One of the keys to playing / fighting well is to have good technique and at the same time be able to adapt to a different opponent.

I invite you to take a few minutes and read this interesting analogy between martial arts technique described by Bruce Lee and my thoughts on tennis technique.

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1. What's new?
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a) Bruce Lee first learned traditional martial arts technique but later discovered that it has many limitations.

He developed his own style and called it Jeet Kun Do. See what can you learn from his views on martial arts technique and how can you apply his philosophy to tennis technique.

What Can Tennis Players Learn From Bruce Lee

b) The submissions for What Have You Learned From A Tennis Match continue!

I especially want to thank Tom who is only 9 years old for his great contribution:

My First Tournament

Tom is the winner of the second prize; The Mental Manual For Tennis Winners! Tom, please email me with your email address!

The battle for the first prize was again very tough but eventually I decided on Karen's submission about the Joy of Tennis.

Karen, please email me to receive the Tennis Strategy Encyclopedia ebook!

Of course, special thanks to Rick, Bruce, Ansu Kumar and TennisTom for their contributions.

The competition goes on so feel free to submit your story!

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2. Tennis Thoughts Blog
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This article may be very interesting to all tennis parents with very young (and older) players:

My Daughter Is Nervous When Serving

Also, don't miss the article about ambidextrous tennis and see who is the true master of playing with two forehands:

Ambidextrous Tennis

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3. Q&A
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Q: Always before a tournament I either practice my serve or play a set against someone at my club and almost always I play at my top performance.

However at the tournament if I start off poorly my mental game goes downhill from the start. I understand that I'm supposed to move on and go to the next point, but I try and more times than not I'm not able to move on and I continue to hit the ball in the net or out.

For example at today's match I kept trying to encourage myself and focus on the next point, but every time I missed another shot I would get more frustrated and rush points and loose games more quickly.

A: I understand what you are saying.

What happens is that when things go wrong at the start you BELIEVE them and then they define your future performance.

You look for proof of how good you are and then you play accordingly.

I suggest you go through your past experiences and think whether your perfomance in one match has ever gone up and down? Or did it ALWAYS stay the same through the whole match?

If your answer is that your perfomance went up and down in one single match, then you KNOW that even when your performance at the start of a certain match is low, it can go up.

In fact, if you don't become negative about it and just keep playing it will almost ALWAYS go up. That's because you'll get used to the conditions, you'll warm up your body and mind to the competitive level, you'll start reading your opponent better and so on.

Try and remember a match (or more) when this happened. This will give you proof to counter your own doubts the next time when you start a match not playing that well.

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Best regards,

Tomaz

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