As I grew up as a junior tennis player in South-Africa in the 60’s and 70’s, the glaring gap in my formative years was the fact that there never was any official “mental training” session as we now know it today. I was 100% focused training on the court and basically zero % of actual classroom, sit down and listen to that very essential part of a junior’s “mental” training. It was basically “learning on the job”… hopefully. Looking back it was a very frustrating time for me personally. Because I was a “hard charging take no prisoner” type “A” personality, I was only focused on being “perfect” in every shot and any way to play both aggressively and defensively on the tennis court. When the “planets aligned” for me I was amazing. But when it was not the case, which was more like 90% of the time, I struggled with severe ups and downs in my matches and the mental results. It lead to frustration, feeling depressed I could not keep it together mentally and feeling like a failure. I also started to doubt that I have what it takes mentally and that was to become my “Jeckyll and Hyde” persona that at one end made it a lot of fun for spectators, especially when I played another “hothead” like John McEnroe, but on the other end, it was hell on me, my parents and friends and fans because it was frustrating for them to see me unravel at times only to battle back from seemingly insurmountable odds…
Funny enough, I always felt (after serious introspective and some soul searching) over the years I succeeded despite of myself! I wish I had me now at age 56 when I was 10!
Now that I am in the junior tennis development business, it is crystal clear to me that the aspect of mental training is a must and that it can and must be started at age 6 on up. It is an absolute necessity for any aspiring junior player who wants to play at a high level to begin the training of their mental aspect of their game. Do not think that by spending 12 hours a day on the court all of that “stuff” will just somehow magically come to you. It does not work that way. A junior mind has to be trained just as much as any muscle on your body. Just read books or articles by people such as Frank Giampaolo, Jim Loehr, Alan Fox to name some of the top mental writers and speakers out there in tennis and one will begin to understand the importance and necessity of this training.
Let me touch on the ABC’s of the game a little bit.
1. ATTITUDE:
This word has broad meaning and has everything to do with mental training. Is my attitude right for training today. Does my attitude towards bettering my tennis game include accepting the advice from my coach 100% or just so-so… Is my attitude of such quality that I will leave no stone unturned prior, during and after each match. Is my attitude of such quality that no matter if I lose badly, I will always write in my notebook notes on why I played well, poorly or what I think I did wrong or did not do, etc. Is my attitude of such quality that it is “inviting” to others, like other kids love to come watch me play, parents, coaches and fans of junior tennis. If the answer is yes to most of these points here, you are well on your way to become a beast mentally. If you can only say yes to a few of these things, you have lots of work to do in the mental department.
2. BEHAVIOR:
This aspect is directly linked to Mr. attitude! Having being trained for years in mental training, on and off the courts, behavior on the court, whether during training or the pressure cooker of tournament play, becomes consistent, reliable and easily duplicated, day in and day out. It is not easy to change behavior especially after age 16 or so… Once a bad habit creeps into their tennis persona, the longer a student waits until say 18 years of age, it will be much more difficult to change such behavior. I should know, been there done it. But behavior can only change if a student truly wants to change and buys into the whole learning aspect offered in the right program of how to think on the court under all circumstances. We know there are many many ways a kid can get “derailed” during a match. Cheating, loss of concentration, perceived threat of playing a seeded player, playing somebody you have lost to 8 times or more. Inability to close out matches, panic, weakness in a stroke, fitness, heat, cold, sun and windy conditions, playing your doubles partner or a good friend. The list can be very long. But only through day in and day out mental training in understanding these “derailers” and learning over many many hundreds of hours how to deal with it, will a player be able to fulfill their true potential. It is a seriously long process, no shortcuts here…
3. CONCENTRATION:
What is concentration? This is actually the nucleus or central part of mental toughness. IMHO it is extremely important to master the art of concentration. Total concentration should not be confused with a stoic, poker face type, but rather it should be understood that a player has total concentration when a player is very aware of the “immediate”, recognizes everything clearly and does the appropriate actions for each and every situation that arises. This is where “personality traits” varies a bit. Bjorn Borg was the ultimate poker faced competitor (as a junior was known for throwing rackets, same with Federer) and then there is the utter mad McEnroe, Nastase (dare I say Fognini) types. Somehow John McEnroe was able to learn from an very early age, how to shut his “computer” on and off depending on what he needed to do. Very few can do what he did and perform at such a high level after a monumental blowup mentally at himself, mostly lines people and umpires. Concentration is a habit, that is also learned through many hours on the court and classroom! It doesn’t just fall out of the sky and hits you in the head! It is learned!
Here are some good tips to learn how to keep the concentration factor at a very high level:
A. Rituals. Everybody has them but many times I see kids completely forget them in the heat of battle and then their tennis game completely falls apart and their concentration leaves the planet. Stay in your rituals. Bounce the ball the desired amount before serves. Look what Nadal does at the coin toss, he bounces like a boxer and sprints to the baseline right after the umpire tells who serves. His funny water bottle rituals. What a great way to tell your opponent “hey, I am so fit I will do sprints before the match even starts… and btw, I just won over the entire crowd to be in my favor before the first warm up ball is struck!”… It is brilliant! Show desire to compete! Do not shy away from it! Rituals keeps your mind “in the now” and will wander less.
B. Practice the same way you would play in a match. This is extremely important! If you give only 80% of your total mental and physical output in practice, how on earth will you feel comfortable going at 100% at match time in a tournament? It will feel “alien” and this feeling will be unsustainable and a mental collapse of epic proportions is very likely, especially playing very good players who have always trained at 100% output every day!
C. Be process driven rather than result driven and the stress will be much less on your body and psyche. Having said that, it is impossible to ignore the score, or times during the match where a momentum swing is happening or that a crucial moment in the outcome of the match is reached. A well trained athlete in the mental aspects of tennis will know these situations but will not “harp” or over emphasize them. Almost a casual acceptance yet a laser-sharp focus is immediately implemented where only the process is focused on and not the result. It is an amazing feeling to play in this “mode”.
I can perhaps add a number of extra things here but I always feel students can basically remember three things…..
so three things it is….
