BLAME-SHIFTING IN TENNIS
Blame shifting is a common tactic found in the emotional realm of competitive tennis. It’s one of the most common performance anxieties. Athletes fearful of being judged pre-set failure by blaming something or someone to avoid taking leadership in their own behavior.
Blame-Shifters have difficulty taking responsibility and accepting ownership for their inadequate training and poor effort. Coaches have used the term “pretenders or contenders” for decades. Ask coaches and they agree that blame shifters fall into the pretender category.
“The educators’ challenge lies in choosing to salvage these players versus choosing to avoid the dirty work and ignore their issues.”
Blame shifters are found at every level, in every club around the world. These athletes routinely point the finger at others in their sphere of influence. “I would have trained but they didn’t…”, or “They made me ….so I couldn’t” are typical mantras as these athletes assign the lack of responsibility to others within their entourage. Another form of self-deception is blaming the probable upcoming loss on a phony injury. “I can’t play today, my wrist hurts or I feel sick.” These are what I call ego outs. It’s their coping mechanism for dealing with their fear of failure combined with their lack of proper preparation. When used habitually, these athletes believe that they’re the victim when in reality, the problem is all their own.
A solution for dealing with these fake injury, excuse experts is to ask them to simply play a few games. If the injury truly persists, they’re encouraged to default. Convincing them to at least show-up and try to compete is a critical first step in overcoming their performance anxieties.
“Flipping blame shifters is a tough fix because athletes with this habit typically get aggressive when called out on their poor choices.”
An experienced coach can flip this behavior by encouraging the athlete and their entourage to accept responsibility. Here’s how:
- Educate how to truly prepare their whole person for competition. This includes a full tool belt of strokes, athleticism such as speed, agility, and stamina, the wide range of customized strategies and tactics found in mental toughness and the emotional components such as solutions to performance anxieties as they prepare properly for pressure.
- Organize daily and weekly planners and expect the athlete to be accountable for completing their customized developmental plan. Weekly components to improve include off-court training, primary and secondary strokes development, pattern repetition, match play, and match video analysis.
- Ask members of their entourage to lead by example by making their words match their actions. I’ve often witnessed loving parents who prescribe to the philosophy that rules don’t apply to them. They routinely arrive 15 minutes late to their child’s lesson. They make their child skip practice when it suits their needs. These parents’ words say to their children “You need to work hard” their actions say “unless there’s something more enjoyable to do.” Leading by example is key.
- Design an entourage agreement. This moves the process from deliberation to action. In this contract, each party commits to excellence for a 3 month period. By doing so, you’ll change your pretenders into contenders.
Blaming their lack of results on others is an undesirable and possible lifelong habit. Striving to apply the above solutions will not only maximize your athlete’s tennis potential, but it will also develop strong, confident, and resilient people.
