The goal of Mental Tennis: Train your mind to win!

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To get you to switch from conscious to unconscious application of the method. Let me give you an example: do you remember when you had practice drives to get your driving license? (Younger readers may remember when they learned to drive a scooter—it’s the same idea). Well, remember that at the beginning you had to concentrate on every single action required to get the car moving? Insert the key, turn the key, press the clutch, shift the gear, release the clutch, signal, accelerate… Okay, after many years of practice, think of those same actions. Are you still concentrating on every single action the way you did years ago? Or does it all just come spontaneously, almost automatically? Mental Tennis is the same. If you pay attention to what I explain in this handbook and you put it into practice all the time, after a while your mind and body acquire and internalize the processes, and on court you’ll implement them instinctively and automatically. This means you’ve integrated the most important tool for winning—your mind! — Into your game style.

Get yourself a diary to use just for Mental Tennis

To maximize the efficacy of this book on your learning curve, I suggest you buy a diary and use it just for Mental Tennis. Use it for the exercises you find at the end of sections, but also to chart your progress over time and to make a note of your personal thoughts, monitoring just how you’re doing. Make sure you get a pocket diary, small enough to carry with you, and have on hand to include the most important ideas that come to you during practice or matches. I “borrowed” this tip from legend José Mourinho. Hi, José...

My advice before stepping on court

TODAY BEFORE ENTERING THE FIELD...

1. Accept the fight as part of the fun of this sport without wanting to get rid of it in a hurry, you will have to learn to row when necessary, building the point and when you have the opportunity and your opponent shortens, enters and gains the field or even close the point going to the net, always trying to 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 success in 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 by staying focused on the here and now, stay attached to the match fighting point by point, don't look for excuses or alibis otherwise you'll end up to believe it and you will come 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 it and not to go off on its own, because the body is naturally inclined not to listen to you, you have to submit it with willpower. (ATTITUDE, FOCUS)

3. When you feel discouragement, fatigue, 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 (you himself), be patient and enjoy tennis instead of being a victim of it, think of 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 play station not tennis ! (EMOTION MANAGEMENT)

4. Transform yourself into a real warrior like Rafa, which doesn't mean shooting all the balls but taking the field by going to take the game instead of trying not to lose it, show a warrior attitude towards the match and your opponent !

Put your headphones on and listen to your favorite song before starting to play to give yourself the energy and not give up, play point by point, game by game, set by set! (MOTIVATION,ATTITUDE)

PARENTS... STEP ASIDE!

I state from now on that this post is not aimed at all parents but only at certain individuals who end up ruining their children or make them completely 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 pain points will be THE FUEL IN THEIR ENGINE to achieve their goals in life!

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

The real problem is that when you take the field, you can see everything about who you are and you can understand everything from how you approach each point and the different game situations.

If you continue to ease his path, these shortcomings will emerge during the games:

1. Balls: understood as courage and cazzimma to be implemented in the game.

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

3. Mental solidity, i.e. you can shout all the "vamos" on the planet in my face but you don't throw me down, on the contrary you are only feeding my hunger to tear you apart (obviously I always refer to the playing field and in a fair, sporting and honest)

4. Patience towards yourself but also in accepting the solidity of the opponent and struggling to win a single point. Remember dear friend that the more you climb in the standings the worse it will be, so if you don't like this prospect of struggling to overcome yourself, there are always bowls in Saint Tropez, there in the central square they have a nice bowls tournament, if you want when we go to the Challenger I leave my players in the tournament and I'll put you to play bowls with the old men.

5. Proactivity: instead of taking the field to try not to lose the game, thanks to the pain, the desire for revenge and all the frustration that your "poor boy" has suffered, this time the game will go away !

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 deprivation will make his ass burn and maybe next time when the forehand or backhand doesn't work for him instead of going crazy, he will learn to find the inner key to adjust and overturn the result like Alessandro Borghese in 4 restaurants

Dear parents, someone tells you who unfortunately experienced this uncomfortable reality, this extreme protection from their parents (obviously my parents thought they were doing me good like this) and this thing took away my will to live, and if you do if the boys today really lack this desire and this vitality (not all of course) because they have everything immediately or are stoned by instagram!

