Mental Grit

Below is a great commentary on "mental toughness" or building your confidence in your tennis matches.  This weekend I played a couple of friendly tennis matches [a singles and doubles] and found my confidence in my game waning a bit, as my backhand and forehand top spins keep going long or into the net and when I would try something different I would lose power and control, eventually I lost it mentally.  It's strange how much of the game of tennis is mental - we know we have the shots to be able to win the game, or atleast to keep our competitors on their toes but we (or I) sometimes just can't muster the mental fortitude to keep it together.  Mental toughness - Confidence or Belief...whatever label you want to put on it, seems to be the hardest part of the game, I find anyway.   One of the people I greatly admire is Maria Sharapova she seems to have mental grit in spades; just watch her win she wins or even loses a point - compare your expressions side beside.  If you were to turn your t.v. on just after a successful or unsuccessful point you wouldn't know until the score came up whether she won or lost that point.  Maria just keeps playing one point at a time, believing always that she'll win the next point.  What a competitive spirit to be admired in any sport.  

Brent - the gentleman that wrote the article below nails the problem and the solution I think with great clarity.  Let me know what you think.  Enjoy!
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Tennis Confidence Is About Lying To Yourself

How crazy do we get trying to figure out what it is and how to then make it tangible?

Look, I’m no mental giant by any stretch of the imagination.

I’ve read a lot of books about the mental skills required to play well in tennis, but in the end, and alt least for me when I play, confidence for me is simply a sense of not having any fear at that moment.

I’m not talking about being fearless in a risky way, no, it’s simply for me about not considering something negative might or is about to happen on this next shot, this next point, the match, and on and on…

Confidence in tennis is about not perceiving a negative consequence.

And I’ll be the first one to admit that there are times when I have to overcome my natural fears of a negative situation by totally lying to myself.

There have been times when I instinctively want to to think something like this – “OMG, I simply have to win this point because if I don’t there’s no way I’ll ever get another chance.  This guy is better than I am and I’m just damn lucky he’s not playing well.  Come on Brent, don’t blow this.”

Uh, hello, I don’t think that’s really a good set of thoughts that will help me play the next point unencumbered by fear.

Fear is the ultimate killer of quality shot placement decision making and performing your needed fluidity of stroke fundamentals.

The absence of fear gives you the best chance of making the right decision of where you want to play this next shot and allowing you to perform your practiced stroke fundamentals within their ideal timing.

So, let’s get back to this notion of lying to yourself when you recognize you’re pumping a bunch of fearful inner talk.

I wouldn’t really call it pur lying, but I know I do force myself to not recognize the fear by over riding it with specific thoughts, self talk, and even sing a song to myself.

Your brain will allow you to play the game of tennis on a conscious level.

Whatever you’re thinking or telling yourself at that moment is what your brain believes.

And if your brain believes you’re scared, it’ll help you ply scared, but if your brain believes you’re not scared, it’ll help you play the next point without fear.

Without fear translates to you being able to play your best tennis.

But this goes on between every frickin point.  You can fool yourself into being fearless for awhile, but you can also allow yourself to be scared later in the match.

Ever play well for the first set and a half and then just can’t close out the match?

Yeah, well, get in line because you’re not alone.  Most of us allow our fears to take over in the latter stages of a match.  We actually stop lying to ourselves at that point and start believing our self talk.

This takes a ton of practice to be able to discipline yourself to keep lying to yourself throughout the entire match.

I keep saying lying, and I’m not sure that’s what I mean, but I know you know what I’m trying to say.

You must consciously over ride your natural fears with something positive.

What’s helped me over ride my biggest fears when I’m playing against the top guys out there has been my between points 4 part routine.

1 – Go straight to the hook of the song of the day immediately after the point is done;

2 – Take 3-4 deep controlled breaths where I literally do the meditation thing of focusing on each breath so I’m not thinking of anything;

3 – Then consider any specific strategy I want to use to start the next point (not how to win the point but how to start the point);

4 – A little self pump.  Something very positive like “OK baby, I love this, here we go…”

And that’s it.  There’s absolutely nothing in that between points routine that is negative, and if I’m scared out of my mind and want this match so bad I can taste it, I’m putting myself into the same mental place point after point after point.

One of the keys to being a consistent shot maker (at least for me when I play my best tennis) is to be extremely consistent with what we do between points.

I know you’ve heard this a kazillion times, but on average 80% of the match is NOT playing points.

That’s right, only 15-20% of the match actually takes place during a point.

What you do with the 80-85% of your match time, between the points, determines how well you’ll play that day.

So, stop being so darn honest to yourself between points by recognizing any fears, and start lying to yourself like a monster…

Brent