Ignore THIS thought! (tennis mindset key)

Ignore THIS thought! (tennis mindset key)

[@jduartebarreiros]

Thank you for such good content as always!!!

[@czibailo]

When I play singles, I always try to encourage my opponents to try really hard, low percentage shots by heaping excessive praise on them when they make it! For example, often at my 3.5 level I am hitting 90% of my shots to their backhand. Usually, the player wants to run around their backhand and try to rip a forehand down the line. They make 1 or 2 out of 10 of those shots and every time they make one of them I exclaim what an amazingly great shot that is, how I have no chance to get to that, why I need to make sure I don't hit any shots of there forehand because they're fore hand is such a weapon, etc. This makes him try to take that very difficult shot even more often, resulting in 8 or 9 out of 10 balls either wise, into the net or into the back fence. Yes, tennis is quite a mental game!

[@IanWestermann]

Sneaky!

[@jpg6113]

This took me a while to start doing and it's absolutely true

[@jonathanduck5333]

your opponent suddenly starts making 10/10 forehand run around down the line winners💀

[@-Munditimum-]

Aghh...cringe worthy negativity from people, making quick comments, not even giving themselves a chance to make a more holistic observation. Then again, probably good feed for the negativity hungry algorithm of youtube. I had quite the good time watching that video BTW. Just loved how many times she actually pulled off those shots. Hehe. Cheers! M

[@Deleeter]

People in general are too often short term outcome based and not long term process based. If I assess that playing 'safe' will cause me to win less than 50% of points in the long run then why would I adopt that strategy? The most likely outcome is I lose. If I decide to play a serve and volley style then I don't care how many times I'm getting passed as long as I'm holding serve. I played with a significantly worse mixed doubles partner that would always get on me if I ever got passed down the line or I let the ball go and it dropped on the line even once during a match regardless of what was happening on every other point. I tried explaining how those shots were low percentage and I'd take my chances all day on those but she wouldn't even consider the idea of it. I knew I was causing decision making stress on our opponents that resulted in easy points or at least easier shots for my partner that the occasional winner by the other team was justified. It did cause some team friction when we played but I knew it was our best shot at winning so I did what I had to.