Tennis Mental Toughness

[DakotaM]

Hello, I'm currently writing a research paper about mental toughness and how it pertains to tennis. The direction I'm going is to determine whether it is possible to train mental toughness. I was wondering if anybody had any useful links or book recommendations they could show me. I also wanted to know what kind of mental training the top players use, if they do it at all.

I would be very grateful for any help!

Thank you.

 

[Ash_Smith]

It depends how you define "mental toughness"?

There a many, many resources and books out there. Psychology is an essential part of elite performance, you only have to look at the credit given by British Cycling athletes and coaches to Dr Steve Peters (his book The Chimp Paradox is hard work but excellent). We have had various sports psychologists and psychiatrists work with our programme athletes, including Anne Quinn (http://www.extraordinaryathlete.com).

A quick google should give you more resources you can shake a stick at!

 

[fuzz nation]

I'm 47 and have coached high school players, etc. for several years. There are a number of books out there that our pals here have enjoyed, so I'll offer the one that's been the stand-out for me; Vic Braden's Mental Tennis. It's full of stuff I wish I'd learned when I was a kid and more than just one or two of my pals (and students) have really enjoyed it, too.

Great topic for a paper, by the way! Mental toughness is an intangible that definitely boils down to more than just one thing, but is also as essential to success in tennis as a decent set of strokes. The actual definition may require a paper or even a book to write it all down.

It seems to me that mental toughness is very much about consciously deciding what to pay attention to out there. It's easy to see a player mentally fall apart when they decide to be distracted by something that could easily be ignored by most of us. That mental check-out isn't hard to spot if you watch for it.

The "tough" player is the one who stays inside his or her own head and doesn't get mentally derailed, even when an opponent gets confrontational over line calls, etc. That toughness could mean having the awareness to disregard potential distractions, either external (opponent, wind) or internal (fatigue, etc.).

 

[TennisCJC]

Dr Allen Fox's Winning the Mental Game is an excellent book. He played pro during 60s and coached Pepperdine Univ.

 

[jakeytennis]

The inner game of tennis is the only book u need to read

 

[Ash_Smith]

^^^The inner game of tennis is a reasonable read, but contains too much cod-philosophy to be any real use to an elite level athlete. At a development level it contains some useful tips, but for top level performance you are not only looking at building mental robustness, but also coping strategies - the inner game (at least to my recollection) doesn't address anything in such detail.

So, to satisfy the OP's criteria - it is definitely not the only book he/she needs to read.

Cheers

 

[tommyfr]

Mental toughness is a concept that usually includes:

- concentration during match, focus
- being able to analyze the match enough while ongoing and being able to change gameplan if present game doesnt work
- management of pressure (nervousness, body tightness) before and during match
- never giving up, even if behind, will to win
- trust in yourself, courage and confidence during match, go for it at a big points
- being able to handle wins and esp losses
- being able to manage time between points
- being able to step up your game when game is close and player physically tired
- mental toughness can be shown and observed also by body language

It can also being referred to strong will at practice to not give up, continually wanting to improve, repeat on and on and on.

 

[tommyfr]

As for me, I think the "Inner games of tennis" is a great book also for elite players on this subject, especially concentration, focus, trusting yourself, get into the zone.

In the book author Tim Gallwey describes some exercises in order to improve inner skills.

Tennis coach Heath Waters have a couple of interesting feeding drills that is related to developing mental toughness.

 

[ryohazuki222]

It is possible to train. No citations, but just learned through experience.

Picking up and playing golf regularly helped mental toughness on the tennis court quite a bit. Combination of learning something new which I clearly sucked at in relation to tennis (made tennis feel much easier = less mental pressure) plus the focus needed over 4 hours to play a round of golf in which every single shot counts and the player has complete control over.

Not helpful in the citations aspect. But a first-hand account that proves it is possible to get a "mind workout" and improve mental toughness.