How Do You Continue to Battle During a Tight Match?
When you are in a tiebreak during the final set, what, if anything, keeps your head in the game?
Late-set play is significantly impacted by your mental game and is an area of performance that tennis players often neglect.
From our Mental Game of Tennis Needs Survey, a tennis player sent us the following: “Why does my performance in tennis fluctuate so much in close matches? In competitive matches, I feel great starting. However, in the final set of tied matches, I usually worry about losing and become demotivated.”
Staying motivated through a match is determined by your “Why.” Why do you want to win?
If you want to win to please your coach or make your parents proud, you will become overly nervous and make more mistakes when the match is on the line.
As you lose more and more points, you will start to feel helpless, as if there is nothing you can do to turn the match around.
This is the point when tennis players lose their motivation.
However, if you change your “Why,” you can change your game. Ultimately, athletes play their best when they compete for themselves.
In other words, “your why” should be YOUR why.”
Changing your “Why” starts with three questions:
- What do YOU want from tennis?
- What does success look like to YOU?
- What are YOUR goals?
Your motivation is tied to your “Why,” and your why is something within your control that you can change any time you want.
When you clarify what YOU want and compete for yourself, you can sustain motivation for longer periods instead of worrying about disappointing others around you.
At the 2024 U.S. Open, Taylor Fritz rallied to defeat fellow American Frances Tiafoe 4-6, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 to reach his first career Grand Slam final.
By beating Tiafoe, Fritz became the first American tennis player to advance to the U.S. Open final since 2006.
FRITZ: “[Tiafoe] was overwhelming from the baseline so much… and I just tried to tell myself to stay in it and fight. I told myself that if I didn’t give it absolutely everything I had — to just stick with it and see if his level might drop a little bit — then I was going to regret it for a long time.”
Fritz was able to maintain his focus and effort by utilizing several cue phrases, such as “Stay in it and fight,” “Give it absolutely everything,” and “No regrets.”
The cue phrase mental strategy helped Fritz focus on his “Why.” Once you decide to fight for yourself and your goals, staying in the fight will be easier during tough matches.
You can sustain motivation in pivotal moments of matches by using a few personal cue phrases to maintain your competitive focus.
One way is to summarize your “Why” to remind yourself of the reasons you compete, such as “Be my best” or “Fight for my potential.”
Additionally, you can use a motivational phrase to remind yourself to battle for each point, for example, “Make the most of this opportunity,” “No regrets,” or “Give it my all.”
Related Tennis Psychology Articles
- Why Improve Your Mental Toughness Skills
- Mental Toughness Over Mistakes
- Vasilis Mazarakis on Mental Toughness in Tennis
- Download our a FREE Tennis Psychology Report
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