How Can You Prepare Mentally For Serves?
Are you getting beat on your return of serve by getting aced by slower serves?
In this week’s tennis psychology podcast, mental game of tennis expert, Dr. Patrick Cohn answers a question from Tony about getting aced by slower serves and how this is so frustrating.
Here’s what Tony had to say about his game:
“I keep getting aced by slower serves which is so irritating. Someone hits a banger and I’ll get my racquet on it. someone dinks one over and I’ll get it back easily. But when someone hits a medium paced serve into a corner, it beats me clean, I don’t even move! Strange because I can get my racquet to slow and even fast balls but medium paced serves catch me off guard. How can I get better with this? what’s breaking down mentally?”
COHN: Tony, when your opponent hits a fast serve, you only have time to siply react. When your opponent hits a slower serve, you have plenty of time to move in and take the serve.
COHN: What I think might be operating here mentally, from the mental perspective for you, is that you might be overthinking what to do with the medium paced serve.
COHN: In other words, you have just enough time to overthink it, but really not enough time to maybe move in and play it like second slower serve.
COHN: With that said, how can you prepare mentally?
Listen to the audio below to hear what Dr. Cohn suggests to do on the return of serve:
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- How Elite Tennis Players Develop Their Skills
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