Do you feel like you have a pretty decent game? You know what I mean; in practice you're a star, but when it comes to the actual pressure of the game things tend to fall apart. Your serve won't fall in, or you can't seem to serve with a lot of pace, overheads you normally hammer are now hammered to the bottom of the net - I think you get my meaning. But now what can be done to remedy the problem?
That is the $10 million dollar question. I've tried mentally seeing myself play the game in a positive way: Focusing more on the ball, making sure I hit in-front of me, split stepping before every point. I'm sure you know all the different things your supposed to do. But evaluating your game off the court and actually trying to play the game on the court is all most like comparing apples to oranges, atleast it is for me.
Well like you I'm always trying to figure out what it takes to improve my game, sometimes it seems pointless but I know in my heart-of-hearts it's not. So I did some online research and this is what I found.
The question and answer session that you are about to read came from another web-site, but I thought the question and a couple of the answers were very good. Let me know what you all think. I would certainly like this blog to be a place or even a forum for other tennis players to ask questions and give advice, if you want to do either please feel free to contact me or become a member of this blog.
Well enough already! Below is the question and answer session. The question comes from Alfred Paw:
How to stop CHOKING/ PLAYING BAD during tennis matches.?
I'm a freshmen and I am on Varsity Tennis so I would say I'm a pretty decent player. During practice hitting and warm-ups I have to admit that I'm really good (not to be cocky) and I hit some very solid strokes. But...
When it comes to playing a match, whether it be Singles OR Doubles, I play HORRIBLY. All my shots just spin into the net, my overheads/volleys hit the rim of the racket and fumble out. My serve is VERY SLOW and basically a moon serve... not to mention a weak mental game.
What can I do to solve this issue? How can I trust myself, I've been playing tennis a LONG time (well 4 years) and I've played many USTA matches and had little success. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you so much!
ANSWER from Jordan Cohen
This is a common problem among a lot of people. What you need is to not focus as much on the outer game and to focus more on the inner game. By the inner game i mean the mentality and feeling tennis in other words being "match tough" or "in the zone". There are several ways you can improve upon this and improve your game hugely trust me my game has improved ten fold from this.
1. First try to relax as much as you can before the game, listen to some music, breath deeply whatever you need to do to relax yourself before the game and get your head into it do it.
2. This goes with relax somewhat but clear your mind don't be thinking about what homework you haven't done, what to get your girlfriend whatever is on your mind don't let it preoccupy you and just focus on tennis
3. Breath deeply i said this before but seriously it works in between each point, before you serve, whenever you can breath, let your muscles relax and remain calm
once you have the pregame then you can do things when you are in the game to make sure you are consistent
1. First off do not focus on either winning or "perfect technique". Both of these lead down bad paths the alternatives are thinking of each point as it comes, thinking of the rally you have and your strategy, what you can use to beat your opponent. If you constantly think of winning or perfect technique you will just start to want the end result and you will lose focus of the game and surely do bad.
2. This adds to 1 but it is HUGE in my opinion. DO NOT MAKE YOURSELF DO THINGS, i cannot stress this enough do not tell yourself to do something and get mad at yourself when you don't. Just do it, you ask how? most good players i know just feel what they are doing. For example instead of saying "wow that was a terrible forehand my technique was garbage", instead try saying "what did i feel like during that shot, was my racket tilted to high or low is that why i hit it out? was my timing off? did i not anticipate my opponent's move? and many more factors. So look at the overall scheme of trying to fix your mistakes not small things you think will help and try to feel it Lee Travino one of the best golfers just felt it.
Once you have that down just start to have confidence in yourself, each point is a new point don't dwell on the bad look at the new that you can accomplish and believe in yourself that you can win. Once you have the inner game down the technique and the strategy can really just be utilized and practice and lessons which translate to having the muscle memory down, once you have that which it seems like you do already then don't focus on technique focus on the strategy of the game. Ask yourself what to do in each situation so as to beat your opponent, that is a true winner.
Just believe in yourself man if this doesn't help try getting the book "the inner game of tennis" i forgot the author's name but i hope you can find it, it changed my game A LOT and i mean a lot. Good luck believe in yourself and you can accomplish anything.
Another Good Answer from Andy Rodgers
Aside from trusting yourself, I believe it's also important work on your footwork and tennis serve. If you know that you have outstanding footwork and tennis serve, then your self confidence will eventually boost. Below article helped me improved my footwork.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Learn-Tennis--… 
