Tag Archives: tennis

Positive Versus Negative Psychology

Posted on April 15, 2019 by in The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers!

Click Here to Order

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POSITIVE VERSUS NEGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY

 

“Guidance from a coach or parent with a negative mindset is extremely toxic to a child.”

Exposing and destroying pessimistic beliefs and attitudes is an integral part of my daily mission, both personally and professionally. It’s your job as the tennis parent to eliminate these poisons from your athlete’s world.

Sadly, it’s often a parent, sibling, friend or coach that’s feeding the negative beliefs and pessimistic attitudes. It is in your best interest to remedy this issue or remove the negative source(s) from the child’s tennis entourage.

Parents, just as it is your duty to remove negative psychology, it is your responsibility to teach positive psychology. Teach belief and confidence, find their motivational buttons, develop their desire and hunger for mastering the game and teach them to embrace the challenge. These positive life lessons are part of raising athletic royalty.  If you teach the love of the game and the benefits of commitment, your athlete will progress seamlessly through the losses, technical difficulties, injuries and bad luck that come with athletics.

Allow the tennis teachers to teach, the coaches to coach and the trainers to train because as you know now, the tennis parent’s job description is far too comprehensive to micromanage each entourage’s role.

Mind-Sets: Fixed versus Growth

Similar to the two sides of psychology, there are also two mindsets. Coaches often see students with either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. While the athlete’s genetic predisposition is undoubtedly present, it’s most often the nurtured opinions of their parents, siblings, and coaches that set their outlook.

  • A person with a debilitating fixed mindset truly believes that they cannot change. They are extremely rigid, view the world as black or white and are uninterested in change. Their unwillingness to accept new challenges often results in remaining average at best.
  • A person with a growth mindset believes that their opinions, outlooks, attitudes, and abilities can and will change throughout their lives. Growth mindset individuals are more willing and open to accept change in the name of progress/improvement.

“Raising athletic royalty is a direction, not a destination. What you choose to teach your children now will live on for generations to come.”

I find that parents who encourage both positive psychology and a growth mindset are developing much more than a future athlete, they are developing future leaders.

 

COMMON PERFORMANCE ANXIETIES – Part Three

Posted on April 10, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, Preparing for Pressure

Continuation of Common Performance Anxieties Posts.

 

SAMPLE COVER PRESSURE

7) Common Anxiety: “It’s Losing To The Weaker Players That Kills Me…I Self-Destruct!”

“Self-destruction unknowingly begins in the preparation phase.”

The worst part about the feelings of self-destruction in competition is that the athlete is fully aware it’s happening but can’t do anything to stop it. Their muscles begin to tighten, they shank every other ball, and their brain is fixated on contaminating outcome thoughts. We’ve all been there. You’re choking, and you know it, the opponent knows it, even the spectators know it, but you weren’t taught any self-destruction solutions, so the match feels like a slow death.

Rehearsing self-destruction solutions on the practice court provide the athlete with a practical “go to solution.” The following are a few proactive solutions to employ during match play to aid in regaining focus:

  • Focus on Hitting 3 Balls Deep Down the Middle
  • Apply the Old School Bounce-Hit Method of Vision Control
  • Return to your Script of Top Patterns of Play
  • Reboot your Between Point Rituals

I recommend the player choose two of the above solutions and play a few practice sets while focusing exclusively on employing the solutions to stop the imploding.

Preparing for pressure requires pre-set solutions to common problems.

 

8) Common Anxiety: “I used to beat these toads…now I’m losing to them.”

“Revitalizing begins by assessing the athlete’s
efficiencies and deficiencies.”

When athletes aren’t getting the results they believe they’re capable of getting, I recommend conducting an honest assessment of their current training and match preparation. With few exceptions, I find that the athlete has changed their developmental routines…and not for the better.

I’m a bit more detailed than the average coach. When I’m hired to revive a stalled career, I begin with a 300 Point Assessment of the athlete’s life skills, weekly developmental routines, primary & secondary strokes, mental skills, emotional skills, and incorporate match video analysis. Together, the athlete and I assess their confidence level, under pressure in each category. By doing so, we relaunch their progression
with a new plan.

