Match Anxiety - Steve Landon
Trait vs State Anxiety
Generally speaking people who have high levels of anxiety in normal life (State anxiety) will show higher levels of anxiety in specific situations like tennis matches (Trait anxiety).
This isn’t always the case however, and many top level tennis players with “higher than normal” State anxiety have managed to find ways to keep calm in match situations. I’ll go into some strategies of how this can be achieved later, but for now let’s look at what I mean by the term “Anxiety”.
What is Anxiety in tennis?
Anxiety is our natural response to a situation we perceive as stressful. As Anxiety is experienced differently by each individual, it can be hard to define exactly what causes it, or when it will occur.
Anxiety can have a physical as well as a psychological effect on us. Anxious players can often stop moving (or move too much at the wrong times), have increased muscle tension, experience elevated heart rates and shallower/speeded up breathing. In some cases players have reported a temporary loss of vision.
Psychological effects of anxiety can include: irritability, self doubt, an inability to make decisions and a lack of concentration.
Common themes and causes of anxiety in tennis can often be:
A fear of losing
A concern that we will be judged by others watching
Previous occasion where we feel we have not performed as well as we could (Self fulfilling prophecies)
Linking our performance as a player with our self worth as an individual (if we play badly we must be a useless person)
Unrealistic expectations
Physical responses to Anxiety in tennis (Somatic Anxiety)
The body physically reacts to the perception of danger. The following physical responses can occur as a direct result of getting upset during a tennis match:
Change in respiratory rate (increases in breathing rate)
Higher blood flow to the heart (pounding heart and palpitations)
Changes in blood pressure
Increased muscle tension
Stimulation of the digestive system
Alteration of the body’s internal thermostat (increases in body temperature)
Choking
Choking is the tennis term for what happens when anxiety starts to seriously effect a player during a match. Players feel like they can’t breathe and that the world is spinning at 100 miles an hour.
If you want to watch a (very uncomfortable) example of what choking is at the highest level then look up the Wimbledon ladies final in 1993 between Steffi Graf and Jana Novotna. Jana was winning easily until 4-1, 30-0 in the second set when she suddenly couldn’t even throw the ball up to serve. She went on to dump simple volleys in the net, miss hit slice backhands and double fault 2 points a game until she finally lost that set 6-4 and eventually lost the final in 3 sets.
A player will often start to analyse their own technique as a response to choking (rather than trying to find a strategy to try and relax). Such (over) analysis causes a breakdown of the kinetic chain required to generate power in a stroke. This is why sometimes players can feel like they are putting a lot of physical effort into a shot and getting very little ball velocity out of it. (You may know the feeling on your own serve in a tiebreak).
Behavioural Responses
As you may expect when the body triggers physical changes, we show different behavioral patterns too. Such behavioural changes can be detrimental to our tennis performance and include:
Avoiding playing matches
Freezing (inability to make rational decisions in good time)
High levels of irritability and/or aggression
Feeling tired very quickly (when the body isn’t fatigued)
Eating your racquet may help with match anxiety but is not recommended by dentists
Solutions
So here’s the million dollar question: Can we improve our ability to perform in situations we are perceiving as stressful? The answer is yes, but we must practice.
The first thing to bear in mind is that we are often in an elevated state of mental arousal during tennis matches. This has some amazing benefits but it also means we are often thinking emotionally and not logically. We need to put in place some measures to counter our emotional thinking and get us back making sensible and logical decisions.
Rituals
I’m not talking about superstitions! Killing a goat and praying to the monkey god has never really helped anyone put a first serve in court at 5-4 down in the third set. I’m talking about a series of rehearsed and repeated steps that counter the physical effects of anxiety.
Top players have always had rituals, but it became popular in professional tennis in the early 2000s to go through a series of steps before serving. Here are a few things that players will do to try and get themselves thinking calmly and in a focused way before they serve:
Turn away from the court after each point is finished - If you don’t look at what has just happened it is easier to put the memory of the last point behind you.
Take your racquet out of your dominant “racquet” hand between points - This not only allows a player to relax their arm but also breaks the desire to think about the previous shot in your mind. *
Breathe deeply a set number of times. - You probably don’t need information if you are anxious. You need oxygen to reduce muscle tension and to reset the body.
Loosen up for the next point - Players often jump or skip before they finally set themselves to serve
Bounce the ball the same number of times before you serve (not too many) - 3 ball bounces will stop you from rushing into the next serve before you are ready
Aim your shots - The simplest and most important thing. We don’t do it when we’re are experiencing anxiety
* Even if the previous shot was a winner it doesn’t help to think about it during the next point.
Now, here’s the kicker! You won’t do these things in a match so don’t try to “remember” to do them. You need to make your routine automatic so you do it without conscious thought when you need it most. That means you need to practice your routine until you don’t have to think about it anymore.