But if you continue to allow them to lead this life, how can you then think that they are able to overcome their demons, they are terrified inside, I tell you I talk to them every day.

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

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

RESILIENCE... A DEADLY WEAPON AGAINST DISCOURAGE!

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

The view is terribly out of focus due to the shadow of the trees that enter the playing field, painting a sort of impressionistic picture...

At a certain point, the ball disappears just before the net and suddenly reappears along the line alongside that of the corridor, only that you are on the other side of the court and unfortunately you just couldn't see it...

You're tired, you've been running left and right for two hours, your shots don't work for you, you can't do what you're capable of, you can't be penetrating and as soon as you try, the ball comes out of two fingers most of the times...

Today you will have to sacrifice yourself if you want to win the game with your famous historical opponent, the one who doesn't miss 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 above all, it is made up of humility, heart and the capacity for sacrifice.

Your opponent has managed to hit 3 lines in a row between service, forehand and backhand, but you are honest and don't tell him about it, just look, as soon as your ball approaches the line, a raised finger gets intoxicated in ' air indicating that the ball has gone out, let alone, what can you dispute him, we are on the concrete...

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

In the meantime, however, you realize that inside you are getting discouraged, you are losing that sacred fire that burns to bring home the victory and then you talk to yourself and try to shake yourself in all possible ways... Again... And again.... It's still...

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

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

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 disturb you...

Resilience resides in the player's spirit and that's what we teach our boys, knowing the meaning of the term can help you become aware, but the real turning point comes when, passing through the inner hells you experience in the game, you will 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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Gratitude: the first area of intervention of Mental Tennis

1. THE GRATITUDE

“You can't really know the sweet if you haven't gone through the bitter first…”

Dear reader, our journey together starts right here, with gratitude. To better explain to you what I mean by this theme, I will begin this training course by telling you about a personal episode that recently happened to me.

One day, not long ago, I received a message on the official Facebook page of Mental Tennis, an 18-year-old girl from Kabul, Afghanistan, who follows us on social media, wrote to me: "The Taliban are coming, the defenses at the front they are giving up, they will soon occupy the city and I will no longer be able to play tennis… I am in total panic, I don't know what to do anymore… My parents don't want to leave their home, I do, I want to get out of here but if I try to run away and catch me kill me! Why am I so unlucky? Why was I born in this country? Please help me out of here, help me stop this nightmare, I'm scared!"

"Dear Sumayah, I want you to know that I tried in every way, I even managed to find a contact in the Spanish special forces, who had the task of bringing home their citizens present in Kabul, but when I managed to get in touch with him, it was already too late because the plane had already taken off”!

I tried but I couldn't! I won't hide from you that often when I think of He La as her parents call her, a deep sense of despondency combined with anger overwhelms me because of the impotence I felt in those days.

Inside - I think - she's just a little girl and she's forced to live this hell, she won't be allowed to leave the house, let alone play tennis!

From He La the Taliban stole her dream, to become one

tennis player.

Here, to understand what I mean by gratitude, you should often re-read what He La wrote to me that day... I'm sure that if you do, if you stop and really re-read the tragic nature of those words, the next time when you take the field, you will probably do it with a completely different awareness and attitude. “Before being motivated, we should be grateful!”, explained Sergio Gomez, ex n°120 of the ATP circuit, today owner of the

beautiful Tenis y Padel Club Bel Air in Estepona, near Marbella. “Being grateful to be able to play tennis is something that many

kids completely ignore it because they are used to getting everything at once by their parents! Tony Nadal told me this one day when I stopped to have a chat with him in the American school at the Rafa Nadal Academy, while accompanying Mirco, one of my students from Sanremo at the time.

Running, sweating, pushing your limits, is something many of us take for granted, until we lose it forever. Only then do they realize how lucky they have been... I sincerely think that making these kids savor deprivation since they are little is something highly edifying in the formation of their character, I truly believe that if so many parents learned to make their own children what they are pursuing, without facilitating their path in every way, perhaps today we would not witness this general laxity that rages in the minds of so many young people.