Preparing for pressure often requires rebooting training modalities.

 

 

9)  Common Anxiety: “In real matches, I’m so stressed. All I think about is don’t lose …then I lose!”

“Internal dialogue refers to the unspoken conversations
we all have …”

Athletes are often unaware of the inner conversation they have through the course of a tennis match. Internal dialog is the conversation our ego is having with ourselves. The old Henry Ford saying is “Whether you think you can…or think you can’t…you’re usually right,” refers to one’s inner dialog. In match play, inner dialog takes place in-between points and during changeovers. This is when athletes are encouraged to program themselves towards a more constructive mindset. With practice, athletes will learn to focus on what they want versus what they don’t want.

It’s true that society programs a negative bias day in and day out. Athletes would benefit from committing to replacing the typical negative statement, “The problem is …” with “The solution is …”

Positive self-coaching revolves around a reoccurring theme of this book: Gratitude. It shifts our mentality from pessimistic to optimistic. I encourage my athletes to apply the mantra: There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here, right now!

Preparing for pressure demands the athlete control their mindset because energy flows wherever their
internal dialog goes.

COMMON PERFORMANCE ANXIETIES – Part Two

Posted on April 7, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

Common Performance Anxieties- Continued.

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4) Common Anxiety: “It’s not my strokes that fail me; it’s my mental toughness.
I just freak out!” 

“Mental toughness is often confused with emotional toughness.”

Mental toughness is often confused with emotional toughness. My definition of mental toughness in the tennis world is the understanding of strategies, tactics, and patterns. It also includes opponent profiling and problem-solving skills. My definition of emotional toughness is the ability to overcome the onslaught of performance anxieties and outcome-oriented emotional thoughts.

Solutions to match issues begin with understanding the actual cause of the problem. Is the athlete’s above statement: “I just freak-out!” A mental issue or an emotional issue? I would say it is an emotional issue. Because the correct solution is customized to the issue, I recommend digging deeper into why this particular athlete “freaks out.”  Does it involve the above mental categories, emotional categories, or a combination of the two?

It’s important to note that a seemingly unrelated component may be the root of the athletes break down. For example, if an athlete is physically unfit for serious competition, that lack of fitness can cause stroke mechanics to break down, reckless choices in shot selection, and manifest negative emotional outbursts.

Preparing for pressure involves knowing the difference between mental and emotional components.

 

 

5) Common Anxiety: “Johnny screams and throws his racket, why can’t I… ?”

“Attitude and emotions are highly contagious.”

Remember the old saying, Monkey See Monkey Do? It’s human nature for people to subconsciously model themselves after their sphere of influences. Preparing athletes for pressure include carefully navigating athletes away from bad influences. Negative parents, coaches or other athletes in their peer group can and will sabotage the strong character traits you seek.

Behavior modeling is a form of social learning. It states that most behaviors are picked up through imitating who and what they see.

Parents who are over anxious, prone to excess worry, stress, and fear are inadvertently conditioning their athletes to be a pessimistic emotional train wreck under pressure. Coaches who lack self-esteem because they couldn’t “make it” on the tour may project a deep-seated doubt in their student’s chances. Their passive-aggressive underlining message is “If I couldn’t succeed neither will you.”

Supreme confidence is essential in preparing athletes for pressure. Be aware of the behavior of those influencing your athlete.

 

 

6) Common Anxiety: “I’ve lost confidence. How do I get it back?”

“Your positive performances are imprinted in your memory, so choose to re-live them.”

A re-occurring defining characteristic of champions is their strong software skills. There are many times in an athlete’s career when they’ve lost their confidence and had to reboot their motivation.

One solution lies in choosing to focus on past successes more than past failures. Failure is no doubt part of the learning process but revisiting past successes via- match video analysis is one method used to rekindle self-esteem. If your athletes don’t already videotape tournament play and analyze (along with an experienced coach) their performance, now’s a great time to start.

Past successes leave a footprint in the brain.

