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
Top Ten Tipping Point Tendencies:
1) Pay attention to the energy flow throughout the match. Who’s cranky and negative, who’s eager, hungry and positive? If you’re negative, apply your triggers and steal the energy back.
2) Monitor your state of mind. Is your mental and emotional state in the under arousal state of mind, in the optimal peak performance state of mind or in the over-arousal state of mind?
3) Learn to spot the mental and emotional signs of choking (over-thinking) and panicking (under-thinking).
4) Manage the score to manage your adrenaline. Different points have different psychological values. Pay attention and get pumped up before big points.
5) Note that tennis scoring isn’t numerically fair: You can win more points than the opponent in the match and still lose the match. Winning requires spotting tipping points.
6) Spot the mega points (game-winning points) and run the appropriate pattern that you’ve trained to death versus going rogue.
7) Spot mini-mega points. A 30-15 lead isn’t the correct time to relax. Winning that crucial point earns you a 40-15 advantage, lose it and you’re staring at a 30-30 tie.
8) Spot mini-mega games. These games in a set hold crucial building blocks. A 4-2 lead isn’t time to relax. Winning that mini-mega game earns you a 5-2 lead. Lose is and the sets a 4-3 dog fight.
9) Opponent profiling is crucial. It’s the flip side to running your Top 7 Patterns. Competitors who pay attention not only spot the opponent’s preferred patterns but actually shut them down on these big occasions.
10) Self-chart both sides of the net. Witness where errors and winners stem from and problem solve accordingly.
In regards to higher learning, I’m amazed at how often very young intermediate athletes understand this type of mental and emotional training. It is not reserved for the older advanced group. Parents and coaches, please remember, their world isn’t remotely like ours at their age. With Google on their smartphones, they are accustomed to collecting and quantifying data at lightning speeds.
Have you ever witnessed your child on their phone with one friend, doing their homework, skyping another friend, snap-chatting, while eating and watching TV? Children can multi-task. Asking an intermediate tennis player to improve their mechanical stroke components while improving their mental components is a piece of cake!
Mastering the tipping point tendencies is the art of winning under stress. Those seemingly “little things” are actually the extremely “big things” that make all the difference in tipping the odds in your favor.
