Tennis Instruction website Helps Coaches Over the World

The leading “Tennis Instruction” website now enters its fifth year in providing Tennis Coaches throughout the world with thousands of tennis drills, articles and coaching resouces.

Global Sports Coaching continues to assist tennis coaches with their professional development. The site has many internationally experienced coaches contributing information without bias.

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Tennis Instruction – Emotional Control Leads Azarenka to Win

 Tennis Instruction - Emotional Control Leads Azarenka to Win

Tennis players can experience strong emotions during match play. Positive emotions, such as experiencing the thrill of hitting a winner can have a powerful effect on your mental game and thus boost your confidence and focus during the match. Feeling positive emotions, such as momentum, can help keep your run going strong.

Negative emotions, such as frustration or anger, can hurt your game. Tennis players feel upset, frustrated or angry for several different reasons. You might become upset after missing shots you have no trouble executing in practice. You might feel angry with yourself after making a poor decision on shot selection or strategy. You might even become frustrated with an opponent’s bad line call.

Whatever the cause of your frustration, a process I call “dwelling on the past” happens and causes you to lose focus on the match. You may carry your frustration with you to the next point or shot causing more mistakes and lower confidence in your game.

Staying composed is critical to improving your mental game of tennis. Victoria Azarenka is an excellent example of staying composed on the court. She experienced the biggest win of her career so far, beating Serena Williams in the final of the Sony Ericsson Open last week.

“I was more consistent and more aggressive. I would say I was always trying to put pressure and I was just believing in myself so much. No matter what, I have to play and keep going and I can win. I think I controlled [my emotions] very well for the first big final. I wasn’t getting upset on any ball. I was just happy to play every point,” said Victoria Azarenka.

Often in my work as a mental game coach to athletes, I see athletes become frustrated because they are blocked from reaching their expectations. The solution is to modify your unrealistic or strict expectations. Your expectations might be about stats (number of winners for example) or results (beating someone in two sets). When you don’t achieve those high expectations, you become frustrated easily and might lose confidence.

Here’s you mental game tip for today: Understand that you can’t be perfect in tennis and always play up to your high expectations. Give yourself the luxury of making 3-4 errors per match. This way you can put mistakes behind you and move on to the next point. Learn from your mistakes instead of beat yourself up for a lost chance or opportunity.

 

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By Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D. - Sports Psychology Tennis

 

 

Tennis Instruction – Djokovic’s Toughest Opponent: Himself

Tennis Instruction - Djokovic’s Toughest Opponent: Himself

Many tennis players are their own worst enemy when it comes to the mental game of tennis. When you’re your own worst enemy, you beat yourself and critisize yourself for making too many unforced errors or mistakes on easy shots. You’re impatient about success, going for too much, too quickly.

You try too hard to make it happen, rather than just letting it happen. You might beat yourself up after mistakes and put too much pressure on yourself. In essence, you sell yourself short and don’t give yourself a chance to succeed. You show signs of fragile confidence and question whether or not you deserve to succeed.

Novak Djokovic said that he was his own worst enemy during the final of the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami. Djokovic lost to Andy Murray in straight sets. “Yet again, I was, I think, the biggest enemy to myself. I was struggling again and adjusting to the heat. But I was really impatient on the start.

Made a huge number of unforced errors, and he [Murray] was just playing very solid and waiting for his chances and serving quite well, moving all over the court quite good” said Novak Djokovic. In order to become your own best friend, you must be patient and believe in your tennis skills. The top players in the world make adjustments in their strategy based on the weather or court conditions.

The key to a strong mind game is to prepare mentally for any challenge you’ll face during a match. If you anticipate a long match, you’ll want to know how to stay patient and react your best in that situation. You might think about what happens to your game when you start doubting yourself and how to shore up your confidence. If you prepare mentally for any mental or physical game challenge such as heat or fatigue, you’ll feel confident that you can cope with it.

I want my students to be proactive with the mental game. If you’re not thinking positively on the court and are your own best friend, you give your opponent the advantage before you even begin the match.

By Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D. - Sports Psychology Tennis

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Managing Your Tennis Business – Part 4

Managing Your Tennis Business - Part 4

Human Resources Management 

In the last instalment we dealt with the process of hiring the right tennis staff for your business and left you with the message – “Hire for attitude; Train for Skill.”  In this article we look at the issue of training and development.

