IT'S NOT TRAINING BUT TRAINING!

Mental Tennis is not mental coaching, it is not psychology and it is not even sports coaching, Mental Tennis trains the tennis player's mind to compete!

But what does all this mean? What does training mean? What is the difference between training and exercise?

Now I'll try to explain it to you, from the moment you decide to enter my academy, at that precise moment you have made a profound choice with yourself, YOU HAVE DECIDED THAT WILLPOWER WILL PREVAIL OVER YOUR FEAR, YOU HAVE DECIDED THAT THE RESULT WILL BE LET PERFORMANCE PREVAIL, OR YOU WILL DO WHAT THE MATCH REQUIRES TO BE WON.

So let's go back to the word training, there is a precise verticality of roles that you will have to accept, "I SAY... YOU DO... NO QUESTIONS ASKED!" (excerpt from the film Karate Kid)

Why this approach? Simple, because if you listen to what I ask you to do and really put it into practice without getting into your mental paranoia or what you think you know, or what you have previously studied, or your superstructures or previous experiences, I REPEAT, IF YOU DO EXACTLY WHAT I ASK WITHOUT OBJECTING AND WITHOUT HESITATION, the results could actually surprise you right from the first session!

And it is in that precise moment that you will understand how your real enemy is right inside you and how if you listen to me and let yourself be guided, together we can defeat that enemy!

So let's start from here, "WE MUST MAKE A SOLEMN PACT" (phrase taken from the film Karate Kid) I PROMISE TO TEACH YOU MENTAL TENNIS, YOU PROMISE TO LISTEN, I SAY, YOU DO, NO QUESTIONS ASKED!

Gentlemen, here you learn to fight and if you think that competition is something soft you have not understood a thing!

Here you learn to take to the field and win and to do that you have to change your attitude which doesn't mean being an asshole or disloyal or arguing with your opponent or the referee.

Roger Federer, the gentleman player par excellence, if he could give his opponent 6-0-6-0, he would have done it without any hesitation or remorse and this is because giving everything to win fairly is also a form of respect for the sport and for the opponent!

So back to Mental Tennis, why do we train and not coach? Because in training YOU MUST LITERALLY EMPTY YOURSELF OF EVERYTHING YOU KNOW OR THINK YOU KNOW AND FILL YOURSELF WITH MENTAL TENNIS, DOING WHAT IS ASKED OF YOU WHEN IT IS ASKED OF YOU!

I know that many of you will think that this is a method that is too invasive and perhaps even too intrusive, BUT I ASSURE YOU THAT I AM A BREAKER NOT BECAUSE I LIKE IT, BUT BECAUSE I HAVE TO TRANSLATE TO YOU THE DIFFICULTY OF THE COMPETITION, I DO THIS TYPE OF TRAINING BECAUSE WHEN YOU STEP ONTO THE FIELD THIS WILL BE NOTHING COMPARED TO THE PRESSURE YOU WILL HAVE WHEN YOU ARE FACE OF A MATCH POINT, IT WILL BE NOTHING COMPARED TO THE FATIGUE YOU WILL HAVE TO ENDURE AFTER 3 HOURS OF PLAY, THIS WILL BE NOTHING COMPARED TO THE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL FATIGUE THAT WILL PARALYZE YOUR HEAD AND LEGS IN THE 3RD SET and so this is where you have to start, when you train with me!

You can't avoid going on the court unprepared! And that's why my training sessions are so hard, because I have to create problems for you that you, studying the Mental Tennis manual, will have to learn to solve in each Macro Area:



1. Technique

2. Athletics

3. Tactics

4. Mental

5. Of Recovery

This is not a magic path, here the magic formula is called: STUDY, SELF-DENIALITY, TENACITY, EFFORT AND MOTIVATION TO WANT TO IMPROVE! WITHOUT THESE MAGIC WORDS IT IS BETTER TO PLAY BOWLS!

STUDY--> ASSIMILATION OF CONCEPTS--> INTERIORIZATION--> PRACTICE IN THE FIELD--> CONTINUOUS COMPETITIONS

With this method I have helped over 2,600 people around the world including China, Australia and the United States to unleash their potential when they have to face an official competition, if you want to work on yourself then you have come to the right place, otherwise forget it, Mental Tennis is not for you!

INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION.

“If there is a tennis player inside you… You will not be able to ignore him… His voice will repeatedly knock on the door of your heart until you listen… And if you don't, you will feel sad and completely out of alignment with your life or at least, with the life you would like to live.

This, my friend, happens to you because you are not listening to the most important voice, that of your conscience which resides in your heart… “

These are the words that Andrés Fernandez, a former ATP professional originally from Murcia who trained in the youth team with Carlitos Alcaraz, told me.

That day this sentence remained particularly impressed on my mind because bringing it back to my personal life path, I too felt something similar but certainly not to become a professional tennis player, what continued to knock insistently in the atrium of my heart was the desire to train people to bring out the best, making them the best version of themselves.

English: You see dear reader, for many years I tried to ignore this strong call, attracted by the role of manager and perhaps also seduced by the power and economic capacity that this role offered me, but inside, even if I must say that I was very satisfied, inside I felt that this was not my path, that I was betraying myself, I don't know how else to explain it, being a manager, firing people, reaching sales budgets at all costs and without a minimum of humanity, produced a satisfying sensation in my mind but equally sad and empty in my heart because deep down, in the depths of my heart, I felt that it was not really what I wanted, and in fact when I decided to change my life, trying to listen to my heart and putting myself totally back in the game, that same day even if my mind was pervaded by a thousand fears, a thousand uncertainties and a thousand thoughts, my heart felt an inner peace that I had never felt before, as if suddenly my life had realigned with what I was destined to become.

Well, I told you this episode because I wanted to make you immediately understand that intrinsic motivation is something that you feel deep inside, you can't silence that voice, every day that voice continues to knock on your heart to tell you that perhaps if you don't listen to it, you are throwing away an important part of your life, the work one that together with the sentimental one, constitutes the main importance of our existence.

From my personal story you will certainly have understood what intrinsic motivation is, but now let's try to understand what extrinsic motivation is instead...

Well believe it or not, most people do not listen to their heart, they are deceived by the seductions of the mind… But remember dear reader that the mind… Lies… While the heart never lies…

Why do you play tennis? Because you want to make your parents happy or because you really love this sport and all the difficulties and problems it forces you to face every time?

Who do you want to make happy? The tennis player inside you or the people who come to watch your matches and worry more about putting on a show than staying focused and concentrated in the match to try to win it?

One day I was called to give a speech at a well-known Academy in Tuscany, the father of the boy I was supposed to work with was absolutely motivated to undertake a very well-paid path with me to help his son evolve and unblock him by taking him from semi-professionalism in the second category to professionalism on the ATP circuit.

However, when I found myself talking to his son, I did not find a motivated boy at all, I was faced with a person who wanted to play tennis for fun and was not inclined to physical sacrifice, or to work hard at least 6 sometimes even 8 hours a day between technique, athletics and mental, at which point that day I immediately spoke to the father, explaining that I would have done the surgery at his Academy but that there were no prerequisites to work with the boy because the boy was not intrinsically motivated.

The father, however, blinded by the dream of having a professional son, did not want to listen to me, so I undertook my usual and very intense mental tennis training protocols and at the end of the week this boy came to me and said, if this is the way to get to professionalism, I thank you for making me understand now because this is not really what I want, it is not my way…

The father, instead of respecting his son's choice, told me these exact words, you have to keep my son on a leash, there's no way he'll abandon tennis after all the sacrifices we've made...

Now tell me, how can you even think of working with people who have this vision of their children?

I always say that motivation must always and only come from the player, never from the parent and the more you insist on this policy the more you make that poor boy lose the pleasure of playing tennis.

We must understand that first of all, we cannot force anyone to want to take the hard road of professionalism, it is something that you feel inside your heart and that every day torments you or knocks on the door of your heart, because inside you, there is a tennis player ... But if this tennis player is not there or you do not feel him, then try to have the courage to clarify with yourself and with your parents to follow your own path not the one that your mother or father dream for you.

