Can this teen girl mindset change?

T

Tennismom100

New User
I have a 14 year old girl who was on fire at nationals last year, but over the last six months all of a sudden she will sometimes do 20 plus double faults in a match. She has had to break everyone’s serve to win. She has begun losing to people that she would normally win against. Her self pressure is immense. She also takes about four games to get into the match. She has had many bad losses over the last two months- in many of those losses there was an expectation she would win. She now is feeling she can’t pull herself back up. She said she isn’t anxious and technically she is great for her age. She is aware her ranking is dropping to average, which is adding more pressure (she has worked hard on it). She does seem to be regressing.

Has anyone seen this in a junior before- eg paralysing start and 20 plus double faults? Can things turn around for her? She was doing a lot of mind work last year, and has just stated again, but hasn’t seen a change yet. Every loss is making her lose more confidence.

Thank you, and any thoughts would be appreciated.
 
Tennismom100 said:
I have a 14 year old girl who was on fire at nationals last year, but over the last six months all of a sudden she will sometimes do 20 plus double faults in a match. She has had to break everyone’s serve to win. She has begun losing to people that she would normally win against. Her self pressure is immense. She also takes about four games to get into the match. She has had many bad losses over the last two months- in many of those losses there was an expectation she would win. She now is feeling she can’t pull herself back up. She said she isn’t anxious and technically she is great for her age. She is aware her ranking is dropping to average, which is adding more pressure (she has worked hard on it). She does seem to be regressing.

Has anyone seen this in a junior before- eg paralysing start and 20 plus double faults? Can things turn around for her? She was doing a lot of mind work last year, and has just stated again, but hasn’t seen a change yet. Every loss is making her lose more confidence.

Thank you, and any thoughts would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Shoot - just tell her she's pretty much playing WTA tennis :D Seriously, this happens to virtually every player - event the greats - from time to time. You have some bad games, doubt grows, your confidence sinks.

Few ideas:
- Perhaps take a little time off?
- Have her back up and play easier opponents for a couple months to get her groove back.
- OR, perhaps ops she is expected to beat is causing her extra pressure. very common. in that case, take her up a notch and have her play ops she'll will have a very hard time beating. paradoxically can take the pressure off.

Usually kids will work their way outta it, try not to overthink or overemphasize it. It's one more thing for aspiring juniors to have to figure out and go through.
 
Last edited:
Tennismom100 said:
I have a 14 year old girl who was on fire at nationals last year, but over the last six months all of a sudden she will sometimes do 20 plus double faults in a match. She has had to break everyone’s serve to win. She has begun losing to people that she would normally win against. Her self pressure is immense. She also takes about four games to get into the match. She has had many bad losses over the last two months- in many of those losses there was an expectation she would win. She now is feeling she can’t pull herself back up. She said she isn’t anxious and technically she is great for her age. She is aware her ranking is dropping to average, which is adding more pressure (she has worked hard on it). She does seem to be regressing.

Has anyone seen this in a junior before- eg paralysing start and 20 plus double faults? Can things turn around for her? She was doing a lot of mind work last year, and has just stated again, but hasn’t seen a change yet. Every loss is making her lose more confidence.

Thank you, and any thoughts would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Might not be mental

If she's had either a growth spurt or just had a change in strength it can put your sequence out of kilter. That can then lead to confidence and other issues as a result rather than a cause.

It's documented in golf monty lost weight and it mucked up his timing so he had to put the weight back on.

You could potentially argue this issue may have affected faa and gauff (edit who both had serve issues) who were younger players growing and getting stronger naturally and potentially zverev whose serve deserted him as he concentrated on putting on lower body muscle mass and not upper body.

Certainly they are all time related and therefore a possibility.
 
The farther one advances in a tournament, the higher one advances in rankings,
the more elite the tournament, the more difficult it is to win. There are pressures,
some internal, some imposed from outside.

Look at pro players. Over a period of time, why is it that the same few win the
big events an hold the number one spot for weeks on end? So, even among pros,
there are great players that stall out a number 10, number 30, even 80...

Likewise, at much lower levels, people become stuck at 3.5 or 4.0 because
there is a give and take- people rise to a level where they feel comfortable
with the effort they put into the game, the time available to them, the money
paid out, the physical effort required and so forth- all opposed to
the fun, personal, satisfaction, camaraderie and so on.

