Introduction
We have all been there. We had some big losses (or losses that shouldn’t have occurred) and we get down on ourselves. As the losses (or other roadblocks) pile up, we stop playing our best tennis and fall into a “slump.” And don’t worry, every single professional athlete I work with in all sports go through these phases. The best ones limit the time in these slumps and are able to rewrite the story and move forward quickly in a positive direction.
Help! Get Me Out!
- TELL THE TRUTH: Tell the truth to your coaches, your supporters, your trainers, and most importantly, to YOURSELF. You need to reflect and be honest about what is causing the issues on court. It could be your ego, it could be that you’re playing people you think you should be beating but you’re not, it could be a personality conflict within your regular group of players, it could be that you’re not ready to play against players who are so far advanced. When you’re honest about what is causing the issues, then you can take steps to fix the issues
- GAME PLAN ACTIVATED: Always go onto court with a game plan. Not having a game plan leads to indecision. Indecision is the number one killer on the tennis court at EVERY level. Create an environment where you know what you are going to do with every single ball before you even contact the ball. This takes away a huge area of error: not knowing where to hit the ball. This does not mean that every decision is the right one – just that you have a game plan and you activated it.
- ACCEPTANCE: Accepting that no matter how hard you train or want something, there are things on the court that are always out of your control. Often, people will fall into a slump because they think they should have beat a better player. Accept that unless you are Novak Djokovic (current world number 1), there are players better than you. Even if your opponent is worse than you, you may have a bad day. Even Djokovic has bad days and gets beat by Rafael Nadal. It happens to all of us. Accepting that things are outside your control on the court will change your thinking and can sometimes prevent a slump before it happens.
- DON’T SETTLE: Don’t let your negative thoughts settle in your brain. Write them down on a piece of paper and throw them away. If you’re on court, practice positive self-talk. Negative thoughts that settle are toxic to your A-game.
These simple strategies can change things up and change your mentality and help to get a player out of a slump.
Interested in learning more about getting out of the slump and other mental aspects of tennis? Check out the courses at https://kovacsinstitute.learnworlds.com/pages/courses for more information on how to improve your game!
Add comment