Ask the athletes to remind you of previous pressure-packed situations when they performed spectacularly. Go into detail. Where did it happen? What event? What round? How did they overcome the challenges? Why were they determined to fight? What was their inner dialog? This process stops the discouragement and replaces it with the realization that they’ve done it before and they’ll do it again.

Preparing for pressure comes from realizing that you have come through under pressure before.

COMMON PERFORMANCE ANXIETIES -Part One

Posted on April 5, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, Preparing for Pressure

 

COMMON PERFORMANCE ANXIETIES SAMPLE COVER PRESSURE

Performing in an athlete’s peak performance state of mind requires morphing into character and memorizing their scripts of top patterns and emotional protocols. Parents have an essential role in this process. Uneducated tennis parents unintentionally sabotage any real chance of their children performing well when they need it the most. An important job of any tennis parent is to help prepare their athlete for pressure.

 

1) Common Anxiety: “I don’t want to play, what if I lose?”

“Devalue the event to deflate the anxiety.”

 

A common outcome-oriented mindset is that each tournament is a life or death crisis. This negative frame of mind is counterproductive and incredibly stressful. It would be wise to educate the athlete and their entourage that tournament play is only an information gathering mission. Each match should be analyzed to determine why they won points and why they lost points as a result of their competitive decisions. The objective is simple, quantify the data and learn from it.

Competition should be seen as a fun challenge, not intensely difficult or dangerous.

To prepare the athlete for pressure, decompress the situation.

 

 

2) Common Anxiety: “I hit for 10 minutes … I’m ready!”

“Prepare both hardware & software for battle!”

Pre-match preparation begins the weeks leading into the event. During this prep phase, avoid significant mechanical changes or adding brand new concepts. It takes approximately 3-6 weeks for a new motor program to override an old one. The days leading to an event are not the correct time to introduce a new skill.  Starting a new routine may cause the athlete to become confused, sore, or injured and require recovery time not available.

Morphing into a match warrior involves building confidence in their existing skills. Begin with dead ball drills focusing exclusively on neutral, offense, and defensive skill situations. Rehearse court controlling top patterns and solutions in live ball settings. Ask the athlete to incorporate plenty of complete practice matches and listen to their customized audio tapes recorded on their cell phones to visualize solutions (mental rehearsals.) The night before is a terrific time for them to organize their clothes, equipment, and their nutrition and hydration requirements.

Come game day; I recommend athletes prepare their mental and emotional components by reviewing their audio tapes, once again, the morning of the match. Complete a dynamic stretch and warm-up primary and secondary strokes with multitasking movement. (Hitting on the move instead of just standing still.) Prior to checking in, hydrate and go for a short run to reduce anxiety and warm-up the body.

Preparing for pressure requires the confidence that comes from complete preparation.

 

 

3) Common Anxiety: “Everyone says ‘JUST PLAY YOUR GAME.,’ but I don’t know what my game is?”

“Top contenders have defined their global style & most proficient patterns of play.”

Upon arrival at a coaching gig in Spain, I noticed the coaches on all ten red clay courts running the same drill. Player A hits a high & heavy ball deep to player B’s backhand. Player B retreats, contacting the ball above his/her shoulders and produces a short reply. Player A moves into no-man’s land and screeches “AHH …HEEE” and drives a winner into the open court. I asked the famous director “What’s the drill they’re all working on?” He laughed and said, we call it, “How to beat the Americans.”

Athletes should start each match with their global style of play. Whether they’re in Miami or Moscow, in the first round or finals, on hard or clay courts, starting matched by doing what they do best is an intelligent formula. Their global system is their most proficient style of play (not necessarily their favorite style). Styles include hard hitting baseliners, counterpunchers, retrievers, and net rushers.

The athlete’s global system also includes their strategic plan – which is their most proficient patterns of play. These patterns need to be designed and developed. They include: serving and return patterns, rally patterns (like the above Spanish group), short ball options, and net rushing plays.

In competition, each athlete has to know what they do best and must routinely apply their global plan and hitting the same old, boring winners over and over.

When you preach “Just go out there and play your game.” do your athletes honestly know what their game is?