“For Rafael (as his uncle calls him), this happened especially after his first serious injury to his left foot. From there something clicked in him, he realized that he could have lost everything overnight, and so if he already trained with extreme dedication and perseverance before, now he does it with awareness.

That awareness that at any moment everything could end and therefore he enjoys everything, the fatigue, the effort, even sometimes that physical pain that separates him from reaching his goal… Rafa makes all these sacrifices and renunciations willingly, because Deep down in his heart he understood how lucky he is to be able to do what he loves most in life… Playing tennis for a living! And when you observe him, his humility and gratitude shine through in his every small and big gesture.

Being grateful helps keep us humble, being humble is one of the secrets of Rafael's success." But why did I decide to include the concept of gratitude in Mental Tennis? You see, dear reader, being grateful to be able to play tennis is a concept that elaborated adequately, constitutes the basis for achieving a certain inner serenity, which in turn is the basis for being able to play in ataraxia, or in a state of mind ( which I will teach you later as a basis for accessing the flow) of relaxation and muscle decontraction in which the mind is trained to reject thoughts of anxiety, fear and agitation, entering this state means being able to free your talent and this is precisely the first goal I set out to do with this book, to help you release all the tennis inside you when you compete, instead of leaving it trapped between your anxieties and fears.

If you manage not to trivialize this aspect of your inner growth and change your perspective of approach to this sport, I can assure you that the result will be greater than you can imagine, because just like Rafa you too, when you take the field, you will understand that maybe that could be the last time you can play and you will experience a flavour, a taste and a pleasure that you did not know before…

And where does all this come from? It comes from understanding that not everything is so obvious, that what seems routine to us may no longer be there tomorrow... What has Covid taught us if not just this? Who could have imagined that overnight we would have to stay barricaded in the house without being able to go out or even play?

Here, now perhaps, I hope I have led you to reflect more deeply on this preliminary theme of our journey together, and I expect from you, that when you return to the field today, you will do so by honoring this sport, and avoiding spoiled child behavior but rather by committing yourself with loyalty and dedication, aware of being grateful to be able to do something you love, play tennis!

How to approach Mental Tennis: notes for use.

In order for you to get the most out of this book, trying as much as possible to get you involved and passionate about this new subject, I have specifically chosen to use simple and particularly pragmatic language, which is understandable to everyone, so that both adults and children, could 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 matter with the right perspective.

With Mental Tennis you will:

1. Learn to give yourself the right commands: to make you understand how our mind works, I'll use a metaphor that in my view perfectly follows what very often happens to us on the pitch. 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 the power of the engine instead of releasing it, well a mind pervaded by fears and unable to isolate the thought, is a mind that is sending to its body exactly this type of misunderstood command, a totally wrong command that the body is anyway assimilating and putting into practice. So, the first thing you'll learn with Mental Tennis is to understand how to send you the right commands when you have to face a competition.

2. Training intention as if you were training a muscle: You will have to train intention just as if it were a muscle, just like you usually train on the court the forehand and the backhand, the volley or the smash, I'll try to explain myself better with a practical example, if you know you have more chances to win the match putting pressure on the opponent but fear blocks you and keeps you from playing exclusively in your comfort zones at the baseline, so with Mental Tennis you'll have to train your intention to attack the match by changing your strategy and maybe even hitting the net often. The mind in this path will be considered as a blow and as such, you will have to train it every time you take the field 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 who will knock on your door, making you doubt everything and taking away any point of reference. In fact, it will be precisely then 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 on this right away, it is not enough to have understood the theory if when you take the field then you don't make it bear fruit through practice!

3. Becoming Your Own Best Coach: You will first be trained with theory and then trained with practice on the pitch to find solutions to problems and adjustments in the various and most disparate game situations that will arise during 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 from outside or from your coach.

4. Give yourself time: 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 journey as a sort of climb in which to take steps forward every day to reach the top, in this sport, the top is a long and constant journey made up of very small daily progress and often , even of many setbacks and falls that take us away from our goal. Therefore, it is very important in this sense not to be hasty, it is necessary to know how to postpone one's expectations of improvement not to the next game, but to one year from the next game. 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 guaranteed.

