TennisMindCamp: Tip of The Week (1-30-09)
Playing Sets In Tennis Practice Eases Pressure!
Have you ever been frustrated because you have excellent practice sessions but perform poorly when it really counts – in match play? Here’s a tip for the serious tennis players out there.
Problem:
If all you do is rally during your practice sessions, you’re going to get too comfortable. I mean, just hitting the ball back and forth with nothing to lose isn’t going to adequately prepare you for a real match environment.
Answer:
The main difference between practice and a tournament match is the pressure and internal expectation you place on yourself in wanting to succeed. To help with this, I strongly recommend you simulate as many game-ready situations as you can. How do you do that?
Play sets in practice!
This will elevate the pressure just enough as well as fill your mind and body with the emotion that you’ll have to deal with in a game. Not only that, but by playing sets, you’ll also be working on and strengthening the most important elements of your game that any serious player MUST have if they want to win:
These include: focus, intensity, maintaining a lead, recovering from a deficit, break-points, match-points, baseline strategy, serve strategy, and volley angles.
So when you get to a match, your mental environment will be very much similar if not EXACTLY the same. A feeling of “been there done that” will take over and the anxiety and pressure you used to feel will be sliced by more than 50%!
Give this a try, and you’ll definitely begin to bridge the gap between practice and real game performance, I promise!
Stay tuned for next weeks tip. And have a great game!
All the best,
Brian Hall, Head Coach
Tennis Mind Camp
http://www.Myspace.com/TennisMindCamp
webmaster@TennisMindCamp.com
P.S. If you have any suggestions for future tips of the week or
have concepts that you would like covered, simply reply to this
post.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Great tips. I was always ‘winning’ during drill but couldnt seem to find the same strokes and strategies in real play. Found a great pro and group drill where he has us play for points after drilling a new concept. He gets involved and we have to work in the new strategies or we lose points (even if our shot was good – uhg). Now i find i have more confidence in choosing which strategies/shots/directions to use in real play. Fun!