Training and Development 

Disclaimer:- In my tennis business I have experienced success hiring young and enthusiastic staff – but this approach may not suit every business.  High performance tennis centres may require experienced “drill sergeant” coaches.  In my business the high performance end comprises only 5% and friendly people who can serve the customer are valued highly.  Many of the young staff that find their way onto the roster have been coached by our academy and know the culture and attitude of the company. 

With an attitude of hire for attitude; train for skill you may have coaches who need guidance and training.  While training a young coach is hard work, and the temptation of hiring a more experienced candidate is strong, committing to developing a young coach is both effective and rewarding.

Formal Training

From the beginning it is important that your staff achieve the level of accreditation from the national coaching body required for their position.  In Australia coaches who are new to the profession can undertake an Orientation to Coaching course; coaches with some experience can take part in the Junior Development coaching course; while experienced coaches have the option of the Club Professional or High Performance courses.

Each country will have their own progression and professional development is a critical aspect of any career.  As head coach you need to research the suitability of the course to your staff, find out when they are holding courses in your area and encourage your staff to enrol.  This will provide them with a critical platform to develop their coaching skills and advance to new levels of responsibility [and importantly for them pay scale] in your organisation.

Informal Training

While formal training in critical, don’t expect an accredited coach to automatically be a revelation to your business.  Formal training only prepares people for the workforce – they need only to attend class, take notes and pass the exams in formal training – it is how they apply their knowledge in the work place that it is important.  Most development will take place in an informal environment at work.

People learn best from experience, not by memorising something. Formal training will not prepare your coaches for Little Jimmy throwing a tantrum on court; or Stephanie’s irate mother demanding to know why she isn’t improving fast enough.  You staff will learn how to handle these situations from experience and observation – set the right example and show them how you would handle the many sticky situations that confront a tennis professional.

 In conducting your informal / “in house” training make sure you are a tennis expert, up to date with all the latest coaching trends and information.  Your staff will respect your knowledge and will absorb the information you give them without question.

Choose the right environment to conduct the training.  A regular team meeting is a great way to get everyone together and go over issues and lesson planning.  Some members of your team may lose concentration in such meeting and need some one on one “mentoring.”  This can be great for staff to make sure they know the head of the company is looking out for them and get them moving in the right direction.

Involve the staff in the training.  For example if you are demonstrating the drills for the weeks lessons, have the coaches participate in and feed the drills themselves so they understand how your coaching program works.

Do That Bit Extra

To make sure your staff develop as fast as possible make sure you invest the extra effort in training.  For example:-

Give your staff a weekly lesson plan – the GSC site has weekly lesson plans for Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced if you don’t have your own program.  By having a structure assistant coaches can keep their students occupied even while their coaching skill is developing.

Make discipline a little more fun – incorporate a fine jar, $1 for every minor indiscretion like not being 10 minutes early for the lesson or folding arms during a lesson [bad body language to students].  At the end of the term use the money to fund a staff get together.  Serious offenses like being late regularly will need more serious action – one on one meeting and an official warning.

Research the internet and find an article to send your staff each week which can be:-

• An article relating to improving coaching skill
• An article dealing with the topic of the weeks lesson plan or
• An inspiring sporting story

 

Feedback

Take the time to give feedback, either informally by quickly taking the staff aside at the time you observe desirable or undesirable behaviour.  You must feel that the person is coachable in these situations and will respond positively. 

Formal feedback meetings will also be helpful – at these meeting review the expectations of the employee as described in their job description [see Part 3] and assess their performance.  At all times you must assume the role of a supporting counsellor at these meetings.

Don’t assume that time will fix all problems – you need to guide and sometimes push your employees in the direction you want them to go.  These people are the “face” of your business and if you want to grow your business then you will be relying heavily on them to uphold the high standards you set yourself.

If you have recruited the right people [remember hire for attitude, train for skill] training and developing your staff will be amongst the most enjoyable and rewarding aspects of your career.  To mentor a young person, who you coached, and see them become a confident and professional tennis coach is most satisfying.  If you have selected coachable and enthusiastic people you will enjoy dealing with them on a day to day basis and seeing them grow in your business.

 

 

Rufus Keown has run his own tennis company for over 10 years and is a Tennis Australia Club Professional Coach.  He has also completed a Bachelor of Business Management and Graduate Diploma in Sports Management giving him a good perspective on managing a tennis business. For more article on tennis visit the Tennis Coaching website

 

 

Tennis Instruction and Psychology on James Blake

Tennis Instruction – James Blake: How to Put Loses Behind You Do you beat yourself up after you’ve lost a match?