It is very possible that this 14 year old girl has reached a plateau beyond
which it requires more, more effort, more skill, more stamina, more determination-
all balanced against- what?

If you can figure out what that "what" is, it may give her incentive to work
harder, train longer, endure more pain, overcome disappointment...

Not every 14 year old wants to cope with the pressures to continue, ever advancing,
traveling, working, testing limits. So, I suggest asking the girl what she really wants,
and have her think about what it will take to achieve that.
 
Flawed toss or serving mechanics coming into play? Erratic toss or low elbow position during trophy phase can result in DFs. Tossing arm vertical for trophy phase? This can help with referencing the ball toss location. This should help with swing path & swing timing

Sleeping well at night? A lack of a decent night of sleep was usually the primary culprit with tossing / serving issues for me.

The thing that cured slow starts for me was to engage in 10-15 minutes of cardio shortly before competition. Got my heart rate up into my aerobic zone so that I could more readily tap into my energy systems. It also helped to minimize the jitters This worked quite well for both tennis & badminton competition for me.

Visualization? How good is she as visualizing where she wants her toss or where she wants to place he serve?

Meditation &/or breathing exercises to calm the nerves and "quiet" an overactive "judgemental" mind.
 
tendency said:
Shoot - just tell her she's pretty much playing WTA tennis :D Seriously, this happens to virtually every player - event the greats - from time to time. You have some bad games, doubt grows, your confidence sinks.

Few ideas:
- Perhaps take a little time off?
- Have her back up and play easier opponents for a couple months to get her groove back.
- OR, perhaps ops she is expected to beat is causing her extra pressure. very common. in that case, take her up a notch and have her play ops she'll will have a very hard time beating. paradoxically can take the pressure off.

Usually kids will work their way outta it, try not to overthink or overemphasize it. It's one more thing for aspiring juniors to have to figure out and go through.
Click to expand...
Thank you! Love those suggestions and comments
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
Flawed toss or serving mechanics coming into play? Erratic toss or low elbow position during trophy phase can result in DFs. Tossing arm vertical for trophy phase? This can help with referencing the ball toss location. This should help with swing path & swing timing

Sleeping well at night? A lack of a decent night of sleep was usually the primary culprit with tossing / serving issues for me.

The thing that cured slow starts for me was to engage in 10-15 minutes of cardio shortly before competition. Got my heart rate up into my aerobic zone so that I could more readily tap into my energy systems. It also helped to minimize the jitters This worked quite well for both tennis & badminton competition for me.

Visualization? How good is she as visualizing where she wants her toss or where she wants to place he serve?

Meditation &/or breathing exercises to calm the nerves and "quiet" an overactive "judgemental" mind.
Click to expand...
Thank you. Great comments!
 
Tennismom100 said:
I have a 14 year old girl who was on fire at nationals last year, but over the last six months all of a sudden she will sometimes do 20 plus double faults in a match. She has had to break everyone’s serve to win. She has begun losing to people that she would normally win against. Her self pressure is immense. She also takes about four games to get into the match. She has had many bad losses over the last two months- in many of those losses there was an expectation she would win. She now is feeling she can’t pull herself back up. She said she isn’t anxious and technically she is great for her age. She is aware her ranking is dropping to average, which is adding more pressure (she has worked hard on it). She does seem to be regressing.

Has anyone seen this in a junior before- eg paralysing start and 20 plus double faults? Can things turn around for her? She was doing a lot of mind work last year, and has just stated again, but hasn’t seen a change yet. Every loss is making her lose more confidence.

Thank you, and any thoughts would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Seems almost all mental. Perfectionism and high self-expectations and/or perceived external expectations are a deadly combo.

I'd suggest taking a gander at these [plenty of similar material out there]:

[Patrick Cohn has a series]

 
Tennismom100 said:
I have a 14 year old girl who was on fire at nationals last year, but over the last six months all of a sudden she will sometimes do 20 plus double faults in a match. She has had to break everyone’s serve to win. She has begun losing to people that she would normally win against. Her self pressure is immense. She also takes about four games to get into the match. She has had many bad losses over the last two months- in many of those losses there was an expectation she would win. She now is feeling she can’t pull herself back up. She said she isn’t anxious and technically she is great for her age. She is aware her ranking is dropping to average, which is adding more pressure (she has worked hard on it). She does seem to be regressing.

