on what they have control over versus outcome issues out of their control. Most performance anxieties stem from focusing on contaminating issues that have no place inside the head of an athlete during competition.

 

“The player’s performance anxieties lessen greatly when parents stop obsessing about the outcome and rankings and encourage belief, effort and improvement.”

 

Ask your child to forget about the outcome of matches for a while. Instead, ask them to focus on being better than they were yesterday.  A long term goal to strive for is to be twice as good this year as you were last year.

TEN SECRETS TO STOP SELF DESTRUCTION

Posted on July 30, 2022 by in The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
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TEN SECRETS TO STOP SELF DESTRUCTION

 

“Hi Frank, This is Mr. Patton. I’d like to talk to you about helping my daughter. Another tournament is over and once again we’ve witnesses the unthinkable. Samantha lost again to a weaker, lower level player. This happens all the time! Maybe she’s just not cut out for competition? I send her to an Academy. She hits almost every day. Why isn’t she winning? Is there anything my wife and I can do as parents to help? Please call me back. My number is …”

 

If you’re athlete suffers from losing to lesser players, relax there is a solution. As a matter of fact, there are ten solutions! This is a major factor in the mental skills department. Begin by reviewing the below list of self-destruction solutions with your player and entourage of coaches. Ask your athlete to circle their top 3 favorite solutions. Along with their coaches, schedule time to rehearse the repetition of the solutions.

 

Self-Destruction Solutions:

1) When you are donating points with first or second strike errors, simply focus on hitting three balls clean straight down the center of the court. You’ll go from handing the opponent the trophy to making them earn a seven ball rally. Trust me, this really works!

 

2) While being too eager to see your beautiful shot, you sneak a peek early, pull out of the strike zone and shank balls off the frame. A great tip is to simply say “plant” when the incoming ball lands on your court and “turn” as you begin to uncoil the kinetic chain into the ball.  Trick yourself into thinking that you can see the ball “hit” the strings of your racket. Wa-la! No more shanks!

 

3) Future thoughts are a common enemy of high quality tennis. Thinking ahead to the award presentation, their new ranking or what their friends are going to say when they beat this seed is a sure fire path to “Loserville.”  Focus on the present execution of your performance patterns versus the post-match outcome drama.

 

4) Mistakes often lead to anger. Anger leads to increased ball speed. Increasing ball speed leads to more errors.  To steady up, sometimes match the opponents ball speed until you get your game back to a controllable level. Yes, champions often simply match the ball speed.

 

5) Use the tactics found in applying the proper air zones and court zones. Understanding zonal tennis will greatly reduce the sheer numbers of unforced errors.

 

6) Another critical function of reducing the “avoidable” error is the proper use of offense, neutral and defensive choices.  Pro tour studies show that professionals hit on average 60% neutral, 20% offence, 20% defense.  Match play video analysis of intermediate juniors show an average of 80% offence, 15% neutral, 5% defense. Hum…no wonder the unforced error count is through the roof!

 

7) Most juniors use changeovers to watch the other matches, check out that cute chic or guy over by the fence, watch cars go by or even spot the American airlines jet overhead. Proper internal changeover rituals would be to simply think two games back, fix flaws and design proactive plans, then organize how they will be using the information during the next two games.

 

8) If you’re self-destructing and want to respond to adversity like a champ, copy Serena.  She reads her notes during matches to relax and stay focused. She’s earned a few bucks playing this game and seems to have a future.  Haha!  You should have your notes prepared and actually choose to pull them out and read them if needed.

 

9) As the “deer in the head light’ spaced out look comes across your face, remind yourself that you can break free of all this panicking by taking a few “swoosh” shadow swings. Be aware that one of the first fundamentals to shut down are your quick little steps. Move your feet and use verbal and physical triggers to re-gain composure.

 

10) On a parental note, often a large portion of the stress that inhibits your child’s peak performance is unknowing caused by you.  Stress causes poor brain function and tight muscle contractions. Are you successfully de-stressing your athlete on game day?

