Why Tennis Players Keep Losing

If you haven't seen my article where I discussed the reasons why players perform worse in matches compared to practice, I highly encourage you to watch it. However, in today's article, I want to give you specific examples of experiences of this problem of performing worse in a match compared to practice.

When it comes to the mental part of tennis, it is important to problem-solve. I try to identify the reasons why I performed poorly. I observe as much information as possible, and I try to come up with a solution so I can help them overcome some of these mental obstacles.

Scary Opponents

I'm going to start off with an example of why a lot of players, even at the elite level and especially at the high level, will perform a lot worse in matches compared to the way they practice. And that is the following thing. It is the problem of putting your opponent on a pedestal, in other words, overestimating the level of your opponent prior to the match starting.

This often happens when players study their opponents' rankings and prior results before they play the match. What happens mentally to some players when they see good results from their opponent, they put a high value on the opponent without even knowing how that opponent plays the game and simply based on the previous results and the current ranking. Players psych themselves out, and fall into the trap of looking at rankings or results of my opponents prior to the match starting.

Now, this is a problem that a lot of tennis players suffer from at the junior level and even at the recreational level. Players will go on the computer and start looking up results, and for the same reason they put their opponent on their pedestal; they overestimate their opponent's level. So what you should do instead is try to observe your opponent's game. Maybe you try to watch them play a match that they're going to play prior to playing you. And if you get a chance to do that, this is the perfect way to scout your opponent because you're going to base your opinion of them on how they play.

Fight The Fear

One thing that you can do is ignore the winners from the opponent, and look at the errors because everybody makes errors. When you're studying your opponent's game, you look at the errors, and you try to find some tendencies. Maybe they're committing more errors on a specific side or wherever it may be. You try to look for some weak spots. And that's a far better way to prepare yourself for the upcoming match rather than studying your opponent's current rankings, past rankings, or past results. That is a mental trap that a lot of players fall into.

There is another way to prepare for the match, and that is just taking the match in present time and forgetting what happened in the past. It is possible that maybe your opponent played incredibly well the day before. It doesn't mean that they're going to play well against you. So, you forget the past; you stay in the present. Then you try to observe your opponent in the warm-up, in the first few games of the match.

Big Crowds

When you're exposed to certain circumstances on a match court, you might perform a lot worse in a match than you would in practice. Just imagine being on the center court of a club in front of all the people. You or your partner if you play doubles gets super nervous, super tight. He just can’t play his normal game. If we would have been scheduled on court number 18, it would have been a completely different story. However, the fact that you were playing in front of a lot of people, causes you to not play freely.

The solution to a problem like that is quite obvious. You've got to expose yourself more to those types of scenarios. It's going to be tough for you to choose what court you're going to play on in a tournament. At your local club, you book the stadium court, you book the court that has the most activity where there's the most people gathering around. You get used to playing in front of a lot of people, and slowly but surely, you're going to get used to this circumstance, and you're not going to get as nervous anymore.

Pusher Struggles

Another reason why you might keep losing is because you keep playing pushers. The reason why this keeps repeating is that it's not so easy to start beating pushers. This is something that's going to take a lot of work. I made an article explaining why it's so difficult to beat pushers. If it wasn't difficult to beat pushers, you could solve this by watching a 10-minute video. Unfortunately it's not like that. This is a process that's going to require your improvement in several areas of the game, and it's something you have to be patient with and committed to improving in the areas that are required to finally start beating pushers.

Hunger For Victory

There are some players, who are not necessarily playing worse in matches because they feel tension. They're just fine playing matches. But yet, they perform much worse in matches compared to the way they practice. And there are two types of players that I've been able to observe.

There are players who simply don't care whether they win or lose. They just step on a match court, and they're smiling and laughing the whole time. And they could not care less whether they win or lose. Most of the time, players like that are not very successful. There's something that's missing, is that competitive spirit. The hunger to win the point. When you have this, you're going to have the most success. And there are just people who don't have this. Maybe they weren't born with this. Maybe this is something that's going to be difficult to learn. This could possibly be true.

And when that's the case, of course, you shouldn't be surprised when your match performance is going to be a lot worse than your practice performance because, let's face it, tennis is such a tough sport. There are so many variables that are going to come at you. You have to have this hunger, this desire, this drive to win every point if you want to advance at the recreational level, if you want to advance at the high level or at the junior level. This is something that's incredibly necessary in the game of tennis.

Final Thoughts

And finally, there's going to be some players who are just not good at playing matches. They might not necessarily have tension, pressure. They're just fine being on a match court. But they don't know how to play. And when that's the case, the only solution that you're going to have is to go on the match court and try to figure out how you can take your tools that you have as a tennis player and translate them into winning points, into winning sets, into winning matches.

You're going to have to problem-solve. You're going to have to solve technical issues that you have. That is the only way you're going to advance in the game of tennis. If you just continue doing what you're doing, just playing tennis the same way you always have, you're going to continue to have the same results. You're going to have to make changes. You're going to have to be introspective and sit down after a match and maybe write down the things that you did wrong, the things that you can do better next time. That is going to be the road to your success.

When it comes to all the other things I talked about, it's a matter of experience. And again, it's a matter of problem-solving. Try to figure out what went wrong, and try to do better the next time you step on a match court.