Swansea Tennis Academy Activity

Good afternoon,

Just a quick one from me- I’ve been in touch with Fran and Craig over the last few days and they’ve told me that you’ve all been using the time to get some tactical and physical work done which is great!  

This is a strange and challenging time and it’s easy to be negative and focus on all the things that we can’t do.  However, we can improve and get a competitive advantage if we use our time wisely.  Whilst most people are spending their days scrolling Instagram and playing video games, we Welsh tennis players are using our time proactively.  

A coach from my academy said it great, “I think it’s a great opportunity to clear our minds and get back to some of the things that we don’t normally prioritise.” 

So what are the things that we can prioritise in this period? 

  • We can improve certain areas of our physical training 

  • We can clarify our vision for our game 

  • We can focus on our school work

  • We can improve our flexibility

  • We can read a few books

  • We can improve our mental toughness (Yes, we can do this without a tennis court.  I’ll show you how in the activity below)

  • We can learn a new skill.  For example, cooking a new meal or learning a new language. 

I hope we can all use our time wisely and get that competitive advantage and keep improving during these times.  

So how can I improve my mental skills off the court?

The mental game of tennis is all about awareness and acceptance of the thoughts and emotions that we experience on the court.  Our mind is made to wander and experience various emotions.  Federer, Djokovic and Nadal all get nervous, frustrated and angry at times, but it’s their ability to accept the emotions and return their focus to the next point that sets them apart from the rest.  

Your Mental Skills Challenge

  1. I would first like you to download “My Guide to Mental Toughness” which I’ve made completely free for you all. Click here. 

  2. Next, I’d like you to read through the guide to learn all about becoming mentally tough (it should only take 30 minutes maximum.)

  3. Afterwards, I’d like you to complete the activity below. 

As you will have learned from the guide: mental toughness is all about our ability to aim and maintain our focus on our most helpful attention.  The negative thoughts and emotions that we experience on the court will try to distract us from focusing on our most helpful attention, but our job as mentally tough competitors is to we aware of how we’re feeling and accept the emotions that we’re experiencing so that we can put our focus back on the next point.

So how can we practice this without a tennis court? 

Meditation.  Yes, meditation.  Don’t worry, it’s easier than you think.  All we have to do it focus on one thing.  It can be our breath, how our body is feeling or even the sounds that we can hear around us.  And the trick is, whenever our mind wanders away from what we’re trying to focus on (which it will do) we need to be aware and bring our attention back to what we were trying to focusing on.  It’s that simple.

This is basically what mental toughness is all about – notice when we are experiencing thoughts and emotions that aren’t helpful and bring our focus back to our most helpful attention for the next point.  

Try this meditation below:

How was that? Tricky right? Novak Djokovic says that he does 15 minutes of these focus exercises every single day. Novak says that he practices his focus in a number of ways. Somethings he does it through meditations like the one you’ve just done, and sometimes he does it by focusing on his steps when he goes out for a walk. Cool right?

You’ve just done 10-minutes there, so it’s not that hard. And you get better and better the more you practice it. I’ve been doing this for about a year now and I still find it very tricky. The quicker we can notice our mind has wandered and bring our focus back, the more mentally tough we will be on the tennis court!

Hope you enjoyed that. If you can, make it a routine each day. Thanks for taking part in the challenge and see you all soon.

When I get a chance I’ll come in to hit some balls with you all.

Cheers,

Ev