Article 1:     Tennis Confidence and Coping with Errors

 

All kinds of tennis players—junior, amateur, collegiate and professional—need to have high self-confidence to perform their best and feel successful. Confidence is your number one mental game asset on the court.

 

You may think that some confident tennis players are arrogant and use intimidation to psych out their competitors. Some players shout at officials or get into fights with other players because they have big egos and lots of confidence.

 

But I’m talking about a different kind of self-confidence. To play your best, you must have a silent self-confidence that’s nothing like what’s described above. This type of confidence is a true belief in your own abilities; that you can execute a good serve and ground strokes.

 

Here’s my definition or true confidence: Tennis confidence is how strongly you believe in your ability to hit successful shots or even win matches.

 

Here is a common question from my tennis psychology survey: “What’s the best way to keep your confidence high after making a mistake or bad shot.”

 

All players, no matter how talented, make mistakes on the court. You can’t play a perfect match. Players with a strong inner game of tennis, however, don’t let a double fault or unforced errors shake their confidence. They have the faith that their game will hold up even when they’re making mistakes. They can quickly recover. These players tell themselves that it’s okay to make mistakes and they keep playing confident tennis.

 

I coach all my students to believe in their skills no matter how well or poorly they are playing. Confidence must be a long-term project and based on years of practice and play. It’s not rational to lose most of your hard-earned confidence when you make a couple mistakes in the match. You’re the only person that can take charge of your confidence!

 

Taking charge of your confidence means being responsible for how you think. One strategy you can use is to keep a success journal to help remind yourself of what you’ve done well in the past. Reading the journal will help you remember that you have the skills to be successful.

 

Take control of your own confidence level means that you take control of your self-talk after mistakes. Do you beat yourself up after mistakes or stay positive and encouraging with yourself? You want to check in with yourself to make sure you are positive, encouraging, and supportive with your own thinking.

 

Some positive self-talk examples:

“I have earned the right to perform with confidence.”

“I can use mistakes to help me improve.”

“I’ll stay composed and confident even when I make mistakes.”

“I’m going to turn my game around right now.”

Again, it’s up to you to take control of your confidence level! Tennis players with a strong inner game have confidence and trust in their talent. Other players gain confidence from their practice and training. If you’ve had past success and or practice your game regularly, you deserve to think confidently even when you make mistakes during a match!

 

 By Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D

 

 

 

 

Article 2:     Tennis Confidence Checklist for Matches

 

What does it truly mean to believe in yourself? When you believe in yourself, you have full confidence in your physical skills and ability to execute shots in tennis. My definition of self-confidence for tennis is how strongly you believe in your ability to execute a successful shot or win a match. Don’t confuse believe in yourself (self-confidence) with self-esteem. Self-esteem is all about how you view yourself and how you appraise your self-concept (how you see yourself), also called self-worth.

Self-confidence comes from a baseline of past success in matches, practice, preparation, and a strong mental game of tennis. For example, a beginning tennis player has little or no confidence in his ability to execute a service in tennis. But with practice, he becomes competent in the skill of serving. With competency or skill mastery confidence improves. You can also get confidence from the belief that you are physically talented, which mirrors the definition of confidence.

When working with my personal coaching students, I discuss two different types or levels of confidence. The first is a general or broad belief in your ability as a tennis player – the feeling that you can win or perform well. The second type of confidence is the specific belief in your ability to nail a successful overhead or hit a winning serve. Both broad and specific confidence are equally important and they influence each other.

Over my 20 plus years as a mental game coach, I’ve come to learn that many athletes have “practice self-confidence,” which comes from working hard in practice to develop your skills. However, these same athletes don’t always transfer that confidence from practice to playing matches. They lack what I call “tournament self-confidence,” for many reasons. Match or tournament self-confidence is critical to your success in matches.

It seems irrational that you can gain a high level of self-confidence in your practice, but can’t transfer that confidence to tournaments. Most of the time, this problem is due to the mental game getting in the way and how you practice, which I’ll discuss in another article.

One of my readers recently asked this tennis psychology question: “What is the checklist for gaining confidence before a tough match?” I have no simple answer to this question because every player reacts differently to a tough match. However, I’ll give you the top four strategies that every player should apply:

1. Check your expectations in the parking lot. I believe that expectations (demands you place on your game) are harmful to high confidence. You want to believe in your skills and your practice, but without demanding how the match should go.
2. Review the reasons why you deserve to play well before each match. You might default to your practice, your experience, or your superior talent.
3. Prepare five positive self-talk statements you can use between points when you need a lift of confidence. These statements can be as simple as “I deserve to play well today.”
4. Cut off any last minute doubts. Doubt is the opposite of confidence. When you engage in doubt and allow it to feaster in your mind, you confidence suffers. Acknowledge any pre-match doubts you have and practice rebutting your own doubt.

 

By Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D. - If you want to learn how to stay composed and shake frustration, I suggest you grab a copy of my program, “The Composed Athlete.”