Do you have a hard time forgetting about your losses or matches where you’ve played poorly?

If you do, you might define your self or person (not player) based on your tennis performance. You essentially attach your self-esteem to your tennis performance. This is a common mistake that many tennis players make.

When you define your self based on your tennis performance in matches, you might use tennis as a way to boost your self-esteem, or feel better about yourself.

But, what happens when your tennis game isn’t working the way you want it to? You don’t feel good about yourself. You can’t forget your losses or matches where you played poorly.

The key is to learn to separate your self-esteem from your tennis performance. This isn’t always easy to do, but James Blake has mastered how to get past his losses.

Blake recently lost to Gonzales at the BNP Baribas Open in the third round. “When I get off the tennis court, I put it behind me. I have to put the losses behind me. I think you have to do that, especially at this age. I beat myself up so much the first few years I was on tour, and, you know, still get pretty upset at myself. But I’m doing much better job now hopefully tomorrow putting it behind me and not worrying about it. Just forget about tennis for a day or two, and then get back to the practice court and worry about getting better, not worried about what I did poorly today,” said Blake.

Mind training for tennis can help you separate how you feel about yourself as a person from your tennis performance. The key is to realize you are a person that happens to play tennis, not the other way around. Tennis is just part of your life, and does not define your life.

Try to find a balance in your life. Find other hobbies or activities to help you define yourself outside of tennis. You can also think about who you are as a person, not just a tennis player. Think about the characteristics of your personality. Are you honest, decisive or easy going for example? These exercises can help you think of yourself as a person and not just as a tennis player.

As Blake says, you have to leave tennis on the tennis court. Many players bring home their poorly played matches with them. They might over-analyze their mistakes, second guess their strategy or beat themselves up. This of course doesn’t help your self-confidence for the next match. You might be still thinking about your previous loss.

You can re-visit your match later on when you feel your negative emotions have settled. Review your match objectively.

This can help you learn from your mistakes, develop better strategies and improve as a tennis player. Your tennis psychology tip for today is to leave tennis on the court. Learn who you are as a person rather than just an athlete. Learn from your losses rather than dwelling on your poor performances. Understand that you are more than a win/loss record; you are a person on the inside!

Visit GlobalSportsCoaching.com for more articles from DR.Cohn and more tennis tips >>>>

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The Five Playing Phases – Attacking   

During every point players are in one of five phases of play:-

• initiating (serve / return)
• defensive
• rallying
• creating
• attacking

This series of article offrs tips and drills as to how to improve each phase of play. …read more about the attacking phase >>>

 

 

Mardy Fish Wins Tournament with a Great Performance

Mardy Fish Wins Tennis TitleMardy Fish Wins Ugly to Capture Third Title Mardy Fish captured his third ATP title beating Evgeny Korolev 7-5, 6-3 at the Delray Beach International Championships on Sunday. In the past, Fish struggled to come home with the win when he got the to the finals. Fish has reached 10 finals in his tennis career, winning just three titles. But, Fish was able to set his record aside to stay confident and focused in the final in adverse weather conditions.

 “I’ve certainly lost my share of finals. I lost 7-6 in third in Cincinnati, 6-4 in the third in Indian Wells and [6-4] in the fifth at the Olympics. Even one of those turns into a pretty good career. For whatever reason I put myself in the position. Keep knocking on the door, hopefully, eventually I’ll knock it down,” said Fish.

Fish prevailed with mental toughness to win his third title. Winning his third title wasn’t easy. Of course, his opponent Korolev presented some physical and strategic challenges. But, Fish also had to cope with rough weather conditions.

The first set was interrupted by a rain delay for over an hour. As play resumed, temperatures fell and wind gusts reached up to 25 mph.

Adverse weather conditions can be a source of anxiety or frustration for tennis players.

Tennis players might be frustrated with the sun in their eyes when serving. Or, players might be frustrated with gusty winds that throw off their footwork and racquet preparation. Mentally tough tennis players love to play in tough weather conditions. It gives them the mental edge. They love to win ugly. Winning ugly means your performance may not look pretty, but you use what’s working to get the job done. You’re not worried about playing perfect tennis or how your shots look. You’re focused on getting the ball to your target anyway you can.

