Tag Archives: tennis

COMMON PERFORMANCE ANXIETIES – Part Two

Posted on April 7, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

Common Performance Anxieties- Continued.

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4) Common Anxiety: “It’s not my strokes that fail me; it’s my mental toughness.
I just freak out!” 

“Mental toughness is often confused with emotional toughness.”

Mental toughness is often confused with emotional toughness. My definition of mental toughness in the tennis world is the understanding of strategies, tactics, and patterns. It also includes opponent profiling and problem-solving skills. My definition of emotional toughness is the ability to overcome the onslaught of performance anxieties and outcome-oriented emotional thoughts.

Solutions to match issues begin with understanding the actual cause of the problem. Is the athlete’s above statement: “I just freak-out!” A mental issue or an emotional issue? I would say it is an emotional issue. Because the correct solution is customized to the issue, I recommend digging deeper into why this particular athlete “freaks out.”  Does it involve the above mental categories, emotional categories, or a combination of the two?

It’s important to note that a seemingly unrelated component may be the root of the athletes break down. For example, if an athlete is physically unfit for serious competition, that lack of fitness can cause stroke mechanics to break down, reckless choices in shot selection, and manifest negative emotional outbursts.

Preparing for pressure involves knowing the difference between mental and emotional components.

 

 

5) Common Anxiety: “Johnny screams and throws his racket, why can’t I… ?”

“Attitude and emotions are highly contagious.”

Remember the old saying, Monkey See Monkey Do? It’s human nature for people to subconsciously model themselves after their sphere of influences. Preparing athletes for pressure include carefully navigating athletes away from bad influences. Negative parents, coaches or other athletes in their peer group can and will sabotage the strong character traits you seek.

Behavior modeling is a form of social learning. It states that most behaviors are picked up through imitating who and what they see.

Parents who are over anxious, prone to excess worry, stress, and fear are inadvertently conditioning their athletes to be a pessimistic emotional train wreck under pressure. Coaches who lack self-esteem because they couldn’t “make it” on the tour may project a deep-seated doubt in their student’s chances. Their passive-aggressive underlining message is “If I couldn’t succeed neither will you.”

Supreme confidence is essential in preparing athletes for pressure. Be aware of the behavior of those influencing your athlete.

 

 

6) Common Anxiety: “I’ve lost confidence. How do I get it back?”

“Your positive performances are imprinted in your memory, so choose to re-live them.”

A re-occurring defining characteristic of champions is their strong software skills. There are many times in an athlete’s career when they’ve lost their confidence and had to reboot their motivation.

One solution lies in choosing to focus on past successes more than past failures. Failure is no doubt part of the learning process but revisiting past successes via- match video analysis is one method used to rekindle self-esteem. If your athletes don’t already videotape tournament play and analyze (along with an experienced coach) their performance, now’s a great time to start.

Past successes leave a footprint in the brain.

Ask the athletes to remind you of previous pressure-packed situations when they performed spectacularly. Go into detail. Where did it happen? What event? What round? How did they overcome the challenges? Why were they determined to fight? What was their inner dialog? This process stops the discouragement and replaces it with the realization that they’ve done it before and they’ll do it again.

Preparing for pressure comes from realizing that you have come through under pressure before.

COMMON PERFORMANCE ANXIETIES -Part One

Posted on April 5, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, Preparing for Pressure

 

COMMON PERFORMANCE ANXIETIES SAMPLE COVER PRESSURE

Performing in an athlete’s peak performance state of mind requires morphing into character and memorizing their scripts of top patterns and emotional protocols. Parents have an essential role in this process. Uneducated tennis parents unintentionally sabotage any real chance of their children performing well when they need it the most. An important job of any tennis parent is to help prepare their athlete for pressure.

 

1) Common Anxiety: “I don’t want to play, what if I lose?”

“Devalue the event to deflate the anxiety.”

 

A common outcome-oriented mindset is that each tournament is a life or death crisis. This negative frame of mind is counterproductive and incredibly stressful. It would be wise to educate the athlete and their entourage that tournament play is only an information gathering mission. Each match should be analyzed to determine why they won points and why they lost points as a result of their competitive decisions. The objective is simple, quantify the data and learn from it.

Competition should be seen as a fun challenge, not intensely difficult or dangerous.

To prepare the athlete for pressure, decompress the situation.