Preparing for pressure consists of exposing the athlete’s strengths to the athlete.

Frank Speaks at High School Tennis Coaches Conference

Posted on April 3, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

boston hsThe two teaching professional organizations of New England, USPTA and PTR, partnered with USTA New England to host their annual High School Tennis Coaches Conference at Longfellow Tennis and Health Club on March 2nd. Despite a typical snowy New England day, 70 coaches attended to network and learn. Click Here for more information.

The faculty consisted of national and highly regarded local experts including PTR’s Chief Operating Officer, Brian Parkkonen and Frank Giampaolo.

 

The Pros and Cons of High School Tennis – Part 4

Posted on March 30, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

Bottom Line: Playing High School Tennis

It is important to reiterate that most high school age players are not as devoted as Mark. Others may be just as serious but need to decompress and simply play social tennis for a season or two. If so, I recommend playing their freshman year to get a little famous at their new school and then again their senior year after they have signed their letter of intent to play for their college.

I encourage taking some time to consider all these variables. If your child is more of a “hobbyist”, high school ball is one of the best experiences available.  However, if your child is a phenom, a compromise may be in order. It may be best to have a meeting with the coach and/or athletic director and organize a win-win schedule. Often top players and their parents can negotiate a workable schedule with the high school coach.

For elite players considering high school tennis, the following three topics should be addressed (negotiated) prior to committing to the high school season:

1) Skipping most practice session in lieu of their private sessions.

2) Scheduling to only play the tougher rival matches.

3) Playing enough matches in order to qualify for the season-ending state championships.

The Pros and Cons of High School Tennis – Part 3

Posted on March 28, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

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NEGATIVE Side to Playing High School Tennis:

 

Developing Bad Habits

After spending four months on-court with less devoted “hobbyists”, Mark develops bad work ethic issues, poor shot selection, and poor mental toughness.

Quantity versus Quality Practice Time

Most often Mark is goofing off with intermediate teammates or even assisting them with their games. While on the court, he’s even texting friends and making plans for Friday’s party.

Quality of Match Level

Mark wins 8 out of 10 matches 6-0. Winning most matches easily may be great for his ego but not for his long term development. Mark needs a competitive environment to continue to grow and improve.

College Scholarship Factor

According to top Division I  coaches speaking at my seminars, Coaches look at national rankings and ITF rankings. They don’t consider high school ball as a High-Performance Level.

The Success Formula

Remember that the success formula is spending approximately 20 hours of serious training every week for approximately 10 years. Is playing high school tennis for 4 consecutive months 4 years in a row in Mark’s developmental plan?

Rebuilding the Level

It actually takes an additional 2 months of serious physical, mental and emotional training after the high school season ends to re-establish the high-level Mark was playing before the season. Now, factor in a six-month loss in training time. As Mark chose to de-stress and have fun playing high school ball for 4 months. His rivals who have chosen to skip high school tennis have continued to improve their games as well as their rankings.

 

The Pros and Cons of High School Tennis- Part 1

Posted on March 25, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

 

 

417THE “PROS AND CONS” OF HIGH SCHOOL TENNIS

Playing high school ball is a rite of passage issue for the high-performance athlete. The benefits of high school tennis lean towards life experiences rather than excelled tennis growth. There are exceptions to any rule, so let’s take a deeper look at this interesting question.

The answer is a bit complicated. It greatly depends on your child’s level, needs, and goals. It also depends greatly on the level of the possible teammates and coaching staff at your child’s high school. Some high school teams I work with are better than most college teams.

Is High School ball right for your athlete?

Mark is a student of mine. He is an SCTA sectionally ranked player in the top 20. His national ranking is around 60. He is diligent about his tennis and spends about 20 hours of training extremely hard every week. He has reached the semis of three national events and his long term goals are to play for Peter Smith at his dream school USC.

His dad is a former player and they are certain he will play a minimum of two years on the ATP futures and challenger tours after college. At his high school, there is one other fairly serious player on the team. The high school coach is a super nice guy. He is a biology teacher. He is coaching because he used to play high school ball and enjoys the game. The coach runs an “optional” fee-based 6-week pre-season training camp. Of course, paying and attending greatly increases an athlete’s chances of playing varsity for the team. Now let’s review the positive and negative sides of high school ball for Mark and his family.