A few years ago I had a session in Milan with a very good girl in tennis speaking who had just passed the exam to become a lawyer, but instead of being happy that day, she was very sad, I asked her, why are you sad today Ludovica? You should be happy you just passed a very tough exam, what's happening to you?

She replied to me, because I know that for the rest of my life, I will do a profession that I hate because I did not have enough courage to rebel against my parents and pursue my dream and not what they wanted for me.

Did you want to be a tennis player? I asked her

No…

I wanted to be a classical dancer… But my mother, a former professional dancer, had other plans for me and always hindered me…

Now do you understand how important it is to sponsor a person's identity and not suffocate them with our dreams projected onto their life?

We must support these kids, love them and teach them to live tennis like any other sport with healthy and uplifting values, such as giving everything on the court, overcoming their fears and maybe even stepping out of their comfort zones, but we must not take over their lives and decide their destiny.

In my coaching career I happened to meet some players like Mattia Bellucci, who felt this since they were very young, and sacrificed a large part of their life to pursue their dream, others instead understand it maybe when they are older what they really want to do with their life, but the point is that we parents should not be the ones to decide for them, our role is to love them and support them and maybe give them the best tools to be able to achieve their dreams, but we cannot take the field in their place.

So, dear reader, I will now ask you for a simple exercise, find a silent place, where you can get in touch with yourself, close your eyes and start listening to your heart, if you play to make mom or dad happy then rebel with all your strength against that trap and play tennis to have fun and improve yourself every day and not to stress your existence.

If your motivation is intrinsic, ask your parents for help, I'm sure that if they can, they will do everything to help you realize your dream of becoming a professional and if you are already an adult instead, ask yourself for whom or what you step onto the court when you compete, do you do it to feed on the recognition of others? To show how beautiful your one-handed backhand is? Or do you do it because you love to challenge yourself and feel the adrenaline flowing through your veins during the match trying to overcome your limits?

Please remember, it is very important that you do this exercise dedicating the right amount of time to it, do not be hasty or superficial, this exercise is not only important for your tennis career, but above all for your life because it will teach you to listen to your heart, to get in touch with your conscience...

Have you ever wondered how birds manage to migrate even 3,000 km away without a GPS to show them the way?

Become a migratory bird too, learning to follow the path of your heart and probably you too, as happened to me with Mental Tennis, one day you will be able to reach your most desired goal.

My advice before taking to the field

TODAY BEFORE ENTERING THE FIELD...

1. Accept the fight as part of the fun of this sport without wanting to get rid of it with haste, you will have to learn to row when it is necessary, building the point and when you have the possibility and your opponent shortens, enter and gain field or close the point even going to the net, trying to always make him play on the shot where he has less confidence and control, remember that always knowing what to do is one of the secrets of the success of this sport! (GAME PLAN, GAME IDENTITY)

2. Remember that tennis is a sport that is played one point at a time, so keep your mind firmly in the present moment, remaining focused on the here and now, stay engaged in the match, fighting point by point, don't look for excuses or alibis otherwise you will end up believing them and you will be out of the fight!

Remember that it's not over until it's really over, so in this sport every "single" point counts, so try to order your body to do what you're asking and not to go off on its own, because the body is naturally inclined not to listen to you, you have to subdue it with willpower. (ATTITUDE, FOCUS)

3. When you feel discouraged, tired, the desire to give up, fear, tension in playing the crucial points, talk to yourself, talk to your "body", encourage it, spur it on, support it, be kind and not rigid with it (yourself), be patient and enjoy tennis instead of being a victim, think about the wonderful opportunity you have to do what you are doing but also enjoy the suffering and the sacrifice and the effort because without these virtues you are playing the PlayStation, not tennis! (MANAGEMENT OF EMOTIONS)

4. Transform yourself into a true warrior like Rafa, which doesn't mean shooting all the balls at once but going out on the court and taking the match instead of trying not to lose it, show a warrior attitude towards the match and your opponent!

Put on your headphones and listen to your favorite song before you start playing to give you energy and don't give up, play point by point, game by game, set by set! (MOTIVATION, ATTITUDE)

PARENTS... STEP AWAY!