 

 

2) Common Anxiety: “I hit for 10 minutes … I’m ready!”

“Prepare both hardware & software for battle!”

Pre-match preparation begins the weeks leading into the event. During this prep phase, avoid significant mechanical changes or adding brand new concepts. It takes approximately 3-6 weeks for a new motor program to override an old one. The days leading to an event are not the correct time to introduce a new skill.  Starting a new routine may cause the athlete to become confused, sore, or injured and require recovery time not available.

Morphing into a match warrior involves building confidence in their existing skills. Begin with dead ball drills focusing exclusively on neutral, offense, and defensive skill situations. Rehearse court controlling top patterns and solutions in live ball settings. Ask the athlete to incorporate plenty of complete practice matches and listen to their customized audio tapes recorded on their cell phones to visualize solutions (mental rehearsals.) The night before is a terrific time for them to organize their clothes, equipment, and their nutrition and hydration requirements.

Come game day; I recommend athletes prepare their mental and emotional components by reviewing their audio tapes, once again, the morning of the match. Complete a dynamic stretch and warm-up primary and secondary strokes with multitasking movement. (Hitting on the move instead of just standing still.) Prior to checking in, hydrate and go for a short run to reduce anxiety and warm-up the body.

Preparing for pressure requires the confidence that comes from complete preparation.

 

 

3) Common Anxiety: “Everyone says ‘JUST PLAY YOUR GAME.,’ but I don’t know what my game is?”

“Top contenders have defined their global style & most proficient patterns of play.”

Upon arrival at a coaching gig in Spain, I noticed the coaches on all ten red clay courts running the same drill. Player A hits a high & heavy ball deep to player B’s backhand. Player B retreats, contacting the ball above his/her shoulders and produces a short reply. Player A moves into no-man’s land and screeches “AHH …HEEE” and drives a winner into the open court. I asked the famous director “What’s the drill they’re all working on?” He laughed and said, we call it, “How to beat the Americans.”

Athletes should start each match with their global style of play. Whether they’re in Miami or Moscow, in the first round or finals, on hard or clay courts, starting matched by doing what they do best is an intelligent formula. Their global system is their most proficient style of play (not necessarily their favorite style). Styles include hard hitting baseliners, counterpunchers, retrievers, and net rushers.

The athlete’s global system also includes their strategic plan – which is their most proficient patterns of play. These patterns need to be designed and developed. They include: serving and return patterns, rally patterns (like the above Spanish group), short ball options, and net rushing plays.

In competition, each athlete has to know what they do best and must routinely apply their global plan and hitting the same old, boring winners over and over.

When you preach “Just go out there and play your game.” do your athletes honestly know what their game is?

Preparing for pressure consists of exposing the athlete’s strengths to the athlete.

Frank Speaks at High School Tennis Coaches Conference

Posted on April 3, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

boston hsThe two teaching professional organizations of New England, USPTA and PTR, partnered with USTA New England to host their annual High School Tennis Coaches Conference at Longfellow Tennis and Health Club on March 2nd. Despite a typical snowy New England day, 70 coaches attended to network and learn. Click Here for more information.

The faculty consisted of national and highly regarded local experts including PTR’s Chief Operating Officer, Brian Parkkonen and Frank Giampaolo.

 

The Pros and Cons of High School Tennis – Part 4

Posted on March 30, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

Bottom Line: Playing High School Tennis

It is important to reiterate that most high school age players are not as devoted as Mark. Others may be just as serious but need to decompress and simply play social tennis for a season or two. If so, I recommend playing their freshman year to get a little famous at their new school and then again their senior year after they have signed their letter of intent to play for their college.

I encourage taking some time to consider all these variables. If your child is more of a “hobbyist”, high school ball is one of the best experiences available.  However, if your child is a phenom, a compromise may be in order. It may be best to have a meeting with the coach and/or athletic director and organize a win-win schedule. Often top players and their parents can negotiate a workable schedule with the high school coach.

For elite players considering high school tennis, the following three topics should be addressed (negotiated) prior to committing to the high school season:

1) Skipping most practice session in lieu of their private sessions.

2) Scheduling to only play the tougher rival matches.

3) Playing enough matches in order to qualify for the season-ending state championships.

