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Tennis Goals
I’m sure anyone I ask if they would like to play better would say "yes" without a doubt, because this game is a never ending learning process. The question is simply “how much” better do you want to get, and “how bad” do you want it.
Everything is a matter of motivation, so if you really want to get better at anything you need to be able to monitor your progress, and that means establishing clearly your goals. Goals keep everyone on target and committed to the work, time and whatever else is part of achieving success. Let’s get real and take a few minutes to write about what you need to do to achieve these goals.
The first distinction we have to make when talking about goals is between outcome and performance goals. Outcome goals focus on the end result or outcome of a competitive match (i.e., winning or losing), therefore you don’t have 100% control. Performance goals on the other hand focus on improvements relative to your own standards of excellence (i.e., improving your forehand).
For goals to be effective they must be:
- Challenging: you should set difficult goals that elicit maximum motivation, but not so difficult that make you give up. Using the staircase approach you set yourself to take small steps to keep improving.
- Realistic: most players set goals way to high for them because that’s what pays. Many players say they want to be #1 or top 10, when they are ranked 300!, while others set them too low because of fear of failure.
- Specific: to say you want to get “better”, “do your best” or “improve” something doesn’t tell me clearly in a way that can be measured what you want.
- Short term: long-term goals simply cannot be challenging, realistic or specific because too many conditions and events unknown to you now will have a bearing on whether you get these goals.
I like to get students to write 3 or 4 outcome goals like what ranking they want or winning a specific tournament, etc., to then concentrate on the 4 areas of tennis: technique, strategy, fitness and mental toughness.
The problem here is to identify what you want, for example improving your forehand, then with the help of a coach, figure out exactly what you need to do to make your forehand better: change the grip, the backswing or follow-through, etc. In tennis these type of goals (technical) are hard to measure, but you can still be specific like to practice 30’ each day on your kick serve.
Under strategy some typical ones are: serve 60% of 1st serves in, return down the center, use your forehand to control the point, approach down the line, use drop shots, serve and volley once per game, etc.
For fitness you’ll want to decide how many days and what exactly you’ll do running, in the gym, doing footdrills, abdominals or stretching.
And finally on mental toughness write about things like giving 100% every match, taking 16 seconds between points, use positive cue words like “vamos”, or “relax”.
Once you got the 4 areas covered put them somewhere you can see them daily and review them every months or as necessary. It feels like it’s complicated but it’s worth it…..if you want to “really” get better.
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