 “Conditions were tough. Today kind of reminded me almost of a first-round match at an event that you’d like to do well at. You literally just want to get off the court with the ‘W’ – you couldn’t care less how it looks,” said Fish.

“Obviously it didn’t feel like a first-round match, but it felt like the latter part. I don’t care what the score is. I don’t care how it looks. I need to get off this court with the win” said Fish. Your tennis psychology lesson for today: Everyone has to cope with the same conditions in tennis. Mentally tough tennis players adjust their game so they can get the job done and win ugly if necessary. Use your shots that work for the conditions instead of forcing the way you should play tennis. Visit Global Sports Coaching for more article sBy Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D. – Sports Psychology Tennis

Tennis Management – Managing Your Tennis Business

Managing Your Tennis Business – Part 2

In our last article we introduced the concept of thinking strategically when running your tennis business.  It was identified that sporting organisations have a history of not running as professionally as they can.  Hopefully readers will have completed the questionnaire included in the last article and have developed a better understanding of their business and have identified ways in which they can operate more professionally and strategically.

In this article we deal with “Crafting a Competitive Strategy.”

CRAFTING A COMPETITIVE STRATEGY

The idea of having a company strategy is to form a sustainable competitive advantage.  The question you should ask is “…what business should we be in and how we should compete.”  As far as tennis professionals are concerned there are many types of business they can be in:-

• Junior tennis coaching
• Adult tennis coaching
• Elite coaching
• Early development coaching
• Coaching people with disabilities
• Coaching school / college team
• Running competitions
• Operating public tennis courts [court hire]
• Running a pro shop with a range of racquets and equipment
• Running training programs for developing coaches

Is a short list of possibilities for a tennis professional can choose to pursue.

Generally speaking companies have three major strategies to choose from when competing in their chosen segment or segments:-

• Price Leadership
• Differentiation
• Focus.

 

Price Leadership

Price Leadership is exactly what it sounds like, offering the same or similar product at a lower price than the competition.  Price leadership can usually be pursued if your company has access to lower cost overheads.  For example:-

• You may have a deal with your club or council for cheaper court hire
• You order a large quantity of balls or equipment  from your supplier and can access them for a discounted price
• Your wages bill is low.

All these factors are in comparison to your competition.  If you have any of these advantages you can maintain your profit margins and still offer your products at a lower cost than your competition.

Another way to create a price leadership strategy is through an improvement in labour efficiency.  Specifically this would involve coaches effectively handling a greater number of students – perhaps in match play or competition – keeping the wages to income ratio at a favourable level even with low pricing.  This situation would only arise if an employee specialised in this type of activity and was able to maintain customer satisfaction working with many students at once.

Price leadership is usually most successful when buyers are “price sensitive.”  Given the current financial instability around the world it would perhaps be an effective strategy.  Price leadership would be a sound strategy if your tennis business was located in a town or city whose demographics made them more aware of the prices of various competitors in the area.

Adopting a price leadership strategy would involve lowering your overheads and creating coach specialisation [as discussed] but also making policy choices to offer simple coaching products.  Most commonly wages are a coach’s greatest overhead – so this would involve running programs with a higher student to coach ratio.

Cost Leadership does have its pitfalls!  Risks arise as input costs [inevitably] rise and profit margins are pressured.   For example more experienced staff will demand higher wage levels as they progress their careers.  In Australia currently, the falling dollar is pushing up the price of equipment and therefore raising overheads.  Beware also of competitors offering value added products which customers are leaning towards. 

 

Differentiation

Differentiation is increasing the perceived value of your product offering.  Importantly it is the “perceived” value, as two different companies may offer the same value, but one company may market itself better and increase its perceived value.  Hence to successfully achieve a differentiation strategy, your company must possess strong marketing abilities.  Creativity and the capacity to reach the target market are amongst the critical marketing abilities required.

The most important aspect of a successful differentiation strategy is creating value that is not easily matched by competitors.  Browsing various tennis companies marketing material and you will find common strategies include a free 1st lesson, buy 5 and get the 6th free or a free cap.  These common offerings won’t differentiate their company from the competition.  Look for unique product offering that people will place great value in.  A great way to offer a unique product is to form relationships with other companies.  Most commonly for tennis companies this will mean a racquet retailer, but don’t limit your value adding to just tennis products.

