How to handle the kind of pressure when in a tournament situation, a player is 4-5 up serving, and fails to finish the match due to what we call “elbow”?

The player gets so tensed up that he or she can’t perform at the level they suppose to.

Also; when you have players that are naturally tensed up players, how you teach them to train more relaxed, and then apply that skill in a tournament setting?

The reason why the players get tense when serving for the match is because they don’t want to lose this opportunity. If they miss the chance, they will feel very bad. (that is only their opinion - in reality, there is only a probability of winning and not a guarantee)

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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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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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You may know that you “should” come to the net more often to finish the point but somehow you resist that and stick to the comfort of the baseline.

Why is that?

You resist coming to the net because you feel uncomfortable there. So you need to dig even deeper and ask yourself why do you feel uncomfortable at the net?

Some of the possible reasons are:

1. You don’t trust your volley and overhead skills.

This mistrust can be legitimate – meaning your net skills are really not that good and you make too many mistakes OR your net skills are actually good but your OPINION about them is negative.

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Hi Tomaz,

What you are saying is helpful, it is just that I am having trouble implementing these thoughts.

I just can’t seem to break through that little voice that says “No, Impossible” and as a result my game sucks.

I don’t care about winning, I mean that is nice, but I really just want to play well.

But when I get on court I switch immediately from positive mindset to negative, and what is worse is that I know that I’m doing it.

I have been playing rather bad for a very long time, and I think I have somewhat trained these “impossible” thoughts to come out when I get on court.

I am sick of this mindset and really want to change it, and I really want to play great tennis, but I haven’t a clue how to retrain my head.

Yes, I know what I haven’t told you.

It’s a WAR.

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This is related to the previous article about losing to players you have never played before. The main reason is that you may worry and not believe in yourself when you play an unknown opponent.

I came across an interesting article which may give you even more information about worrying and the difference between men and women.

Why Women Worry So Much explains that women are more likely than men to believe that past experiences accurately forecast the future.

The main reason why our mind wants to predict the future is survival. It has been hardwired for millions of years to learn from dangerous situations and adapt.

What you need to do as a tennis player is to IGNORE the predictions.

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My son was MVP for three years in high school and had the most career wins of anyone in the state.

He was recruited, does great in conditioning and playing the others on the team. He wins against all but number one seed.

Yet when he goes to play other teams/individuals he is losing. It is so sad.

I just keep telling him how proud of him we are, but I know he is hurting. Coaches are great, but it sounds like his confidence is crashing. Help.

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Hey Tomaz, I would like to thank you for all of the great articles on tennis and the mental toughness that comes along with it.

I’ve been fortunate enough to read and apply this information to my own tennis game and would like to say that slowly but surely it is making an impact on how I play.

I had always been the player to get very angry at matches and would explode with emotion and this was a question that plagued me and I couldn’t figure out why this happened.

Your information on tennis psychology has helped me very much in controlling and applying my best tennis to the game and another fascinating thing, life in general.

But my mind is always wondering and I just wanted to ask you about how our psychology reacts to other people’s negativity.

I mean at times for me I feel like when I hear something negative is said about me or even if I’m around negativity it for some reason bothers me.

I understand we control most of the things that go around in our heads, this is an amazing phenomenon.

But I guess my question is if this is something we can control, or is it on the subconscious level where it affects us no matter what even though we think we beat it.

I would love to hear everything there is to know about this topic and the human psychology on it in general.

May I ask you to leave your input on these questions that yearn for answers in my mind. Thank you very much for your time and your service.

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At the end of each year in my area, there is always a big tournament that my father actually runs and I help with.

It is always strong, and I always want to really win it.

I do find there is more pressure than normal; my results have though been pretty good, just have not won it.

Sometimes I get into negative thinking about playing really weak player at this tournament and things falling to pieces.

Generally I have to say; mentally my tennis has improved to close to almost unbreakable with your manual’s help.

I can say confidently I don’t think there is anything I can’t handle mentally.

The pressure that you feel comes from two parts:

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Hi, I am an excellent tennis player under 12.

When I have my training I always play excellent, but when I participate in tournaments I lose to players which I beat easily in the training.

This is a big problem, can you help me?

Hi,

I admire your courage to admit your weaknesses and look for solutions at this age and thank you for the trust.

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