How your nervousness blocks you
What if it gets really hairy? Do you have your nerves under control? Tennis insider Marco Kühn reveals how you can keep calm in difficult situations.
by Marco Kühn
last edit: May 13, 2020, 07:42 am
Are you just pushing your forehand in the tournament into the T field due to your nervousness?
And: do you get a trembling arm if you have to serve against a weaker opponent at 4: 4 in the first set? The momentum could flop onto your opponent's side and never find its way back to you.
The problem is not your opponent or the history of your match.
You block yourself in the head because you are always talking worse than you actually are. Your thoughts only revolve around your backhand, which is your absolute weak point. Your thoughts become brushes that paint the worst scenario on the clay court that you can imagine.
As a mental trainer, I have spoken to countless players from almost all performance and age groups in recent years. The topic of nervousness does not affect everyone, but many players. And as in the seventh grade in history lessons, knowledge was power.
In this article, I'm going to give you three steps on the racket on how you can completely think of yourself as defeat. These steps should show you how not to do it. If you find yourself soon in one of these steps, start right there, take a deep breath and concentrate on what you have an influence on. This can be your next return, your next serve or your next clever move in the rallies.
You have no influence on your nervousness. This is there, it will never go away and there is no secret potion that will ever wash it away. You have to learn to deal productively with your nervousness. That is your goal. And this is also the first step to think comfortably about defeat.
# 1 You fight your nervousness
Do you know our ancestors? They had to go looking for food with spear and courage. At that time there was no delivery service from Burger King. Accordingly, we are poorly trained in terms of nervousness and fear these days. The opposite rules today. We get nervous when the van is five minutes late.
In contrast, our ancestors had to survive real dangers in order to eat. Her nervousness helped them. When a bear reared up and hissed in front of them with its huge paws, their nervousness was the best tool to make the right decisions.
Our ancestors then came into what we call today, focus:
"Do I run left into the bushes to attack from the side?"
Or:
"Would I rather climb the tree to wait for the situation?"
They came into the action. Action. Zack. Boom!
And what do we do today when we're nervous? We let the bear eat us. We just want to throw this great tool that our ancestors used to survive in the bushes.
Is this crazy That's crazy.
# 2 You can only lose
You are usually nervous when you play against a weaker player on paper. If it gets tight in the match, nothing works in the head and on the court.
The symptoms are:
- play acute in the T-field
- cramped serve
- many Unforced Error
Your inner mantra says: "Jeez, if I am honest and look at the faces on the side of the field ... I can only lose! Even if I win, they will think: 'How can he play against such a SO?' "There is a very important message in such a train of thought. This entire statement has a crucial core that your subconscious mind memorises very precisely. This core is what your mind is trying to do.
The essence is: "I can only lose ..."
Many players, I hope you don't, underestimate the power of soliloquy in your head. It is precisely these thoughts that strongly influence your performance on the court. Do you think Roger Federer thinks like this when he has lost the first sentence to an underdog: "Oh dear, Mirka, she is laying her forehead on her forearms again and rolling her eyes ... What can she think? ... Oh man ... I can only lose! I better stop playing tennis ... "
I don't know Roger personally and he always looks pretty cool. But I hit my shin three times with my Yonex racket, if he doesn't talk to himself in a match non-stop, confident, constructive and motivating.
Use the Disney technique (a mental training technique) and paint a picture of yourself in your mind when you are really nervous on the pitch and try to stand up for your serve.
How do you affect yourself Confident? Building? Motivating?
If not, you now know what you can work on.
# 3 The opponent is growing beyond himself
You are sensitive when you hardly want to go back to the forehand you feared in your home club with nervousness.
You react extremely sensitively to every good blow from your opponent. This can go so far that two foreheads played with proper topspin give you the feeling that you are playing against the young version of Rafael Nadal.
As if out of nowhere, like a backhand slice slipped two centimeters over the edge of the net by magic, you have an explanation for your incredible nervousness. You caught an opponent who will be playing his best tennis today.
What happens then?
Do your opponent's good strokes relax you? Are you motivated and in focus, like our ancestors back when they were standing in front of the big, brown and hungry bear?
Probably not. You mentally buckle even more. Your pulse is racing, although you only moved on the spot and played a short forehand. And again nothing happened on the square. Everything took place in your thoughts. You managed to let yourself be completely absorbed by your nervousness.
Accept your nervousness for what it is: a great tool that wants to help you. The more you want to fight them, the worse you will play.