The Top Ten Tennis Tips of All-Time: Part One By Dr. Tom Ferraro
What do the pros know that you don’t? Read on, and find out. n order to win on the courts, there are many skills one must have. After working with professional athletes and coaches for thirty five years in the fields of tennis, golf, soccer, football, baseball and more, I’ve learned that there are ten secret ingredients to winning in tennis.
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Over the next year, I will spell out these ten secrets in detail and explain what you must do to learn them. Subjects will include mastering the emotions of anxiety, anger, and despair, understanding the importance of body language and gamesmanship, how to establish the right psychological
defenses such as suppression, anticipation and humor, gathering the right team and assets around you, practicing the right balance of fun and work, developing the traits of confidence, perseverance and focus and, finally, how to see the value of your education. For the first part of this series, we will be talking about anxiety, the number one psychological issue affecting performance. Anxiety Symptoms of anxiety include worry, the yips, jitteriness, tension, fatigue, nausea, feelings of weakness or light headedness, quirky compulsions like racket twirling and more. When anxiety becomes overwhelming, it can have a devastating effect on performance and prevent a player from playing to their full potential. It also leads to irritability, discouragement and even depression in some cases. Causes The cause of anxiety is multi-determined and is triggered by external events, but
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New York Tennis Magazine • January/February 2022 • NYTennisMag.com
