According to Nick Bollettieri (as cited in Mental Training For Peak Perfomance, 2005) ‘’it isn’t the skill these athletes possess that makes them standouts. It’s their passion – their mental focus on the game. Being a greatest athlete in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t have the love, the positive attitude, and the passion to play and care for the game.’’ (pg. 188) In addition, Nick Bollettieri is a legend in tennis world and one of the best coaches in the world. He coached people like Agassi, Sampras, Serena Williams, Becker and Courier.
Most of the tennis players have issues with managing their anger/anxiety while trying not to separate their body and mind on the court. Bollettieri states that mental and emotional mistakes we make in our motor movement translate into physiological problems that affect our performance. Moreover, it is so important to never separate the mind from the body in the …show more content…
This is also one of the major influences on the game of tennis and it presents a crucial part of mental strength. In football, for instance, players might use their anger in a positive way such as hitting two blockers and sacking the QB. On the other hand, in tennis this might create many problems. Many people refer to tennis as a ‘’gentlemen’s sport’’ but in definition tennis is delicate fine-motor sport where all emotions are influenced by athlete’s emotional states. This is why anger presents such a huge problem in tennis because it can undermine this delicate motor process and affect performance. Anxiety can also undermine the process, especially if there is no outlet for it. In most of the sports, athletes take anger and convert it into rage, which works most of times even if it’s not the best thing to do. The other issue is that anger and rage are not socially acceptable in tennis, which is not the case with other sports such as football or hockey for