hey guys in today's video i want to tell you how you can build your confidence not only when it
comes to your technique but also when it comes to winning tennis matches so confidence in tennis is
something that's very difficult to accomplish you're not going to be able to achieve this by
watching a youtube video this will take some time and the reason for that is the following and the
reason why confidence and tennis takes time is that confidence is your perceived probability of
success which in turn is a result of a successful history so when it for example comes to tennis
technique you cannot have confidence if you are doubting your stroke and the reason why you're
doubting your strokes is that you don't have a very good history in other words you're making a
lot of mistakes and this is how low confidence in your strokes translates onto the tennis court so
basically you're going to be hitting shots whether it be the forehand the backhand the serve or the
volley whatever shot that you have low confidence in this is how it's going to play out so you're
going to be very timid and very tentative because your perceived probability of that particular
stroke going in is going to be very low this is why you're timid or in other words you're tight
when you play and the reason why you have this low perceived probability of the balls going in
is because you haven't had a successful history in other words every time you try to hit the ball
hard it goes out so naturally what's going to happen is you're going to be very careful
and you're going to gently push that ball into the court. so what needs to happen is very simple
whatever technical deficiencies you have in the various strokes you have to correct but then
the job is not over now you have to repeat this action tens of thousands of times and this is how
your confidence will slowly grow in other words the stroke that you fixed and you repeated it many
many times is going to start going in more in turn your perceived probability of success is going to
go up and why is it going up because you have had a more successful history and this is how you grow
confidence into your strokes there is no shortcuts again like i said in the beginning you will not
achieve this by watching a short youtube video you have to go out there and get the work done tennis
is all about repetitions players at the high level spend their whole life hitting balls every day and
it's only because of that that they can hit balls inside the baseline with their eyes closed when
it comes to confidence in winning tennis matches this is something that's even more difficult than
gaining confidence over your tennis strokes mostly because now you have to deal with your opponent
but there are several other factors involved but the same theory applies it's basically
your perceived probability of success which is the result of a successful history and the only way to
gain confidence in winning more tennis matches is to win more tennis matches i'm going to give you
an example let's say we have two players of the same level this could be the elite level could
be the college level or the junior level and one of these players has had a successful run
over the past month they've gone deep into the tournaments quarter semi's final or even won a
tournament while the other player has struggled and lost first round and second round and now
these players are facing each other in the next tournament and what's going to happen there's a 99
chance that the player who's been winning a lot is gonna win that match even though these two players
are at the same level and why is this the case because that player who's been winning
has confidence while the other player does not and the reason why this is a predictable result
and you can go online and check scores from the professional players and this is a pattern
that's always been there players who do well usually continue to do well in other words if
they do well at one particular tournament and they will continue to do well for a few months now this
will not continue forever of course there's going to be ups and downs but generally speaking players
who are winning a lot of matches will have a lot of confidence and it's the exact opposite for the
players who are not winning a lot of matches they will be very low in confidence so the example that
i gave you those two players one with a lot of matches won in the past month versus the player
who hasn't won a lot of matches is very simple that player has a lot of confidence and why is
that because that player's perceived probability of success is very high which is the result of a
successful history it's a very simple formula so the only way you're going to grow the confidence
in winning more matches is to win more matches so how do you win a match if you haven't been playing
well if you've been losing in the first round or the second round now this is a real dilemma it's
a real nightmare and some players struggle a lot with this there's been players on tour that's had
many consecutive losses players such as donald young or vince spadea and this is a slump that's
very difficult to get out of and this is all based on that player's confidence so what needs to be
done is trying really hard to reverse this trend all that's needed is a one successful tournament
where that player wins a few rounds and all of a sudden the slump is gone the confidence will
slowly start coming back and that player will go back to normal and at the elite level this is very
rare because players will usually be able to get out of a slump these are such high caliber players
and they are good enough to eventually start winning matches but what about the
recreational level what if you find yourself in a big slump this is where it gets a little bit more
complicated because at the recreational level you might still have some problems with your technique
you still might have some problems with your shot selection with your ball recognition so it's not
all about the mental part of your game so what you need to do is make sure that you get yourself
as good as possible when it comes to these three things you have to get your technique as good as
possible you have to work on your shot selection and you have to work on your ball recognition
once you have that down now if you're still losing matches you can start working on your
mental game which is basically being patient when you're losing not giving up having
the perseverance to keep going keep fighting until you finally start winning matches again