Novak Djokovic’s thoughts about mental toughness
Novak Djokovic won a 5 set match today again a French player Patience who fought until the end with huge support from the home crowd.
Djokovic eventually prevailed but he learned some good mental toughness lessons. He also shared some of his thoughts about mental toughness and why he won…
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| Photo by FFT |
“And, you know, first set was going pretty well, but then in the second, I was break up, 3‑1 in serving, and just suddenly I stopped and made a couple of mistakes and I got him into the match.
He started believing in the victory, and obviously, you know, he started to go for his shots, you know. He started to play well, and he was not defending anymore. Now he was offensive. It resulted with a second set win.”
When you let someone back into the match (or they fight they way back) we call this a change in momentum.
Become aware of the momentum in your matches and don’t relax! When you have the momentum you must extend it and keep attacking your opponent.
Let’s say you lead 4:1. You may think, that even if you lose a game or two you are still leading. That’s true but what you forget is what Djokovic mentioned:
“He started believing in the victory, and obviously, you know, he started to go for his shots…”
This what you need to avoid. Tennis is not just mathematics - who wins more points and games, it’s about controlling the mental state of your OPPONENT too.
The matches can be so easily won if you can make your opponent believe that they have no chance.
“But you know, it’s all a matter of mental strength as well, you know. This is a game where basically every week you lose. So it’s not easy to maintain the mental strength.”
This is especially hard to accept for juniors. You start competing in tennis thinking about winning matches and tournaments but the end result is that very few people actually win a tournament on ATP or WTA tour in their life.
“In the third set, you know, I was pretty nervous in that moment, but I’m happy that I managed to calm down and just figure out what I’m going to do and try to be positive.”
It’s impossible to stop emotions - being nervous, upset, irritated, … - from appearing in your mind and body.
But what is possible and necessary for playing great tennis is to control the emotions. Djokovic mentioned that he managed to calm down.
First you need to deal with your emotions, then start dealing with your game and how to outplay your opponent.
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June 20th, 2007 at 5:12 am
It is interesting to note that calmness of mind, serenity and clarity in approach and levelheaded actions let you play with passion, aggression and power!