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

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

To provide you with a general overview of what awaits you and what I will ask you to do, I will now quickly review the seven macro areas in which Mental Tennis intervenes. Your task will be to work on yourself in each of these seven areas, assimilating the principles, techniques and tools that you will find from time to time and carrying out the related exercises in your personal agenda 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 non-tennis aspects) which in my view form the basis for being able to unleash your potential. Being grateful is the starting point to be calm inside, if we are calm inside we will more easily be able to release our potential by reaching ataraxia or that mental state that rejects anxiety, tension and fear and allows us to enter the flow more quickly, that is, to reach our maximum performance capacity.

2. Motivation: I will explain how motivation is in fact the main engine to achieve any useful result in tennis as well as in everyday life. Being motivated means having a goal that motivates 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 which, if applied consistently every day, 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 virtue-values you need most work 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 constantly over time.

5.Focus: in this area you will find a series of practical and usable tools to increase your ability to concentrate mentally together with your ability to keep yourself activated at the body level 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 its best.

6. Game identity and strategy: I will help you extract and strengthen your game identity so as not to distort your nature 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 to Don't panic when things don't go your way. As far as the game plan or game strategy is concerned, 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 gradually and indirectly work on your self-esteem starting from the game identity and the resulting solidity once awareness arrives. The end 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 or your self-esteem. In the last area, the one that concerns the 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 highest level of your performance capabilities.

My advice before taking 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 in a hurry, you will have to learn to row when necessary, building the point and when you have the opportunity and your opponent shortens, enters and gains the field or even close the point going to the net, always trying to 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 success in 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 by staying focused on the here and now, stay attached to the match fighting point by point, don't look for excuses or alibis otherwise you'll end up to believe it and you will come 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 it and not to go off on its own, because the body is naturally inclined not to listen to you, you have to submit it with willpower. (ATTITUDE, FOCUS)

3. When you feel discouragement, fatigue, 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 (you himself), be patient and enjoy tennis instead of being a victim of it, think of 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 play station not tennis ! (EMOTION MANAGEMENT)

4. Transform yourself into a real warrior like Rafa, which doesn't mean shooting all the balls but taking the field by going to take the game instead of trying not to lose it, show a warrior attitude towards the match and your opponent !

Put your headphones on and listen to your favorite song before starting to play to give yourself the energy and not give up, play point by point, game by game, set by set! (MOTIVATION,ATTITUDE)

Stay in the present!

Have you ever really 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're racing, do you prefer to enter an autoplay mode without thinking?

Remember that becoming a thinking player means first of all selecting the thoughts that are knocking at 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 self-talk, try to win the game by staying in the present moment and don't allow your mind to go to the past, lost previous point or future where you already see yourself in the shower because you lost the first set, stay in the present moment by playing only one point at a time!

Let me ask you a few questions…

THE WINNING ATTITUDE

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

Now answer these questions very honestly:

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

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

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

· What attitude do you have when faced with someone who steals your balls and treats you arrogantly? Do you dismount or turn anger into explosiveness and bury it?

· What attitude do you have towards several 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 you've already lost the game?

· What attitude do you have towards error? Can you forgive yourself, erase, forget by completely resetting and start over ready to fight or do you start to get the poison of discouragement into you?

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

You can train even 80 hours a day, make 2 million baskets a week, but if when you take the field to compete you don't know how to find that right balance between being calm and relaxed and at the same time being spirited trusting in your means, you won't go very far in this sport

Yes, 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 feels like a demon possessing you? When it becomes physical, not just mental, and it throws off both sensations and movements, what do you do?

Well, over almost 20 years of hard work I have built a method that gives an effective response to this great performance discrepancy between when you train and when you take the field to compete where most of the time you are unable to express yourself even 70% of the your potential.

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

But how can we do it?

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 toughness, proactivity and courage, endurance and heart.

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

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

For more info on courses, webinars, clinics, consult our website