I want to point out right away that this post is not aimed at all parents but only at certain individuals who end up ruining their children or completely making them lose the desire to compete in this sport.

FIRST POINT YOU MUST LEARN: You must not protect your children from frustration, disappointment, pain and discouragement, because without these SACRED ELEMENTS, your children will remain children.

YOU MUST UNDERSTAND that these very pain points will be THE FUEL IN THEIR ENGINE to achieve their goals in life!

Without failure, without frustration, without feeling discouraged and pain, you will accustom your children to living in a parallel dimension that is not the real one!

The real problem is that when you step onto the court, everything about who you are shows and you understand everything from how you approach each point and the different game situations.

If you continue to make things easier for him, these shortcomings will emerge during the games:

1. Balls: understood as courage and guts to be put into action in the match.

2. Resilience and tolerance towards difficult situations or wrongs suffered and then they immediately go crazy.

3. Mental strength, that is, you can shout in my face all the "vamos" of the planet but you don't bring me down, on the contrary you are only feeding my hunger to tear you to pieces (I am obviously always referring to the playing field and in a fair, sporting and honest way)

4. Patience with yourself but also in accepting the solidity of the opponent and in struggling to win a single point. Remember dear friend that the higher you climb in the rankings the worse it will be, so if this prospect of struggling to surpass yourself does not appeal to you, there is always the bowls in Saint Tropez, there in the central square they have a nice bowls tournament, if you want when we go to do the Challenger I will leave my players in the tournament and I will put you to play bowls with the old men.

5. Proactivity: instead of going onto the field to try not to lose the match, thanks to the pain, the desire for revenge and all the frustration that your "poor child" has suffered, this time he will go and get the match!

6. Humility: you will see that if he doesn't have the money to play in all the international tournaments on the planet without even being an ATP and without ever winning an open in Italy, you will see that the deprivation will make his ass burn and maybe the next time when his forehand or backhand doesn't work instead of going crazy, he will learn to find the inner key to fix himself and overturn the result like Alessandro Borghese in 4 restaurants

Dear parents, this is being told to you by someone who unfortunately experienced this uncomfortable reality, this extreme protection from their parents (obviously mine thought they were doing me good this way) and this thing took away my will to live, and if you notice, kids today really lack this desire and this vitality (not all of them obviously) because they have everything right away or they are stupid because of Instagram!

But if you continue to allow them to live this life, how can you expect them to overcome their demons? Inside they are terrified, I tell you, I talk to them every day.

You must accustom them from an early age in a healthy and sporty way and with loyal values to war because it is only in this way that they will learn to have confidence in their own means and only in this way can their self-esteem grow.

PARENTS love your children, support them and if anything give them the tools but then STEP AWAY and let us work giving us the right amount of time to produce results.

RESILIENCE... A DEADLY WEAPON AGAINST DISCOURAGEMENT!

You're playing under a scorching sun, the heat vapor mixed with sweat evaporating from your face, fogging up your glasses...

The view is terribly blurry because of the shadows of the trees that enter the playing field painting a sort of impressionistic picture...

The ball at a certain point disappears just before the net and suddenly reappears along the line that runs alongside the corridor, except that you are on the other side of the court and unfortunately you were not able to see it at all...

You're tired, you've been running around for two hours, your shots aren't working, you can't do what you're capable of, you can't be penetrative and as soon as you try, the ball goes out by two fingers most of the time...

Today you will have to sacrifice yourself if you want to win the match against your famous historical opponent, the one who never misses a ball, the one who makes fun of you in the locker room when he wins.... And so you row and while you do it you realize how resilience is made up first of all of humility, heart and the ability to sacrifice.

Your opponent has managed to get 3 lines in a row between serve, forehand and backhand, but you are honest and you don't tell him off, just look, as soon as your ball gets close to the line, a raised finger is intoxicated in the air indicating to you that the ball is out, imagine, what can you argue with him, we are on cement...

And you endure, you know that on the concrete you can't do anything and you endure... You lower your head and move on... You move on...

