I have a problem with confidence and doing my best, because whenever I actually try (I usually play by putting as little effort as possible) I feel depressed when I lose or mess up.

That’s because failing even at my best makes me feel as if my best is nothing, that is why I put little effort so when I mess up or lose I don’t feel as bad because it’s not my best. Help!

Let’s see where this comes from “because failing even at my best makes me feel as if my best is nothing”.

The game of tennis is not so much about winning or losing especially if you are a competitive player. Most players lose all the time. (go on ATP Tour website and check win / loss ratio of a top 100 tennis player. You’ll see what I mean.)

It’s the long term accumulation of POINTS that pretty good determines who is good or not. So when you lose it doesn’t mean you are “nothing”. That’s just your very critical description of a loss.

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I stumbled across your site by accident while trying to find tips to help my 11 year old daughter (12 in April).

She first picked up the racquet about 18 months ago and fell in love with tennis. We aren’t rich, but managed to get her a coach - he was quite young and she started to hit the ball over the net quite nicely.

He suggested that she enter some tournaments - so we entered her for some - it was a rude awakening.

She hadn’t been taught to serve and was playing against girls who had already been playing for 4-5 years… She lost every match 6-0 6-1. Out of 40 matches she won 4.

We decided that it was pointless putting her in matches until she could serve - so stopped entering tournaments and changed coach. She has played in a few tournaments recently and has done quite well - but her serve is still a huge problem.

She double faults regularly - sometime 2 or 3 a game. She is also finding it difficult to cope with the power of some of the other girls.

My question is - should she actually be competing in tournaments now…? Isn’t it better to wait until you have full confidence in your shots before competing?

Her coach seems to think that she will magically find her serve in a match situation - but this isn’t happening and it is eroding her self-confidence very quickly.

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I have a tennis tournament in only one weeks time! I want to have the right preparations such as diet, warm-up techniques…

I want to be physically and mentally ready for the tournament. What should I do?

Also, before I play, I tend to get butterflies in my stomache. How can I make my self-esteem high so I can play my game?

Here are a few tips on how to prepare for a tournament.

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Hi, I’m a junior player who’s just started playing tournaments this year.

All my coaches as well as kids and my parents say I’m fantastic and could be top 5 in the nation if I could play that way in matches.

I used to play top kids in practice and beat them badly. But recently in a low level tournament, I lost to a kid who was EXTREMELY BAD:) he lost to alot of other kids who aren’t very good and I lost to him 6-4 6-3.

It seems as thought I am the weakest and dumbest tennis player ever mentally and during matches; I’ve never come back and won from a set down. For me, it’s either win in straight sets or lose in straight sets.

My question is do you have any tips for me with my kind of tennis mental problem? Is there any way that I can overcome this mental weakness and be positive and relaxed during matches?

Cause I feel like I’m letting my coaches, parents, and myself down when I play like that.

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I would like to ask for some help. Today I played an opponent that totally took the rhythm out of my game.

He slowed the game down to a crawl. He took extremely long change-overs and he would take 30-40 seconds after each point to get ready for the next point.

He even hit himself, accidentally in the face and took about 5 minutes to get composed. This strategy seems to bother me the most. I have worked on it but I don’t have the experience to over come this just yet.

The score was 6-2, 4-6, 8-10, so I didn’t completely fall apart but my focus and rhythm became sporadic.

Please help me come up with some way to cope with this distraction.

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