One of my favorite illustrations Jennifer created for my book Gift of Tennis is a note pad with good advice for the mental aspect of tennis: laugh it off, focus, be supportive, take a stand, and DON’T THINK!
If you find you’re not performing well on the court some day, maybe you’re too much in your head, overthinking each shot. One of my students this week found that she did poorly at the baseline but wonderfully well at net. When I asked her what made the difference, she said, I guess I’m not thinking when I’m up at net. When she took that court thought back to the baseline, her groundstrokes were transformed into beautiful arced deep shots that looked completely different from the ones she had executed earlier when she was stuck in her head.
Try this solution if you find your strokes are a bit off. Use your breath to draw your focus away from technical thoughts and just let your body do what it’s practiced so many times before. You might be amazed with the result.