In the meantime, however, you realize that inside you are becoming discouraged, you are losing that sacred fire that burns to bring home the victory and so you talk to yourself and try to shake yourself in every possible way... Again... And again.... And again...

At a certain point you find the strength to react, to force your body to play in a less submissive way and with more courage.

You really can't do it if you don't shout something decisive at yourself to spur yourself on, if you don't charge yourself up deep inside because deep inside there is and will always be a child with his thousand fears, insecurities, doubts and paranoias... But that's exactly where you have to intervene with your "inner coach" you have to shake yourself up if you want to bring home the game, you have to do something more than what you're doing if you really care you have to put the fifth gear in now...

You see dear tennis player friend, resilience in tennis is not letting discouragement take over your heart, it is the ability to resist negative events, without losing heart, it is the desire to reset the previous point to try to win the next one without letting the pain bother you...

Resilience lies in the player's spirit and that's what we teach our kids, knowing the meaning of the term can help you become aware, but the real turning point is when, going through the inner hells you experience in the match, you will have put into practice what I'm teaching you and you will have managed to bring home the victory, then you will have understood what I mean when I say that Mental Tennis trains the body, mind and above all the spirit of the tennis player to compete!

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How to approach Mental Tennis: notes for use.

To help you get the most out of this book, trying as much as possible to involve you and make you passionate about this new subject, I have specifically chosen to use a simple and particularly pragmatic language, which is understandable to everyone, so that both adults and children can apply the tools described in this manual to immediately improve their performance when competing.

Below I report a series of postulates that will have the function of making you embrace the subject with the right perspective.

With Mental Tennis you will have to:

1. Learn to give yourself the right commands: to help you understand how our mind works, I will use a metaphor that in my opinion perfectly reflects what happens to us on the field. Imagine that you are driving a racing car and you want to give more gas to the accelerator and in doing so, instead of pressing the accelerator pedal, you unknowingly press the brake pedal... What do you think will happen to your racing car? Obviously you will be holding back the power of the engine instead of releasing it, well a mind pervaded by fears and incapable of isolating the thought, is a mind that is sending its body exactly this type of misunderstood command, a totally wrong command that the body is nevertheless assimilating and putting into practice. Therefore, the first thing you will learn with Mental Tennis will be to understand how to send yourself the right commands when you have to face a competition.

2. Train your intention as if you were training a muscle: You will have to train the intention just like it was a muscle, just like you usually train the forehand and backhand, the volley or the smash on the court, I'll try to explain myself better with a practical example, if you know that you have more chances of winning the match by putting pressure on the opponent but fear blocks you and keeps you from playing exclusively in your comfort zones at the baseline, then with Mental Tennis you will have to train the intention to attack the match by changing your strategy and maybe even going to the net often. The mind in this path will be considered as a shot and as such, you will have to train it every time you go on the court during training but above all when you play the match, because it is precisely during the competition that stress, fear and tension will present themselves like ghosts that will knock on your door, making you doubt everything and taking away any point of reference. It is precisely then, in fact, that you will have to put into practice what you have studied here, otherwise there will be no evolution and I want to be clear about this right away, it is not enough to have understood the theory if when you go into the field you then do not make it bear fruit through practice!

3. Become your own best coach: You will first be trained with theory and then trained with practice on the court to find solutions to problems and adjustments in the various and most disparate game situations that you will face in the match. This is one of the most important and characterizing aspects of Mental Tennis because it will push you to become autonomous and independent in the mental management of the match without always having to ask for pre-packaged solutions outside or from your coach.

4. Give yourself the time you need: Mental Tennis is not a simple course or a seminar, it is a path in which you have decided to invest because you want to evolve in this sport, finally overcoming your limits. I always ask my students to think of their tennis path as a sort of climb in which they take steps forward every day to reach the top, in this sport, the top is a long and constant path made of very small daily progress and often, also of many obstacles and falls that take us away from our goal. Therefore, it is very important in this sense not to be hasty, you need to know how to postpone your expectations of improvement not to the next match, but to a year from the next match. I assure you that if you are patient and follow exactly what I will ask you to do, observing the various principles that I will enunciate and applying the techniques, the evolutionary results will be almost assured.