 

 

 

A New Way to Look at Strategy

Posted on March 22, 2019 by in The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

 

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

 

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A NEW WAY TO LOOK AT STRATEGY

To understand on-court control dramas, take a minute and think of a tennis match as a control contest. Each player is attempting to pull their opponent into their style of play to gain command of the match.

Three Control Dramas Seen in High-Level Tennis:

  • The Power Contest
  • The Speed Contest
  • The Patience Contest

To simplify the process, the goal of competition is to choose the contest your athlete performs best. Then formulate a plan to PULL their opponent out of their own world and into your athlete’s world. Let’s look a little deeper, yet keep it simple:

 

I have a top 300 WTA player training with me.  We have customized her game plan to hide her weaknesses and expose her strengths. Her body type and brain type play a major role in customizing her success.

Weaknesses

Ann is light in stature. Her opponents are generally much bigger and stronger. We checked off and excluded the “Power Contest” from her A game plan. This is not to say that she might use power as a B or C game plan. Ann also has focus issues. We checked off the “Patience Contest” and excluded it as her A game plan.

Strengths

Ann possesses great speed and anticipatory skills. We chose the “Speed Contest” as her A game plan. Ann is extremely intuitive. She can sense when the opponent is vulnerable and knows “How” and “When” to move in and take away the opponents recovery and decision-making time.

When Ann chooses to play her “Speed Contest”, she most often is able to move the bigger girls enough to force errors. She can also pull the Retrievers off the court to open up winning angles. When Ann chooses to get into a “boomball-power” contest with bigger, stronger girls, she loses. When she chooses to out moonball a “World Class” moonballer she loses!

 

As I mentioned earlier, this section should be a conversation opener with your athlete and their entourage.  Knowing who you are is an important step in formulating your most successful game plans.

 

 

 

How to Build Mental Toughness

Posted on March 19, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

 

How to Build Mental ToughnessFrank Giampaolo

Players who are confident have a mentally tough aura about them. They are extremely intimidating because their confidence is obvious to all. It’s evident in their body language and facial expressions.  So, how can your athlete develop radiant confidence?

First of all, your athlete starts by reading about it. Then they earn it on the practice court. Mentally tough competitors earn this impenetrable wall of confidence by preparing properly. Mentally tough players are actually much more than just mentally tough. They are mechanically sound, emotionally unflappable and physically fit enough to thrive in third set warfare. Yes, they’re actually mechanically tough, emotionally tough and physically tough.

Below is a checklist of components that need to be developed by your child’s coaches.  Remember, it is your job as the CEO to assist the coaches in raising athletic royalty.

 

Developing Mental Toughness Checklist:

Stroke Mechanics:

  • Develop reliable fundamental (primary) strokes.
  • Develop a tool belt of secondary strokes.

Mental:

  • Organize & rehearse your child’s top 7 patterns of play. (Generic Strategies)
  • Rehearse patterns of play used to pull different styles of opponents out of their game.(Stylistic Strategies)

Emotional:

  • Organize their between point rituals & changeover rituals (both internal & external.)
  • Pre-set protocols to handle performance anxieties.

Athleticism:

  • Build the speed, agility and cardiovascular requirements needed to endure two separate three-set matches a day.
  • Build the strength and stamina required to close out 6 matches in a 3-5 day (64 player draw) event.

 

My students have won close to 100 National titles to date. Each one had a parent and an entourage of great coaches who were very involved in organizing and implementing their developmental plan. Most often, these champs worked their deliberate, customized organizational plan for 2-3 months before becoming National Champions.

 

Special Note to Parents: A partially committed parent is simply a hobbyist. That’s fine – tennis is an incredible hobby that teaches many life lessons. However, a hobbyist parent should be satisfied with raising a hobbyist tennis player and not expect champion results. In today’s game, it’s unfair to expect your child to become a champion without parental commitment.