Developing Mental Toughness
Mental Toughness is a crucial part of tennis game.
Players without mental toughness can have the natural talent and not make it as far as players with mental toughness and average ability.
The great thing about mental toughness is that you don’t have to be born with it. It can be developed.
Developing Mental Toughness:
- You have to have right attitude and be prepared for training and hard work. Developing mental toughness is a process that will not happen overnight. Focus on process and pay attention.
- Expect the best from yourself, program your mind for success. You are not going to be able to do anything without positive, realistic attitude. By focusing on your own strengths, you gain inspiration from them and confidence. Key component of mental toughness is learning how to condition your mind to think confidently and be able to overcome frustration/self-critical negativity.
- Emotions and Attitudes affect your performance and often emotions play negative role in the process of playing: player gets nervous or mad, argue with official or opponent, abuse racket. If player was taught how to deal with mistakes right, mental meltdowns during games would happened rarer.
- Mistake management is a very important skill. Learn how to let go of mistakes quickly if things do not go the way you want. All tennis players must be taught to leave last point in the past. Next point, that’s the only what matters in tennis game.
- Handle distractions, keep your emotions in control. Learn how to block out distractions. Focus only on the things that matter and that you can control. Keep your emotions in control and keep on with the game plan.
- Practice calmness. Develop routines and rituals that you find calming. It is common to see players straighten strings between points, or practice swings, or playing with a ball before serving. Rituals help players regroup, refocus and concentrate.
Developing mental toughness is a skill that will improve your performance and you may never reach your full potential without it.