Too much
Novak Djokovic made his big breakthrough in 2011 and then he started bouncing the ball up to 31 (it had to be an odd number) times before serving. The result was that he was confused about where he was going to hit the ball. He says himself that he had to work really hard to become more decisive and positive about his service games and that the number of bounces was way too many. (He obviously fixed the problem).
It seems like a matter for the individual, but a general rule is to throw the ball up 2-4 seconds after you’ve decided where you want to serve.
Making predictions is Anxiety inducing
It’s great to have dream goals and to imagine what it’s like to beat Fionn 0 and 1 in the club championships (he would get one game), but you have to stop the thought process there.
We know that the human brain will generally start to accept most ideas if we repeat them enough times, so we have to make sure we are telling ourselves “healthy” thoughts about our own tennis.
Telling yourself you “should” beat people can be a very harmful thought process (almost as damaging as saying you won’t beat them). By telling yourself you are better than someone you have forecast the result already and one thing that induces anxiety in tennis players is the fear of losing something we think is “ours”.
A positive way of going into a match is to try and concentrate on what you are good at yourself rather than comparing yourself to an opponent. “I’m going to serve first serves positively” is a much better piece of self talk than, “my first serve is way better than hers”.
Tennis scoring is cruel
The nasty thing about scoring in tennis is that unless you get a game before your opponent, all the points you score are wiped off as if you never won any. A long “Deuce” game could be 7-5 in points played but end up just 1-0 in games to whoever wins it. This is again true with Games. A 7-6 set becomes 1-0 in sets to whoever won it. All this means that you have to win “key” points in tennis matches to win a match and that is exciting, or stressful, depending on how you look at it.
Here are a few ideas to try and combat the nasty little scoring system that we’ve managed to invent for ourselves.
Try to break the game down to the smallest possible parts when you feel anxious. Don’t “play” entire games or points in your mind. Instead, try to hit individual shots and pick out targets for each shot.
Make sure you are doing everything that’s within your own control. Watch the ball, move fast and go through your routines between points.
Remember that you don’t need to win every point. You can drop 2 points in every game and still only have to win 48 points (same as if you won every point).
Winners may be cheered more but they are worth 1 point.
Do things
Ok, so every point is worth 1, but if you lose “match point” it’s all over. There’s no doubt that some points are going to be more important than others.
Does it help to play a “key” point differently to any other point though? If you know how you are most likely to react to different situations it can be a big advantage.
Make sure you don’t pretend you are suddenly going to be super confident when in the past you haven’t been. In order to help with this you should give yourself a plan that involves “doing something”. A good game plan might be to hit the ball deep and a meter away from the singles lines and not “don’t miss”.
There are too many options available by “not doing” something and the human brain finds that confusing and stressful. By “doing something correctly” you are in effect “not doing something wrong”. In this way you are telling yourself that you can control the situation.
Here’s what you can “do” at big moments In the game:
Watch the ball
Move to the ball
Hit crosscourt to increase chances of putting the ball in
Hit deep to decrease angle for your opponent
Hit short balls and run to the net
Plan your points from the perspective of you being in control of what you do, and you’ll be in much better mental shape to execute those plans in a match.
Self talk
We all do it but we don’t all monitor it. What we tell ourselves in matches can have a big effect on how we perform. Good self talk can be motivating, fix errors and can help you remember what you are trying to do. The problem is that most people tend to talk to themselves in a very critical way in tennis matches.
Here’s a fast guide on how to talk to yourself in a way that helps you feel good and plan the next point.
Make it short
Make it as specific as you can
Keep it 100% focused on here and now
Good self talk is practical, about things we can control and focus in the present. Here’s a way you can rephrase a negative comment to yourself in order to make it more positive:
“I’m always hitting my stupid forehand in the net” can be changed too “hit your next 5 forehands 3 feet over the net”. This is following the “do something” rule and is very specific. The “3 feet” instruction replaces the negative term “stupid” and makes you think about problem solving instead of just feeling bad.
The other key point about self talk and game plans is that they must be short. 1 or 2 things to concentrate on only is often best. The best coach I ever had told me that a good game plan could be written on the back of a pack of cigarettes. He died of lung disease about 5 years later but the point was a very good one. Keep it Positive and simple (but don’t smoke).
Finally
There are techniques such as visualization, progressive relaxation and various breathing and meditation related exercises you may want to look up, but I’m going to finish with my personal list of ways to feel better about yourself in matches.
Remind yourself that tennis is fun and why you’re playing.
Remind yourself that everyone knows pretty much how good or bad you are regardless of the result of a match and that the only person who this matters to really is you.
Breathe more, think less
Slow down and watch the ball
Don’t swear if anyone you need to impress is about
Enjoy your tennis and feel free to ask me any questions about this if you have them.