 

 

Training how to handle ADVERSITY is a major contributor to a champion’s success. I often remind intermediate athletes that they have to be comfortable…being uncomfortable. Spending a couple hours each week for the next month focusing on a few of their solutions may be the exact protocol your athlete needs to salvage a routine match that has gone south.

PERFORMANCE ANXIETY SYMPTOMS AND CAUSES – Part 2

Posted on July 23, 2022 by in The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
Available through most online retailers!

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Solutions and Cures

 

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Individual personalities come with unique frustration tolerance levels. So it’s safe to say that symptoms and cures are often remarkably different. Listed below are the anxiety reducing strategies that I teach my students to handle pressure. Set aside time to discuss the below 6 performance anxiety busters with your team.

1) Pre-match preparation is essential. Prepare all strokes, patterns, one’s physical body and one’s state of mind properly before each match. Top professional have a specific routine before and after every match.

2) Keep your self-destruction notes handy. The mental section provided you with a list of ten “Self-Destruction Solutions.”

3) To avoid choking and panicking requires understanding the under arousal, ideal performance and the over arousal state of minds.

4) Emotional toughness is being bigger than the moment. This state of mind requires three months of practicing in the manner in which you are expected to perform versus simply hitting tons of balls back and forth.

5) Remember the acronym for WIN- W: What’s; I: Important; N: Now. Dummy up and only focus on what’s important now, from pre-match rituals, through each point of the match, to post-match rituals.

6) Be prepared in every possible way- technical, physical, emotional and mental.

  • Technical Preparation: The “tool belt” of primary & secondary strokes are all pre-developed and wired for tournament play.
  • Physical Preparation: Aerobic and anaerobic capacities are ready to handle the long standing suffering of winning six matches in a row.
  • Emotional/Focus Preparation: Pre-set protocols/solutions have been discussed and developed to handle any crisis.
  • Mental/Strategy and Tactics: Pre-set patterns to successfully pull all four different styles of opponents out of their comfortable system of play.

 

“The very best way to destroy performance anxiety is through growth.”

 

Confidence Is Nurtured by Positive Self Talk

Encourage your athlete to think positively, such as, I deserve my success, I have trained for it, I am a problem solver, I am resilient, I will do my best and/or I can.  A positive attitude is a critical first step when tackling performance anxiety issues. Sadly, I’ve found that many athletes are actually nurtured pessimism. This happens when players are raised by parents or trained by coaches that see the negatives in every situation- which is actually programing pessimism unknowingly to their children. Ironically, the very same parents and coaches often report, “My kids are so negative!”

If the family environment is becoming a bit too negative, a fun game to play for the entire family is an old psychology exercise called the “Flip It” game. Trust me, it could change your lives.

 

Hold a family meeting and introduce a one week exercise. Everyone is encouraged to say “Flip It” whenever they witness another family member saying something pessimistic or acting negative. Athlete example, “I don’t want to eat this healthy stuff.”- FLIP IT, “I hate this drill”-FLIP IT, “It’s too early…I don’t want to go for a run before school.” FLIP IT! Parental example “Yea, he won 6-2, 6-4 but he should of won 0-0”, -FLIP IT!  This exercise spotlights the negative behavior. It makes the negatron aware of his/her reoccurring pessimism and encourages optimism in a light hearted, non-threatening way.

 

“Learning to spot and flip pessimism and replace it with optimism is presenting the moral code needed to champion tennis and life.”

 

Control the Controllables

Another anxiety reducing emotional protocol is to encourage your athlete to focus on simply controlling that which is truly under their control and to ignore everything that is out of their control.  Understand that champions trim the fat and focus only on what they have control over versus outcome issues out of their control. Most performance anxieties stem from focusing on contaminating issues that have no place inside the head of an athlete during competition.

 

“The player’s performance anxieties lessen greatly when parents stop obsessing about the outcome and rankings and encourage belief, effort and improvement.”

 

Ask your child to forget about the outcome of matches for a while. Instead, ask them to focus on being better than they were yesterday.  A long term goal to strive for is to be twice as good this year as you were last year.