Has anyone seen this in a junior before- eg paralysing start and 20 plus double faults? Can things turn around for her? She was doing a lot of mind work last year, and has just stated again, but hasn’t seen a change yet. Every loss is making her lose more confidence.

Thank you, and any thoughts would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
 
Seeing your account name I assume this girl is your daughter, not someone that you coach. So I wonder what your daughter's coach or coaches think the problems are, and particularly the double fault problem?
 
Friedman Whip said:
Seeing your account name I assume this girl is your daughter, not someone that you coach. So I wonder what your daughter's coach or coaches think the problems are, and particularly the double fault problem?
Click to expand...
Her coaches say that it is mental and one has just organised a sports psych, but she has only done a couple of sessions. Her performance has regressed even further in this time.
She serves perfectly in practice matches (beating utr 8s), ground strokes very strong, but she is just becoming paralysed in matches. Up until two months ago she managed the matches by playing a perfect game, breaking her opponent’s serve every time to win the match, but now that is not good enough as it seems to be infiltrating how she moves which is slower and less aggressive. As she seems to be getting worse I question whether others have gone through something similar and persisted successfully.
 
Tennismom100 said:
I have a 14 year old girl who was on fire at nationals last year, but over the last six months all of a sudden she will sometimes do 20 plus double faults in a match. She has had to break everyone’s serve to win. She has begun losing to people that she would normally win against. Her self pressure is immense. She also takes about four games to get into the match. She has had many bad losses over the last two months- in many of those losses there was an expectation she would win. She now is feeling she can’t pull herself back up. She said she isn’t anxious and technically she is great for her age. She is aware her ranking is dropping to average, which is adding more pressure (she has worked hard on it). She does seem to be regressing.

Has anyone seen this in a junior before- eg paralysing start and 20 plus double faults? Can things turn around for her? She was doing a lot of mind work last year, and has just stated again, but hasn’t seen a change yet. Every loss is making her lose more confidence.

Thank you, and any thoughts would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
14y nationals is a really high level... guessing utr9+?
20dbls/paralyzing starts... happens to me, and adults!
but notably, see sabalenka: https://www.tennismajors.com/stats-...-428-double-faults-but-perseveres-648581.html,... watch some of the vids. she had serious yips... from what i read, it's probably a combination of technique & mental (but poor technique can exacerbate mental/confidence)... that said, she has made great strides in her serve.
for me, i had to learn a heavy spin serve (topspin&kicker), and just use that for first & second, to eliminate doubles... i wasn't hitting winners, but at least i wasn't giving away points... and at best starting at neutral if i can hit away from the strength of my opponents.
pressure... "expectations to win" are brutal... for me, i need to humble myself and presume everyone is better, just to keep myself focused in the moment, on doing the work i need to do to play well (moving, focus, etc...)... the minute i say "i should be crushing this guy/girl", for me, my game falls apart. always have to remind myself that winning/losing is not in my control, but doing the little things in the moment to play my best shot, is in my control.
try to understand where the pressure coming from? her ranking drop? but why is that important? does she think it will it affect where she might play college? will folks think less of her if she loses? will she lose the kudos she current gets from coaches/parents/friends/etc...? etc... understanding where her pressure is coming from can allow her to realize that alot of those things don't really matter, and allow her to play more freely without care of winning/losing. why is there an "expectation to win", and who is saying that?... to me that expectation is deadly to my mental game.
other juniors and parents of... will strive to have some other side activity so that tennis is not the sole focus. common to go through plateaus or even "progression dip" (eg. working on something new, but not quite yet owned) - and lose (not to mention, opponnents are always getting better (regardless of what their utr says at the time).... always good to have something else to fall back on (area of accomplishment/success) for a teen's ego/identity when things on aren't going as planned on the court.
"taking four games to get into a match"... in brad gilbert's book, "winning ugly" he highlights the importance of allowing yourself to get into a rhythm of a match... he cites a story of playing lendl, where lendl was hitting "normal" for about 4-8 games... before he "turned on god mode"...

gl
 
Thank you. They are such helpful points. Great suggestion about serve type, that will definitely help.

Expectations of previous achievements, level and college are all playing in her mind. She also puts a lot of academic pressure on herself.