4. Treat tournament games as training sessions: you will have to make a deep pact with us, but above all with yourself, that will force you to consider the tournament matches only as the natural continuation of our training on the field. therefore, you will learn to live the match as an excellent opportunity to put into practice what you are studying in this manual.

Seven areas to self-train and self-coach every day!

To give you a general overview of what awaits you and what I will ask you to do, I will now quickly review the seven macro areas on which Mental Tennis intervenes. Your task will be to work on yourself on each of these seven areas, assimilating the principles, techniques and tools that you will find from time to time and carrying out in your personal notebook the related exercises that you will find at the end of each paragraph.

1. Gratitude: in this area I will help you become aware of some aspects (even extra-tennis) that in my opinion constitute the basis for being able to free the potential. Being grateful is the starting point for being able to be serene inside, if we are serene inside we will be able to free our potential more easily by reaching ataraxia or that mental state that rejects anxiety, tension and fear and allows us to enter the flow more quickly, or to reach our maximum performance capacity.

2. Motivation: I will explain to you how motivation is actually the main engine to achieve any useful result in tennis as well as in everyday life. Being motivated means having a goal that stimulates you and that you want to achieve. In this macro area I will provide you with some key tools to bring your motivation to the top and thus facilitate the achievement of your goals.

3. Mindset and Attitude: I will train you in internalizing what I have defined as the 10 commandments that constitute a winning mentality and that if applied every day with consistency, will forge a solid and flexible mind suitable for competing. Moving on to attitude, we will examine which virtues or winning characteristics the modern champion is made up of to help you assimilate them as much as possible and through a specific tool, called the attitude wheel, you will be able to understand precisely which values-virtues you most need to work on to improve yourself and you will do it through our specific exercise protocol.

4.Emotion Management: in this area I will provide you with a series of practical tools to help you better manage your emotions, especially in delicate moments. Always remember that reading will not be enough to produce evolution in your game, you will have to train these tools consistently over time.

5. Focus: in this area you will find a series of practical and usable tools to increase your mental concentration capacity combined with your ability to keep yourself physically activated during the match, because for Mental Tennis staying focused in the match without being adequately activated is not a sufficient condition to be able to perform at your best.

6. Identity and game strategy: I will help you extract and strengthen your game identity so as not to distort yourself when you meet those players who do not allow you to play your tennis, in such a way as to provide you with solid points of reference that will allow you not to panic when things do not go as you hoped. As for the game plan or game strategy, I will train you with "exogenous training" to train you to get out of your emotionality, become lucid and present to yourself and thus defuse the opponent's game.

7. Confidence, Self-Esteem and Flow: this book will work gradually and indirectly on your self-esteem starting from the identity of the game and the solidity that follows once awareness comes. The final result will be to lead you over time and through the right corrections and adjustments, to develop a certain confidence in your means, also consequently increasing the perception you have of yourself, i.e. your self-esteem. In the last area, the one that concerns flow, I will explain some processes and techniques that will facilitate your entry into this altered physical-mental state in which you will be able to express yourself at the maximum level of your performance capabilities.

My advice before taking to the field

TODAY BEFORE ENTERING THE FIELD...

1. Accept the fight as part of the fun of this sport without wanting to get rid of it with haste, you will have to learn to row when it is necessary, building the point and when you have the possibility and your opponent shortens, enter and gain field or close the point even going to the net, trying to always make him play on the shot where he has less confidence and control, remember that always knowing what to do is one of the secrets of the success of this sport! (GAME PLAN, GAME IDENTITY)

2. Remember that tennis is a sport that is played one point at a time, so keep your mind firmly in the present moment, remaining focused on the here and now, stay engaged in the match, fighting point by point, don't look for excuses or alibis otherwise you will end up believing them and you will be out of the fight!