One of the most creative tennis companies GSC has observed has an intricate loyalty scheme that rewards players as they participate in lessons, holiday clinics and competitions.  Over time customers receive bonus’ that are customised to the individual.  The scheme is very detailed and hard to administer, but that makes it hard to copy and therefore creates a sustainable advantage and the customers appreciate it.

Perhaps the most valuable form of differentiation is reputation.  Reputation is very hard to earn – and also very hard to lose.  People will be willing to pay extra for a company with a strong reputation and the extra inputs usually required for differentiation are not needed.  Work hard to build a reputation for your tennis business; it is the best way to generate a sustainable advantage over your competitors.

A differentiation strategy will become untenable if costs become too high and eat into profit margins.  Equally if prices keep rising customers will eventually search for more affordable options. 

In summary to pursue a strategy of differentiation you need:-

• Strong marketing abilities to communicate the value of your product
• Creativity to offer products that are not easily copied by competitors
• A rock-solid reputation in the industry, and
• Close links and relationships with other companies who can add value to your own offering.

 

Focus

A focus strategy would be to identify a customer group that has special requirements or unique needs.  In an example away from the tennis business Rolls Royce employs a focus strategy only targeting the luxury car market.  A focus strategy in the tennis business may be to only service elite tennis players.

In choosing a focus strategy you must select a market segment with growth potential and big enough to be profitable.  Equally the segment can’t be too appealing, or else it can quickly become overcrowded.  To use the earlier example – coaching only elite players was reasonably unique in the 1990’s.  It quickly became popular though as the bigger clubs, associations and facilities entered the market and now elite players have many choices where to undertake their training.

Offering coaching services to special needs groups is one segment that is not overcrowded and may be an example of a focus market with potential.  Importantly you must have specific skills to successfully adopt a focus strategy.  Coaches wanting to deal with special needs children will need to have experience, the personality and perhaps the right qualifications.  Only if you are a specialist will you succeed with a focus strategy.

If choosing a focus strategy be aware that you are narrowing your income opportunities, so you must be an expert in the field, be able to operate at a low cost or have better product delivery.  In this way you can operate strongly in the market and discourage potential competitors from entering the market.

 

Once a strategy is selected the whole organisation must get behind the direction.  This will take strong leadership or delegating to organisational members who can take control of the situation.

If you plan to coach elite students and be considered a strong competitor in this market you may need:-

• To hire coaches with experience playing the pro tour
• Have access to a biomechanical expert who can use the latest computer software to analyse player technique
• Have links with racquets suppliers who are willing to give your students discounts for equipment they will wear through
• Foster a disciplined and hard working culture with set standards of behaviour and attitude
• Have access to a facility with gym and conditioning equipment as well as different court surfaces to train on
• Have relationships with tournaments to secure wild cards and direct entries
• Set prices, award scholarships and manage the business to ensure a profit is made.

 This will take considerable organisational strength to successfully implement such a strategy and demonstrates the importance of selecting the right strategy to execute.  By completing the questionnaire in last month’s article you will have an idea of your business’ capabilities and which of the three strategies is the best fit for your company.

In our next article we will look human resources.  In a service industry like tennis coaching this is possibly the most critical aspect of managing your business.  The saying “you’re only as good as the people working for you” is particularly appropriate for the business of tennis coaching.

Courtesy from GlobalSportsCoaching.com – Tennis Coaching Website

 

Rufus Keown has run his own tennis company for over 10 years and is a Tennis Australia Club Professional Coach.  He has also completed a Bachelor of Business Management and Graduate Diploma in Sports Management giving him a good perspective on managing a tennis business.

Tennis Confidence Checklist for Matches

What does it truly mean to believe in yourself? When you believe in yourself, you have full confidence in your physical skills and ability to execute shots in tennis. My definition of self-confidence for tennis is how strongly you believe in your ability to execute a successful shot or win a match. Don’t confuse believe in yourself (self-confidence) with self-esteem. Self-esteem is all about how you view yourself and how you appraise your self-concept (how you see yourself), also called self-worth.

Self-confidence comes from a baseline of past success in matches, practice, preparation, and a strong mental game of tennis. For example, a beginning tennis player has little or no confidence in his ability to execute a service in tennis. But with practice, he becomes competent in the skill of serving. With competency or skill mastery confidence improves. You can also get confidence from the belief that you are physically talented, which mirrors the definition of confidence.

