If Tennis is 90% mental then how do we improve our mental skills?
Step 1- Lose your ego!
Are you someone who makes excuses for losing?
Just think of Zverev for many of these traits. Imagine a Samurai warrior complain about the sun being in their eyes or "their sword is sharper than mine." The tennis Samurai warrior Rafa Nadal displayed a Samurai like quality when competing of staying in the moment with great body language, no negative self talk and was the ultimate in humility. Absolutely no ego whatsoever was hammered into him by uncle Toni from an early age. I do sympathise with kids whose parents or coaches condone the excuse making and poor body language but this road generally leads to mental ruin, unfortunately.
There are and have been many successful players with a big ego, but are they good for the game or humanity in general? Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe (when younger), Kyrgios, Ostapenko and Sabalenka. Interesting that it was Sabalenka and Kyrgios who got it so wrong for women’s tennis playing the debacle of the "Battle of the Sexes". (Shame on the BBC for showing it)
I'd much rather follow the lead of an Arthur Ashe, Rafa Nadal, Kim Clijsters or Ash Barty who all demonstrated that you can be a warrior without the ego therefore becoming a true role model for life in general.
Step 2 - Stay in the moment and develop processes.
The Nike slogan "just do it" is perhaps the best known of it's sort in the history of sports marketing and quite rightly so. Now that the ego has gone you can attempt to move on to step two. We can now begin to look at process goals. Process, process, process is what you will hear countless times from good coaches. Just what is process?
It’s the ability to focus on what’s necessary at any given moment to help you stay in the present and execute the shot. The most obvious and easy process to observe is the in between points routine of getting ready to serve or return the ball. We could all impersonate many players on their well practiced routine which is a process that allows them to be ready to execute a serve or return (or at least have a better chance).
But, after the serve and return comes the tricky bit when the ball is in play on a full court and it’s an open skill i.e. what the hell do I do now?
This is where a shot for shot and moment to moment mentality comes into it's own. The focus has to be in a very narrow range depending upon what the player on the other side of the net is doing to the ball and where you end up on the court! Every type of shot from a high to a low groundstroke, a faster or slower ball, a wide ball, a short ball etc etc. There should be a process in your brain for every one and you need to find it quickly and deliver/commit while making the right tactical choice! Now, this is what I would call a rather challenging game. No wonder the ego gets involved. It’s way too hard!
I won't bore you with all the different processes as these will also depend upon your own game style, who you are playing, the weather conditions, type of court, balls etc etc. Get a good coach to help you focus on your individual needs
Step 3 - Samurai warrior level
'A warrior is worthless unless he is string in the midst of a storm'
- Tokugawa Leyasu
'Embrace death without fear, and you shall never truly die'
- Yamamoto Tsunetomo
The ego has gone and you are in the moment but what is the next challenge………? So, we are attempting to reach the Samurai warrior level where we are humble as hell and living in the moment BUT the Holy Grail in tennis is dealing with the big points! You win more of them and the match is yours e.g. you are 5-4 up in the third serving at 40/30 when you double fault. The ego returns and you lose the match. Just how does the Samurai warrior regularly win these points? I wish I knew and could bottle it as a player and a coach. This is seriously the highest level of executing your trained processes. Win the big points and the match is yours which is why only the Samurai warriors do this regularly and if they lose it’s because they’ve come up against another Grandmaster e.g. Evert v Navratilova - Nadal v Federer - Borg v McEnroe - Venus v Serena, and now in modern times Alcaraz v Sinner.
The French Open 2025 final was the pinnacle of two Samurai warriors who literally fought to the death but kept their humility to the end.
Final thought - you may never become a Samurai tennis warrior but enjoy the journey while you try or you may well go crazy!
Hopefully you will have gathered that there has been no use of AI in the writing of this blog.
Obviously this is a huge topic so any comments/thoughts would be greatly appreciated as we can all be a little bit mental!
Ian Campbell
[email protected]
Step 1- Lose your ego!
Are you someone who makes excuses for losing?
