| This article will take its departure in tennis, but please | | | | your own game; for instance the situations where you |
| keep in mind that many of the psychological tips I | | | | have to serve a second serve against a match point. It |
| present can be applied to any other sport and loads of | | | | suddenly becomes much harder to serve because |
| everyday situations. | | | | you know that if you make one little mistake you will |
| There are basically two different phases: 1) Before | | | | lose the whole game. This is where you will need |
| you get on to the court and 2) when stand | | | | certain techniques to keep you calm and control the |
| head-to-head with your opponent. We will call the first | | | | psychological aspect that, in situations like that, is out of |
| phase "Pregame" and the second phase | | | | balance. |
| "During-game". | | | | On the other hand, if you know how to stay focused, |
| I personally train 7-17-year-old Danish tennis players | | | | even when you're under pressure, you can win a lot of |
| and teach them the different psychological tips you | | | | points and even beat opponents that should be able to |
| are about to read about, with great results. I can also | | | | beat you. As Boris Becker once said "The fifth set is |
| tell from my own experience that I have beaten | | | | not about tennis, it's about nerves". If your mind is |
| players with much better precision and techniques than | | | | occupied with anything else than how to play the next |
| me, only because I master the psychological aspect of | | | | ball you will easily be distracted and lose focus. The |
| the game. | | | | techniques for training this are actually very simple and |
| Phase 1: | | | | easy to learn, but represents a huge advantage if you |
| This phase is all the time you spend outside of the | | | | can master it. |
| court, and the 60 minutes before an important match. | | | | Bad days? |
| The mind is an incredible tool you can train to improve | | | | Hundreds of hours of practice can become worthless |
| your tennis performance because you can't overtrain | | | | because of one small oversight. It's like pit stops in |
| when you are developing your psychological skills. This | | | | formula 1: They can spend millions on cutting 0.1 |
| means you can get one step ahead of your | | | | seconds of a lap, but if the pit crew screws up, all that |
| opponents because while they just recover from a | | | | money is lost. "A good tennis player never has a bad |
| hard day of training, you can keep improving your | | | | day!" - That's what my coach once told me. At first I |
| game by training the most important organ in tennis: | | | | didn't really pay attention to it and merely thought it |
| your brain, and thereby your mind. | | | | was something he said to motivate me, but as I got |
| The minutes before a match are very important | | | | better I started to understand what he meant and that |
| because, as your muscles and joints, your brain has to | | | | he wasn't just talking rubbish. |
| be "warmed up". There are many different ways of | | | | "Bad days" do not exist! Well, think about it. If you play |
| preparing mentally for a match. Some listen to music, | | | | regularly, your technique will not become worse |
| others stare into space thinking tactics, but the | | | | suddenly from one training to another (if so, you badly |
| important issue here is to find the right state of mind. | | | | need a new coach;) ), on the contrary it will only get |
| Rugby players have to be pumped up before a match. | | | | better every time you train. Your amount of muscles |
| That's why you see them shout and push each other | | | | will be approximately the same and you will probably |
| around to get in the right mood. Golf players, on the | | | | be just as physically fit from one week to the next, so |
| other hand, needs to be very calm and must therefore | | | | what causes your performance to vary from day to |
| make sure to stay self-possessed and not get overly | | | | day? Well there are a lot of answers to this question, |
| excited before going on to the golf course. | | | | but the most important one is: Your mind! The more |
| Phase 2: | | | | self esteem you play with, the better you play. First |
| The During-game phase is also very important. This is | | | | time you make a bad serve you think "well, that |
| the part where you can lose everything if you can't | | | | happens" if it happens again you think "not again!" Third |
| control the psychological aspect. | | | | time you are already in the line of thought that says |
| You can train your whole life to master the perfect | | | | "I'm must really be having a bad day" and when that |
| smash, or make the perfect serve, but if you doubt | | | | happens you are for sure going to have one. So what |
| yourself for just a second, the hundreds of hours | | | | you need to think is: "Bad days do not exist! |
| spend training has been wasted. You know this from | | | | |