Tag Archives: junior tennis

Player-Coach: Initial Information Exchange

Posted on March 8, 2019 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 NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

Maximizing Tennis Potential with Frank Giampaolo

PLAYER-COACH: INITIAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE

Most often, coaches begin their relationship with feeding balls and correcting fundamentals. I encourage coaches to begin their relationship by asking questions and truly listening to their students.  Maximizing player potential starts by uncovering the athlete’s personality, feelings, attitude and tennis IQ. This will aid in customizing the training regiments. Similar personality profiles share common efficiency and deficiencies. Knowing the athlete’s personality profile will save hundreds of wasted hours in the developmental process. Encourage your athlete’s coach to engage in this type of information exchange. It will surely set the tone for a positive relationship. Remember, all behavior is communicative so be aware of the nonverbal clues.

 

Nonverbal Clues Checklist:

  • Facial Expression
  • Body Language/Posture
  • Volume/Intonation
  • Choice of Words
  • Length of Thought Process
  • Length of Answers
  • Exact/Approximate Answers
  • Hand Gestures
  • Lower Body/Core Movement
  • Length of Focus

 

20 Assessment Questions:

  1. What level/division are you playing?
  2. Do you have a club, section, National or ITF ranking?
  3. Tell me about your athletic history?
  4. 4. What are your short and long-term tennis goals?
  5. Tell me about your tennis entourage (parents/coaches)?
  6. 6. What’s your current weekly training regimen?
  7. What’s your primary and secondary styles of play?
  8. Tell me about your pre-match preparation?
  9. 9. What style of opponent do you hate to play the most?
  10. 10. Are you patient or inpatient on court?
  11. 11. What’s your shot tolerance level (comfortable length of point)?
  12. Do you respond after reasoning or before reasoning?
  13. Do you allow the opponent to self-destruct or do you preferred to strike bold winners?
  14. How well do you deal with intimidation, confrontation/gamesmanship?
  15. 15. Do you enjoy surprises or avoid surprises?
  16. Are you comfortable being spontaneous/unscripted or deliberate/regimented?
  17. Are you inspired by the real/practical or imaginative/what could be?
  18. Do your thoughts wander between the past, present and the future?
  19. What’s your focus tolerance level (how long can you focus on a singular topic)?
  20. Do you think you’re getting the results you deserve?

 

Throughout this book, you will hear that it is the job of the parents and coaches to get into the athlete’s world as opposed to forcing the athlete into our world. Understanding why your athlete thinks the way they think and do what they do is a function of their genetic predisposition.

The Formula for Achieving Results- Part 2

Posted on February 28, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

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Insight 3: Character building starts with the parents and coaches leading the way by letting go of the outcome results and reinforcing the process. How can we expect an adolescent to be performance oriented when their “guiding lights” are obsessed with only winning?

Great parents and coached educate the process of maintained discipline through chaos. Think about the last time your athlete was in competition. Remember feeling stressed for your athlete? Why? What were your thoughts that caused your pressure and anxiety? Was it past, present or future scenarios? Most likely the actual stress was caused by the long list of “What if’s?” What if they lose to this toad … What if they beat this top seed? What will they’re ranking move to? What will the coaches say? Will they get a Nike deal?

Insight 4: Focus on controlling the controllables versus focusing on the uncontrollables. In the competitive moment, is your athlete able to change past issues or forecast future issues? No, during competition, your athlete is only able to control the controllable – which is the present task at hand.

Parental focus should be on the effort and let go of results. Excellent physical, mental and emotional effort for the duration should be the entourage’s mission.

 

“Remember, there is a significant difference between excellence and perfection. Excellent effort is controllable. Perfection is a lie.”

 

Insight 5: Seek to educate your children to strive for excellence not perfection. The effort is in the process which will obtain winning results -not perfect results.

Your child’s success begins with preparing their character for the process of improvement. Only by achieving continuous improvement will your athlete be prepared when opportunity knocks. Unfortunately, many juniors get great opportunities but fail to capitalize, not because their lucky shorts were in the wash, but because they simply weren’t prepared.

 

Insight 6: Ask your athlete to complete a daily focus journal to assist them in self-coaching. Which of their components is weakest? Why? What would they suggest they could do differently to improve this weaknesses? The process of improvement needs a plan.

What drives your athlete to actually document their successes in their daily focus journal? What motivates them to wake up and put in the hard work? The answer is their moral compass, also known as their character. It’s their honest relationship and dialog with themselves that allows them to achieve their goals.

Insight 7: Character skills are life skills that parents can focus on daily. They include personal performance enhancers such as effort, dedication, time management, perseverance, resilience, and optimism. They also include personal ethics such as honesty, appreciation, loyalty, trustworthiness, kindness, unselfishness and respect. Parental coaching starts here.

 

Let’s review. The formula for parents to assist in skyrocketing their athlete’s chances of achieving championship results is, to begin with the character skills needed to implement their deliberate, customized developmental plan. An organized plan will be the foundation of the athletes accelerated growth. This is how you maximize your child’s potential as the quickest rate.

 

The Formula for Achieving Results- Part 1

Posted on February 24, 2019 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 NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

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THE FORMULA FOR ACHIEVING RESULTS

All too often, competitive parents and athletes have dreams they mistake for goals. The disconnect starts with confusing dreams with goals. A dream is only a goal if it has an organized plan. For example, when I ask naturally talented athletes about their goals, they most often answer with uncontrollable outcome dreams. Such as: being ranked top in the nation, winning the state championship, receiving an NCAA D-1 athletic scholarship or playing pro ball.

These are nice dreams but remember:

“A goal without a deliberate customized developmental plan is actually a dream in disguise.”

Although elite athletes may also have the above dreams, the difference is that they realize their success is a result of quantifiable performance orientated process goals. It isn’t always the most naturally gifted athletes that are successful, it is the athletes with strong work ethics, resiliency, and a plan. Below are seven insights that parents should apply while navigating their child’s pathway to greatness.

“Championship results are achieved by focusing on the process and the process starts with a plan.”

 

Achieving Results: Seven Insights  

Insight 1: Establish an outcome goal but then let it go because it isn’t in your athlete’s immediate control. What is? The process. The plan is everything.

The process starts and ends with the constant development of character. Daily focus on character building will shape your child’s life – on and off the playing fields. Character building develops your athlete’s inner voice through optimistic self-coaching. One of the most important jobs of a parent is to focus on character building through life skills.

Insight 2: Assist your athlete in developing calm, positive, proactive “self-talk.” This inner belief in themselves is the basis of the exact mental toughness they need at crunch time.

Your athlete’s inner voice is nurtured to either build them up to think clearly under duress or to tear them down and hinder their efforts at the most inopportune times. Often when things go south in competition, junior athletes allow their mind to drift away from the present process at hand (performance goals) and into past or future thoughts (outcome oriented thoughts). This is commonly followed by negative inner-chatter. Character building provides the optimistic scripts used to turn a possible disaster into another win.