Having coached high school tennis for 24 years and having been a USPTA professional for 41 years, I’ve heard the term “mental toughness” thrown around repeatedly. What exactly is mental toughness? How can you recognize it? Is it something that can be learned? Can you teach it? Let me share what I have learned in…
There are ways to improve your doubles play as a team, as you and your partner should always be on the same page. In this article, I will discuss the server’s partner while playing the net. Strong communication between partners is a must. In between points, talk to each other about the placement of serve…
A few years ago, I attended a seminar where Patrick McEnroe, director of USTA Player Development at the time, spoke about the future of tennis in the United States. He spoke of the demise of tennis as a youth sport and asked why there wasn’t something like Little League in our sport. The crowd, filled…
I have been working full-time at an academic institution. In my fifth year, academia has done something that I could never envision when I took on a full-time role as head tennis coach at SUNY Oneonta. I am exposed to great thinkers, doctors and professors from many fields on a daily basis. I attend lectures…
As a sport psychologist, I have treated many athletes who have been injured. There are 30 million kids playing sports and 10 percent of them will get injured this year. Tennis is not quite as dangerous as football, soccer or ice hockey, but there are plenty of ankle, knee, elbow and shoulder injuries. The consequence…
Uncertainty … For some reason, human beings are not wired to deal with uncertainty very well. We want to know. We need to know. In a tennis match, there are few certainties. That’s what fascinates me so much in the game of tennis. Momentum can change at any time. One minute. you are coasting, the…
"So … does my child have talent?" I cringe when asked this all too frequent question for a few compelling reasons. First, I defer to child development experts who agree that, at a very young age, it's virtually impossible to distinguish between real physical talent and precocious development. Most talent evaluations are misleading because a seemingly…
Whether it’s money, health, work or sports, goal-setting is an essential component to success. All goals take time and effort to reach, and planning is required to make meaningful progress. Goals can be slow to achieve, but amazing when we succeed. Understanding this for tennis makes it all worthwhile. Tennis goals can be a little…
Oftentimes, the better athlete fails. Technique makes a tennis player, but training makes a competitor. The combination of finely developed technique, hitting a high volume of balls and working often with a trainer prepares one for the next level. When one is physically and technically prepared, focus can begin to be addressed. A player begins…
It’s Monday morning, and my inbox is filled with e-mails from parents whose child has just played in a tournament over the weekend. Most e-mails lament about how the results could have gone better, including what could be done to change what appears to be this “monster inside” of their usually mild-mannered child. “You don’t…