When working with my personal coaching students, I discuss two different types or levels of confidence. The first is a general or broad belief in your ability as a tennis player – the feeling that you can win or perform well. The second type of confidence is the specific belief in your ability to nail a successful overhead or hit a winning serve. Both broad and specific confidence are equally important and they influence each other.

Over my 20 plus years as a mental game coach, I’ve come to learn that many athletes have “practice self-confidence,” which comes from working hard in practice to develop your skills. However, these same athletes don’t always transfer that confidence from practice to playing matches. They lack what I call “tournament self-confidence,” for many reasons. Match or tournament self-confidence is critical to your success in matches.

It seems irrational that you can gain a high level of self-confidence in your practice, but can’t transfer that confidence to tournaments. Most of the time, this problem is due to the mental game getting in the way and how you practice, which I’ll discuss in another article.

One of my readers recently asked this tennis psychology question: “What is the checklist for gaining confidence before a tough match?” I have no simple answer to this question because every player reacts differently to a tough match. However, I’ll give you the top four strategies that every player should apply:

1. Check your expectations in the parking lot. I believe that expectations (demands you place on your game) are harmful to high confidence. You want to believe in your skills and your practice, but without demanding how the match should go.
2. Review the reasons why you deserve to play well before each match. You might default to your practice, your experience, or your superior talent.
3. Prepare five positive self-talk statements you can use between points when you need a lift of confidence. These statements can be as simple as “I deserve to play well today.”
4. Cut off any last minute doubts. Doubt is the opposite of confidence. When you engage in doubt and allow it to feaster in your mind, you confidence suffers. Acknowledge any pre-match doubts you have and practice rebutting your own doubt.

 

By Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D. - If you want to learn how to stay composed and shake frustration, I suggest you grab a copy of my program, “The Composed Athlete.”

 

Visit www.GlobalSportsCoaching.com for more Tennis Tips

 

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Tennis Confidence and Coping with Errors

All kinds of tennis players—junior, amateur, collegiate and professional—need to have high self-confidence to perform their best and feel successful. Confidence is your number one mental game asset on the court.

 

You may think that some confident tennis players are arrogant and use intimidation to psych out their competitors. Some players shout at officials or get into fights with other players because they have big egos and lots of confidence.

 

But I’m talking about a different kind of self-confidence. To play your best, you must have a silent self-confidence that’s nothing like what’s described above. This type of confidence is a true belief in your own abilities; that you can execute a good serve and ground strokes.

 

Here’s my definition or true confidence: Tennis confidence is how strongly you believe in your ability to hit successful shots or even win matches.

 

Here is a common question from my tennis psychology survey: “What’s the best way to keep your confidence high after making a mistake or bad shot.”

 

All players, no matter how talented, make mistakes on the court. You can’t play a perfect match. Players with a strong inner game of tennis, however, don’t let a double fault or unforced errors shake their confidence. They have the faith that their game will hold up even when they’re making mistakes. They can quickly recover. These players tell themselves that it’s okay to make mistakes and they keep playing confident tennis.

 

I coach all my students to believe in their skills no matter how well or poorly they are playing. Confidence must be a long-term project and based on years of practice and play. It’s not rational to lose most of your hard-earned confidence when you make a couple mistakes in the match. You’re the only person that can take charge of your confidence!

 

Taking charge of your confidence means being responsible for how you think. One strategy you can use is to keep a success journal to help remind yourself of what you’ve done well in the past. Reading the journal will help you remember that you have the skills to be successful.

 

Take control of your own confidence level means that you take control of your self-talk after mistakes. Do you beat yourself up after mistakes or stay positive and encouraging with yourself? You want to check in with yourself to make sure you are positive, encouraging, and supportive with your own thinking.

 

Some positive self-talk examples:

“I have earned the right to perform with confidence.”

“I can use mistakes to help me improve.”

“I’ll stay composed and confident even when I make mistakes.”

“I’m going to turn my game around right now.”

Again, it’s up to you to take control of your confidence level! Tennis players with a strong inner game have confidence and trust in their talent. Other players gain confidence from their practice and training. If you’ve had past success and or practice your game regularly, you deserve to think confidently even when you make mistakes during a match!

 

 

By Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D – If you want to learn how to stay composed and shake frustration, I suggest you grab a copy of my program, “The Composed Athlete.”

 

 Visit www.GlobalSportsCoaching.com for more Tennis Tips