We have always been mindful of the pressure of one sport, so she still competes in two other sports, just decided a year ago to focus more on tennis, so has much less time to train for the others.

Great to read that point on Lendl. Her coach did tell her Serena used to do that too. I don’t know the stats to know if that is right. It does impact UTR though taking that long to get into a match.
 
I agree with @nyta2 . She should learn a heavy kick or topspin/slice serve if she has not yet. It provides a much bigger margin for error/double faults.

Even though my toss sucks, because I hit a kick serve or topspice for my second serve, I rarely double fault much unless I am being aggressive aiming for the corners. My 2nd serves usually clears the net by a lot and also lands well inside the service line.

Under pressure I always try to focus on swinging fast in an up-and-out direction, trusting that the spin will bring the ball in the service box.
 
Tennismom100 said:
Thank you. They are such helpful points. Great suggestion about serve type, that will definitely help.

Expectations of previous achievements, level and college are all playing in her mind. She also puts a lot of academic pressure on herself.

We have always been mindful of the pressure of one sport, so she still competes in two other sports, just decided a year ago to focus more on tennis, so has much less time to train for the others.

Great to read that point on Lendl. Her coach did tell her Serena used to do that too. I don’t know the stats to know if that is right. It does impact UTR though taking that long to get into a match.
Click to expand...
Tell her she doesn't need to worry about school quite as much as her peers assuming her tennis level will be high enough to get recruited by the kinds of colleges she is interested in. I mean she should care but she doesn't mentally need to invest the same level of panic.
 
Tennismom100 said:
Thank you. They are such helpful points. Great suggestion about serve type, that will definitely help.

Expectations of previous achievements, level and college are all playing in her mind. She also puts a lot of academic pressure on herself.

We have always been mindful of the pressure of one sport, so she still competes in two other sports, just decided a year ago to focus more on tennis, so has much less time to train for the others.

Great to read that point on Lendl. Her coach did tell her Serena used to do that too. I don’t know the stats to know if that is right. It does impact UTR though taking that long to get into a match.
Click to expand...
my daughter puts alot of academic pressure on herself too (currently prepping for ACT/SAT)... partially because her peers are scoring very high as well... so it's both good (pushing her to achieve more), and bad (pressure of not performing can be debilitating)... not sure what the right balance of "pushing beyond comfort zone" is healthy (i'm in the mindset of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" (then again academic suicides are on the bad end of that spectrum)

i find that competing in domains that are similar (sports), can contribute to the same kind of pressure... personally i encourage my kids to do something completely different (eg. sports vs arts)... that said, i don't have kids playing high level athletics like your daughter is doing. but i can see doing an individual sport and a team sport can diversify that pressure.

regarding utr, and "easing into a match"... i think utr is a crutch in that instance... yes, winning 6-2 is better than winning 6-4 from a utr perspective,... but only from a micro improvement standpoint... like going from 9.0 to 9.1... but i presume he her coach is focusing on the bigger broader picture of how to improve her game from 9 to 10.5 (which, in the short term, may even cause her to *drop* down to 8.5, while developing the tools to get to 10+)... that's how i've approached my own improvement (that said i'm only a utr7+), and that's what my coaches have always emphasized (do you want to go from 7 to 7.1, or do you want to go from 7 to 9?).

side note, the easing into the match thing, is usually only the first set... and is often why, i'm guessing, you often see scores in the pros, like 7-6, 6-1, especially combined with the first set being used to "figure out the opponent" (along with establishing my own rhythm&timing.
 
optic yellow said:
Tell her she doesn't need to worry about school quite as much as her peers assuming her tennis level will be high enough to get recruited by the kinds of colleges she is interested in. I mean she should care but she doesn't mentally need to invest the same level of panic.
Click to expand...
i'm gonna go on a limb, and say that her peer group is very high performing (ie. national level athletes, with comparable academic success), likely with sights on the same d1/ivy level schools.... but to your point, how do you separate goals from the day2day results, as we know that allowing the pressure/stress to build, has a negative impact on performance.
 