The Pros and Cons of High School Tennis – Part 3

Posted on March 28, 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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NEGATIVE Side to Playing High School Tennis:

 

Developing Bad Habits

After spending four months on-court with less devoted “hobbyists”, Mark develops bad work ethic issues, poor shot selection, and poor mental toughness.

Quantity versus Quality Practice Time

Most often Mark is goofing off with intermediate teammates or even assisting them with their games. While on the court, he’s even texting friends and making plans for Friday’s party.

Quality of Match Level

Mark wins 8 out of 10 matches 6-0. Winning most matches easily may be great for his ego but not for his long term development. Mark needs a competitive environment to continue to grow and improve.

College Scholarship Factor

According to top Division I  coaches speaking at my seminars, Coaches look at national rankings and ITF rankings. They don’t consider high school ball as a High-Performance Level.

The Success Formula

Remember that the success formula is spending approximately 20 hours of serious training every week for approximately 10 years. Is playing high school tennis for 4 consecutive months 4 years in a row in Mark’s developmental plan?

Rebuilding the Level

It actually takes an additional 2 months of serious physical, mental and emotional training after the high school season ends to re-establish the high-level Mark was playing before the season. Now, factor in a six-month loss in training time. As Mark chose to de-stress and have fun playing high school ball for 4 months. His rivals who have chosen to skip high school tennis have continued to improve their games as well as their rankings.

 

The Pros and Cons of High School Tennis- Part 1

Posted on March 25, 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

 

 

417THE “PROS AND CONS” OF HIGH SCHOOL TENNIS

Playing high school ball is a rite of passage issue for the high-performance athlete. The benefits of high school tennis lean towards life experiences rather than excelled tennis growth. There are exceptions to any rule, so let’s take a deeper look at this interesting question.

The answer is a bit complicated. It greatly depends on your child’s level, needs, and goals. It also depends greatly on the level of the possible teammates and coaching staff at your child’s high school. Some high school teams I work with are better than most college teams.

Is High School ball right for your athlete?

Mark is a student of mine. He is an SCTA sectionally ranked player in the top 20. His national ranking is around 60. He is diligent about his tennis and spends about 20 hours of training extremely hard every week. He has reached the semis of three national events and his long term goals are to play for Peter Smith at his dream school USC.

His dad is a former player and they are certain he will play a minimum of two years on the ATP futures and challenger tours after college. At his high school, there is one other fairly serious player on the team. The high school coach is a super nice guy. He is a biology teacher. He is coaching because he used to play high school ball and enjoys the game. The coach runs an “optional” fee-based 6-week pre-season training camp. Of course, paying and attending greatly increases an athlete’s chances of playing varsity for the team. Now let’s review the positive and negative sides of high school ball for Mark and his family.

 

 

 

A New Way to Look at Strategy

Posted on March 22, 2019 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 NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

 

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A NEW WAY TO LOOK AT STRATEGY

To understand on-court control dramas, take a minute and think of a tennis match as a control contest. Each player is attempting to pull their opponent into their style of play to gain command of the match.

Three Control Dramas Seen in High-Level Tennis:

  • The Power Contest
  • The Speed Contest
  • The Patience Contest

To simplify the process, the goal of competition is to choose the contest your athlete performs best. Then formulate a plan to PULL their opponent out of their own world and into your athlete’s world. Let’s look a little deeper, yet keep it simple:

 

I have a top 300 WTA player training with me.  We have customized her game plan to hide her weaknesses and expose her strengths. Her body type and brain type play a major role in customizing her success.

Weaknesses

Ann is light in stature. Her opponents are generally much bigger and stronger. We checked off and excluded the “Power Contest” from her A game plan. This is not to say that she might use power as a B or C game plan. Ann also has focus issues. We checked off the “Patience Contest” and excluded it as her A game plan.

Strengths

Ann possesses great speed and anticipatory skills. We chose the “Speed Contest” as her A game plan. Ann is extremely intuitive. She can sense when the opponent is vulnerable and knows “How” and “When” to move in and take away the opponents recovery and decision-making time.

When Ann chooses to play her “Speed Contest”, she most often is able to move the bigger girls enough to force errors. She can also pull the Retrievers off the court to open up winning angles. When Ann chooses to get into a “boomball-power” contest with bigger, stronger girls, she loses. When she chooses to out moonball a “World Class” moonballer she loses!