- "I can’t deal with slow balls"
- "It was too windy"
- "My game just wasn’t working" etc. etc.
- "That’s so bad"
- "How could I miss that?"
- "Not another double fault"
Just think of Zverev for many of these traits. Imagine a Samurai warrior complain about the sun being in their eyes or "their sword is sharper than mine." The tennis Samurai warrior Rafa Nadal displayed a Samurai like quality when competing of staying in the moment with great body language, no negative self talk and was the ultimate in humility. Absolutely no ego whatsoever was hammered into him by uncle Toni from an early age. I do sympathise with kids whose parents or coaches condone the excuse making and poor body language but this road generally leads to mental ruin, unfortunately.
There are and have been many successful players with a big ego, but are they good for the game or humanity in general? Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe (when younger), Kyrgios, Ostapenko and Sabalenka. Interesting that it was Sabalenka and Kyrgios who got it so wrong for women’s tennis playing the debacle of the "Battle of the Sexes". (Shame on the BBC for showing it)
I'd much rather follow the lead of an Arthur Ashe, Rafa Nadal, Kim Clijsters or Ash Barty who all demonstrated that you can be a warrior without the ego therefore becoming a true role model for life in general.
Step 2 - Stay in the moment and develop processes.
The Nike slogan "just do it" is perhaps the best known of it's sort in the history of sports marketing and quite rightly so. Now that the ego has gone you can attempt to move on to step two. We can now begin to look at process goals. Process, process, process is what you will hear countless times from good coaches. Just what is process?
It’s the ability to focus on what’s necessary at any given moment to help you stay in the present and execute the shot. The most obvious and easy process to observe is the in between points routine of getting ready to serve or return the ball. We could all impersonate many players on their well practiced routine which is a process that allows them to be ready to execute a serve or return (or at least have a better chance).
But, after the serve and return comes the tricky bit when the ball is in play on a full court and it’s an open skill i.e. what the hell do I do now?
This is where a shot for shot and moment to moment mentality comes into it's own. The focus has to be in a very narrow range depending upon what the player on the other side of the net is doing to the ball and where you end up on the court! Every type of shot from a high to a low groundstroke, a faster or slower ball, a wide ball, a short ball etc etc. There should be a process in your brain for every one and you need to find it quickly and deliver/commit while making the right tactical choice! Now, this is what I would call a rather challenging game. No wonder the ego gets involved. It’s way too hard!
I won't bore you with all the different processes as these will also depend upon your own game style, who you are playing, the weather conditions, type of court, balls etc etc. Get a good coach to help you focus on your individual needs
Step 3 - Samurai warrior level
'A warrior is worthless unless he is string in the midst of a storm'
- Tokugawa Leyasu
'Embrace death without fear, and you shall never truly die'
- Yamamoto Tsunetomo
The ego has gone and you are in the moment but what is the next challenge………? So, we are attempting to reach the Samurai warrior level where we are humble as hell and living in the moment BUT the Holy Grail in tennis is dealing with the big points! You win more of them and the match is yours e.g. you are 5-4 up in the third serving at 40/30 when you double fault. The ego returns and you lose the match. Just how does the Samurai warrior regularly win these points? I wish I knew and could bottle it as a player and a coach. This is seriously the highest level of executing your trained processes. Win the big points and the match is yours which is why only the Samurai warriors do this regularly and if they lose it’s because they’ve come up against another Grandmaster e.g. Evert v Navratilova - Nadal v Federer - Borg v McEnroe - Venus v Serena, and now in modern times Alcaraz v Sinner.
The French Open 2025 final was the pinnacle of two Samurai warriors who literally fought to the death but kept their humility to the end.
Final thought - you may never become a Samurai tennis warrior but enjoy the journey while you try or you may well go crazy!
Hopefully you will have gathered that there has been no use of AI in the writing of this blog.
Obviously this is a huge topic so any comments/thoughts would be greatly appreciated as we can all be a little bit mental!
Ian Campbell
[email protected]
