How to help thinking whilst playing for a junior?

[dannyslicer]

i know when i get behind in a set, i go into "shot tolerance mode"... ie. i'm gonna make you hit many balls, and force you to take more chances to finish me out...

Have you every experienced the opposite?
Sometimes, you're not hitting hard enough, and your balls are sitters for him, so you lose the set
Resolution is to play more aggressively in the 2nd set, and take initiative and put pressure on his shots

 

[nyta2]

Have you every experienced the opposite?
Sometimes, you're not hitting hard enough, and your balls are sitters for him, so you lose the set
Resolution is to play more aggressively in the 2nd set, and take initiative and put pressure on his shots

true, someitmes need to be more aggresisve if opponent is in consistency-mode.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

@Tacoeater2011

OP, why are you playing for a junior? Are they unwilling or incapable of playing for themselves?

 

[dannyslicer]

true, someitmes need to be more aggresisve if opponent is in consistency-mode.

Or if opponent is just punishing your moderate gear pace. This is often more apparent with serving. I typically serve all kicks but when opponent starts slapping them back at my feet or for winner, then its time to start serving harder firsts. That's why a stronger player will reveal your best tennis, on the edge of ability

 

[Ash_Smith]

Hi all,

My 12yo daughter is starting to really hit her strides with tennis, and is loving playing, watching and breathing it!

We have hit a interesting challenge to overcome, and wondering if you lovely people would have any advice?

Situation is that she is putting pressure on herself during a match, especially with a lead. Most recently she has been leading a few matches 5 to 0 or 1 in first set, then starts to really fade away and only just takes the first set, then loses 2nd set, but then takes tie break/3rd set easily. Its not the other player playing better by the way haha.

We don't push her to win, and only focus on her inputs that she can control and have a good match. Its painful to watch her suffer when she fades off so far. So I have been asking her to take note of what's going on in her mind when in these situations.

She has said today, after another similar match, that she keeps reminding herself that it doesn't matter if she wins or loses, but that it was being so far in front built the pressure. In the tie break she said that she didn't get nervous until she got to 8 to 1 up. Then started hitting bad errors. She won 10 to 6. Its like the finishing part is the hard part?

Sorry for the long post and detail, personally it's the opposite for me. Any advice that could be useful for her and I? Thanks!

Bit late to the party and haven't read all the responses, so apologies if I'm repeating stuff that's already been said, but...

Starting point - spend some time understanding where her thoughts go in those moments. Most frequently our thoughts go "back to the future" i.e we think about what has already happened (and the potential consequences) or what could happen (and the potential consequences). Neither is ideal, because they both prevent us from focusing on "the now".

Once you/she understands where her thoughts go, you can start to build a routine to help her bring her thoughts back to "now" - lots of options, breathing techniques like box breathing, adjust the strings, feel the texture of the court surface etc etc - the key is to be fully present whilst she's doing it, to really feel it and recognise it. This can help bring her back to now.

Later you can work on acceptance of the thoughts, because whatever she is thinking is true, it's just probably not helpful, and then further reframing the thought to make into one which is performance helpful. Recognition and acceptance are the key first steps though.

 

[Cyclone]

lol, i sometimes have this issue (closing out matches)... for me i think it's about choosing the right gear.
sometiems if i'm so far up, my opponent will change gears from say 4th to 2nd or 3rd (ie. to make me earn it)... so i have to choose the right gear to match the ball being given to me...
i might have gone up in score by playing 3rd gear, and maybe they were over hitting, then all of sudden, then down shift to 2nd or 3rd, i'm not longer:

(a) getting easy UFE
(b) the 4th gear pace allowing me to be more conservative in my swing
(c) forcing me to hit more balls (eg. instead of winning in 3 shots, maybe now we're going to 4-5 shots)
etc...

takeaway from this is that i need to make sure i'm practicing hitting shots with consistency, depth, placement.. using all gears... and being able to execute the gears out of order...
(eg. moonball, high&heavy, short ball drive, slice, etc...)

i know when i get behind in a set, i go into "shot tolerance mode"... ie. i'm gonna make you hit many balls, and force you to take more chances to finish me out...

when folks do that to me, and i recognize they're in "consistency mode",... i start counting how many shots i can hit in a row... and make it about the mini goal of "how high can i go" rather than trying to finish out the set... and rely on my practice to recognize the right ball to attack (if and when i get it - eg. mid court, shoulder height, with me in balance)..

I like your idea of changing the game you're playing (how high can I go rather than win the set), mental reframes like that seem super helpful because they give you something process-oriented to focus on. I'll try this out when playing, thanks

 

[nyta2]

I like your idea of changing the game you're playing (how high can I go rather than win the set), mental reframes like that seem super helpful because they give you something process-oriented to focus on. I'll try this out when playing, thanks

it's helped me come back from a 0-5, 15-40 deficit... to win 1-6, 6-3, 1-0tb

 

[dannyslicer]

true, someitmes need to be more aggresisve if opponent is in consistency-mode.

 

[austintennis2005]

Is it possible your daughter may feel ‘sorry’ in a sense for the other girl and wants to subconsciously or consciously ‘let’ her win a few games? Competition is tough and some kids may not have that killer instinct