The mental wars-the toughest opponent you will ever meet is the one in the mirror. Everyone has doubts, and everyone faces the fear of competing. That is what drives athletes to great performances but it also drives athletes to fail and sometimes even quit. Psychology 101 calls it the fight or flight response. When faced with adversity, those are your choices.
How do you practice “hanging in there”? In practice subtly blow a few points and get behind. Then fight back. Always try to win a practice game with a perfect shot, not an opponent’s mistake.
Find hard charging folks to practice with, not the nice people! Put yourself under as much pressure as you can in practice. That means conditioning too. Push yourself in footwork drills. That makes quitting (flight) a lot harder and emphasizes staying the course(fight).
When I used to teach in a camp with Dave and Gregg Peck, two future HOF’ers, I watched closely as they trained hard during lunch breaks or wandered down to court 9 to work on their back wall game. This was after they had fried their legs on lifecycle and nautilus. The theory was that sometimes you have to play tired and learn to play tired so when it happens in a tournament you are prepared mentally.
Maybe put it another way; get used to winning ugly. These days I see many matches players just give up on. “I just didn’t play well.” is the phrase I hear. Watch the greatest of the greats on video. It is not hard to find a match they won when playing poorly at times during that match. That’s how they became great!