Training the mental part in tennis is one of the toughest parts. Thoughts and feelings are not visible. We as coaches must communicate with our players to be able to understand how they feel and what they think. Knowing how they deal with difficulties and stress gives us useful information how to approach a mental training session. But how can we make their thoughts and feelings visible?

Let‘s assume that a glass full of marbles would be our brain with black, white and golden marbles inside.

The black marbles would stand for:

negative thought (e.g. „my forehand is bad today“
negative feeling (e.g. „my arms and legs feel so heavy“)

The white marbles would stand for:

positive thought (e.g. „I hit that forehand so well timed“)
positive feeling (e.g. „Everything feels so easy and light“)

The golden marbles would stand for:

transforming a negative into a positive thought (e.g. „ This tie breaker is so much stress for me BUT I will take every point as a challenge!“)
transforming a negative feeling into a positive one (e.g. „I feel my arms becoming heavier BUT I have to keep moving and breathing deep…..oh it feels already better again!“)

Use these three different colours to make your thoughts and feelings visible for a practice session or a practice match. You can do it as following:

If you play a set or training match try to track your thoughts and feelings throughout the time it takes. Detect your thoughts and feelings and try to be honest to yourself. Put the glass with marbles in front of the net or back at the fence. Every time you think of feel something try to consider what kind of thought or feeling it was and take one marble to put into one of the three bowls.
when you practice something you can track your thoughts and feelings through a series of hit balls or a pattern you were practicing. Detect your thoughts and feelings after every row of shots or played pattern and take the marble which fits best to describe your inner self talk. Put it into the right bowl.

The most challenging but best result is, if you manage to transform negative thoughts or feelings into positive ones. Positive thoughts are great and you should minimise the negative ones which result in negativity and block your performance.

Negative thoughts and feelings limitating your mind and body

Golden marbles for resilience and staying positive

This mental training exercise can give you an important insight into the amount of your thoughts and feelings during one practice session or practice match. When seeing the result at the end, it gives you the impression of your mind becoming physical and you have an idea of how big or small your positive or negative thoughts influence your performance.

After every session the coach and player should talk about the decisions of the player and how he/she has come to that decisions. It gives the coach great insight into how the player thinks and feels under pressure. The golden way is always to be able to turn negative impulses into solution orientated positive thinking to play successful.

Try it out with your kids, they love marbles. It is also a great exercise for developing youth players.

All the best COACH DIMI