Remember that it's not over until it's really over, so in this sport every "single" point counts, so try to order your body to do what you're asking and not to go off on its own, because the body is naturally inclined not to listen to you, you have to subdue it with willpower. (ATTITUDE, FOCUS)

3. When you feel discouraged, tired, the desire to give up, fear, tension in playing the crucial points, talk to yourself, talk to your "body", encourage it, spur it on, support it, be kind and not rigid with it (yourself), be patient and enjoy tennis instead of being a victim, think about the wonderful opportunity you have to do what you are doing but also enjoy the suffering and the sacrifice and the effort because without these virtues you are playing the PlayStation, not tennis! (MANAGEMENT OF EMOTIONS)

4. Transform yourself into a true warrior like Rafa, which doesn't mean shooting all the balls at once but going out on the court and taking the match instead of trying not to lose it, show a warrior attitude towards the match and your opponent!

Put on your headphones and listen to your favorite song before you start playing to give you energy and don't give up, play point by point, game by game, set by set! (MOTIVATION, ATTITUDE)

Stay in the present!

Have you ever actually tried to play tennis one point at a time? Are you able to isolate your thoughts? Are you able to take control of your mind and guide your body to make the right tactical choice? Or when you compete, do you prefer to go into an autoplay mode without thinking?

Remember that becoming a thinking player means first of all selecting the thoughts that are knocking on the door of your mind and keeping the negative ones out!



Do this exercise in real life too and you will notice a huge benefit too! Stay in the present moment and guide yourself with the power of your inner dialogue, try to win the match by staying in the present moment and do not allow your mind to go into the past, to the previous point lost or into the future where you already see yourself in the shower because you lost the first set, stay in the present moment playing only one point at a time!

Let me ask you a few questions...

THE WINNING ATTITUDE

All of us tennis players, before facing an official match, are inevitably attacked by our inner saboteur who bombards us with thoughts of mistrust and very often leads us to lose matches before they have even started, isn't that true?

Now answer these questions very honestly:

· What is your attitude towards the official match? Do you go on the field to not lose or do you go on the field to win, to go and get it?

· What is your attitude towards your opponent's ranking? When it is much higher than yours, do you go into the field already defeated or do you force yourself not to listen to that voice and fight point by point?

· What is your attitude towards a very bad score? Do you let yourself be defeated or do you simply refuse to lose like true champions do?

· What is your attitude when you are faced with someone who steals your balls and treats you with arrogance? Do you lose your temper or do you transform your anger into explosiveness and bury him?

· What is your attitude towards consecutive break points, for example, when you are serving and you are down 0-40? Do you really trust yourself to play one point at a time or do you listen to the internal saboteur thinking that you have already lost the game?

· What is your attitude towards the mistake? Do you know how to forgive yourself, erase, forget by completely resetting and starting over ready to fight or do you start to let the poison of discouragement enter?

It's about bringing two worlds as close as possible: training and matches.

You can train 80 hours a day, make 2 million baskets a week, but if when you go out on the field to compete you don't know how to find the right balance between staying calm and relaxed and at the same time being gritty and confident in your own abilities, you won't go very far in this sport.

It's true, muscle memory can help you a lot, but when tension and pressure come into play, what do you do? How do you play when fear seems like a demon that possesses you? When it becomes physical, not just mental, and it distorts both your sensations and movements, what do you do?

Well over the course of almost 20 years of hard work I have built a method that provides an effective response to this huge performance discrepancy between when you train and when you take to the field to compete where most of the time you cannot even perform at 70% of your potential.

Mental-Tennis was born to make you express yourself not at 100 but at 110% right when you go on the court to compete and it does so by teaching you to transform the mind from an obstacle into a lethal weapon to defeat first of all your demons and then possibly also your opponent.

But how can we do this?

1. Making us aware of the dynamics that occur when you compete

2. Providing you with the mental tennis tools to accelerate your performance

3. Training directly on the court to develop the virtues that a modern tennis player requires, patience, resilience, mental clarity, grit, intensity, mental strength, proactivity and courage, endurance and heart.

Words can only go so far, if you really want to discover the effectiveness of this competition training method you have to try it first hand with me on the field.

Attend one of the next clinics in Fondi at the Circolo Tennis Gaeta on January 21st or on the 22nd at the LA NEXT GEN club.

For more information on courses, webinars, clinics, visit our website