 

As I mentioned earlier, this section should be a conversation opener with your athlete and their entourage.  Knowing who you are is an important step in formulating your most successful game plans.

 

 

 

How to Build Mental Toughness

Posted on March 19, 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

 

How to Build Mental ToughnessFrank Giampaolo

Players who are confident have a mentally tough aura about them. They are extremely intimidating because their confidence is obvious to all. It’s evident in their body language and facial expressions.  So, how can your athlete develop radiant confidence?

First of all, your athlete starts by reading about it. Then they earn it on the practice court. Mentally tough competitors earn this impenetrable wall of confidence by preparing properly. Mentally tough players are actually much more than just mentally tough. They are mechanically sound, emotionally unflappable and physically fit enough to thrive in third set warfare. Yes, they’re actually mechanically tough, emotionally tough and physically tough.

Below is a checklist of components that need to be developed by your child’s coaches.  Remember, it is your job as the CEO to assist the coaches in raising athletic royalty.

 

Developing Mental Toughness Checklist:

Stroke Mechanics:

  • Develop reliable fundamental (primary) strokes.
  • Develop a tool belt of secondary strokes.

Mental:

  • Organize & rehearse your child’s top 7 patterns of play. (Generic Strategies)
  • Rehearse patterns of play used to pull different styles of opponents out of their game.(Stylistic Strategies)

Emotional:

  • Organize their between point rituals & changeover rituals (both internal & external.)
  • Pre-set protocols to handle performance anxieties.

Athleticism:

  • Build the speed, agility and cardiovascular requirements needed to endure two separate three-set matches a day.
  • Build the strength and stamina required to close out 6 matches in a 3-5 day (64 player draw) event.

 

My students have won close to 100 National titles to date. Each one had a parent and an entourage of great coaches who were very involved in organizing and implementing their developmental plan. Most often, these champs worked their deliberate, customized organizational plan for 2-3 months before becoming National Champions.

 

Special Note to Parents: A partially committed parent is simply a hobbyist. That’s fine – tennis is an incredible hobby that teaches many life lessons. However, a hobbyist parent should be satisfied with raising a hobbyist tennis player and not expect champion results. In today’s game, it’s unfair to expect your child to become a champion without parental commitment.

 

The College Search Process- Part 1

Posted on March 13, 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

 

THE COLLEGE SEARCH PROCESSIMG_080_R_WHITE

As a tennis parent, the long term development and direction of your athlete is a natural concern. The serious tennis players will likely set their sights on playing college ball. So it is not surprising that week in and week out, one of the most frequent question parents ask me, is how to go about obtaining a college sports scholarship for their child?

First of all, college sports are not recreational activities to dabble in while attending college.  College athletics is a business and the school expects their college team to win.

There’s a major difference between participating in your preferred sport as a hobbyist versus training for college athletics (pursuing a college scholarship). The question athletes should ask themselves is, “Do I want to be a hobbyist athlete or do I want to be an elite athlete?” The truth of the matter is…you’ll have to pick one, because you can’t be both.

 

“Top college recruits are former National or ITF Junior standouts.”

 

Serious competitors are nurtured differently than social competitors. College athletics requires more than seasonal participation in high school ball. The following list three pillars that separate the college scholarship players from the hobbyist:

1) Junior champions are born into inspiring and supportive environments.

Parental support is essential for athletic excellence. Becoming educated in the process is your job. Great coaches and trainers are there to assist you in your mission to raise a champion. Examples of extremely lucky athletes who were born into the right FAMILY environment include Mcllroy, Woods, Phelps, Evert, Agassi, Chang, Sampras, Hingis, Roddick, Williams, Murray, Nadal, Federer, Sharapova, Wozniacki, Djokovic, and Bryans just to name a few.

 

2) The love for the game is encouraged and nurtured early and consistently.

Athletic royalty becomes royalty with the help of loving and supportive parents and coaches that guide and oversee their athlete’s passion from an early age. Achieving greatness comes with great sacrifice from parents, coaches, and the athlete. As they all laugh and learn throughout the incredible journey.

3) Champions strive to improve.

Elite athletes continually improve each essential component. There are other athletes in every corner of the globe training harder and smarter each day.  Champions know they cannot be complacent with their game.  Weekly improvement is part of the champions’ mindset. Congratulations! By purchasing this book, it is obvious that you are taking the right steps toward improvement.

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.