Approach Tennis Mental Training Just Like Tennis Fitness

Why tennis mental training?

You hit the ball great!

You never get tired!

You are winning lots of tennis matches right?

Wrong!

You just can’t concentrate.

You always play better in practice.

Your opponents always control matches.

Getting angry NEVER helps.

It’s a mental thing but……..

You don’t know where to start with your tennis mental training without complicating it.

Well, tennis mental training is the same as tennis fitness training and has four stand out components.

Let’s look at them!

Tennis Mental Training vs Tennis Fitness Training

Strength:

Just as physical fitness is about strong resistance to outside forces (i.e. the weight you are trying to lift), tennis mental strength is about you being able to provide strong resistance under sometimes high levels of emotional pressure.

Flexibility:

Good physical flexibility allows you to get into many different positions (quickly).

Mentally flexiblity allows you to do the same in a mental sense.

Physical flexibility is all about increasing your range of motion around a joint and mental flexibility is all about increasing your control over a range of emotions around your game.

Speed:

Speed on the court is essential if you want to a) get to lots of balls and b) recover in order to get to the following balls.

If you are mentally slow then you can never react to what is needed on the court at any given time, never mind react and respond to a whole sequence of events.

Agility:

Physical agility is the ability to move, stop & change direction at speed without losing control.

The same can be said of your mental agility.

The game of tennis requires you to negotiate a wide range of emotional barriers not all of which are easy. In fact it is often the ability to stay “mentally balanced” in times of relative disappointment that separates the champions from the “others” and is therefore a vital part of the “Champions mentality” I often speak about.

There was no greater example of mental skills in action than this years’ Wimbledon Men’s final where both Federer and Nadal showed their ability to bounce back from a number of disappointments whilst still keeping themselves focused and highly competitive.

The greatest match ever showed the greatest array of mental skills ever – a coincidence??

No Way!!