Tennismom100 said:
I have a 14 year old girl who was on fire at nationals last year, but over the last six months all of a sudden she will sometimes do 20 plus double faults in a match. She has had to break everyone’s serve to win. She has begun losing to people that she would normally win against. Her self pressure is immense. She also takes about four games to get into the match. She has had many bad losses over the last two months- in many of those losses there was an expectation she would win. She now is feeling she can’t pull herself back up. She said she isn’t anxious and technically she is great for her age. She is aware her ranking is dropping to average, which is adding more pressure (she has worked hard on it). She does seem to be regressing.

Has anyone seen this in a junior before- eg paralysing start and 20 plus double faults? Can things turn around for her? She was doing a lot of mind work last year, and has just stated again, but hasn’t seen a change yet. Every loss is making her lose more confidence.

Thank you, and any thoughts would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
hard to diagnose without visual. Do you have videos of her serving?

The number of things that can go wrong will vary. It's hard to judge whether she changed her toss vs contact issue, etc. It's inconclusive to point to 1 or 2 things right away. The only glaring problem is she's losing confidence because she cant hold, which puts a lot more pressure to break on her return. Fixing the serve will alleviate the core of the pressure she's playing with.
 
Tennismom100 said:
I have a 14 year old girl who was on fire at nationals last year, but over the last six months all of a sudden she will sometimes do 20 plus double faults in a match. She has had to break everyone’s serve to win. She has begun losing to people that she would normally win against. Her self pressure is immense. She also takes about four games to get into the match. She has had many bad losses over the last two months- in many of those losses there was an expectation she would win. She now is feeling she can’t pull herself back up. She said she isn’t anxious and technically she is great for her age. She is aware her ranking is dropping to average, which is adding more pressure (she has worked hard on it). She does seem to be regressing.

Has anyone seen this in a junior before- eg paralysing start and 20 plus double faults? Can things turn around for her? She was doing a lot of mind work last year, and has just stated again, but hasn’t seen a change yet. Every loss is making her lose more confidence.

Thank you, and any thoughts would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

This may be of interest: https://apnews.com/article/teens-gi...fccb81e1fa9aca30fcdf?utm_source=pocket-newtab

'teen girls in crisis..' article. Interesting stuff kids have to deal with these days.
 
Seems like she is shortening her viewpoint. That is focusing on the next serve, the next point and this match instead of putting the match in it's proper perspective as merely one step in her progression as a tennis player in her tennis career.
 
nyta2 said:
i'm gonna go on a limb, and say that her peer group is very high performing (ie. national level athletes, with comparable academic success), likely with sights on the same d1/ivy level schools.... but to your point, how do you separate goals from the day2day results, as we know that allowing the pressure/stress to build, has a negative impact on performance.
Click to expand...
I guess that's true it could just be offloading the academics performance pressure onto tennis.
 
Try some simple thoughts or actions she can do during a match. For example - she could try to choke up on her racket when she's serving. it makes it easier to control. She could also try serving underhand, but that never worked for me. It does for some people though. Choking up is pretty foolproof. Good luck - tennis is a lifetime journey of ups and downs. But it is all worth it. Almost all of my lifelong friends I met through tennis.
 
dannyslicer said:
Tell her to read Fooled by Randomness.
Seriously

Click to expand...

Love the book and anything Taleb writes.

But how is his central thesis [that seemingly causal things could be random] relevant to this teen's plight? Are you suggesting that her previous success was random and now she's just reverting to the mean? Because that's not what appears to be happening, at least to me.

I can appear to be a trading wizard by flipping a coin and getting lucky. I just have to be directionally correct. And I don't have to have any skill to place a bet. Much different in an endeavor like tennis or any other skill-based activity.
 
S&V-not_dead_yet said:
Love the book and anything Taleb writes.

But how is his central thesis [that seemingly causal things could be random] relevant to this teen's plight? Are you suggesting that her previous success was random and now she's just reverting to the mean? Because that's not what appears to be happening, at least to me.

I can appear to be a trading wizard by flipping a coin and getting lucky. I just have to be directionally correct. And I don't have to have any skill to place a bet. Much different in an endeavor like tennis or any other skill-based activity.
Click to expand...
hehe, was about to post something similar.
 
dannyslicer said:
20 double faults are the anomaly.
She will revert to mean.
OP is likely citing an outlier.

Goran and Aryna are in good company
Click to expand...

If so, then I mis-interpreted what he was implying.

Not sure it will help the teen though ["Don't worry honey that you just lost to someone 80 places below you. Mean reversion will kick in any minute now!"].
 
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