There are periods when a tennis player keeps training, keeps competing, maybe even keeps winning a few matches… but inside, something slowly starts fading. It’s not always a technical issue. It’s not even an obvious crisis. It’s more subtle than that. Harder to explain. It’s the feeling that tennis is starting to become emotionally heavy. Like every practice session requires mental energy before it even begins. And the strange part is that this usually happens to the players who care the most. The ones who truly love the sport and emotionally invest a huge part of themselves into it.
At some point, many players unknowingly begin to connect tennis with personal value. Every match starts feeling like a judgment. Every mistake stays in the head for hours. Every bad day feels personal. And when that happens, the mind no longer walks onto the court with freedom. It walks onto the court trying to protect itself. The player stops expressing and starts controlling. Stops competing naturally and starts trying not to fail. And slowly, tennis loses fluidity.
A lot of players live with this feeling for months without ever openly talking about it. From the outside they may look calm, but internally there’s a constant tension that never completely leaves them. They overthink points they lost, overthink expectations, overthink what other people might think about them. Some players arrive at the club already mentally drained before even warming up. Others feel anxiety during the first few minutes of practice without fully understanding why. And the more they try to “fix” the feeling by forcing themselves mentally, the tighter everything becomes. They try too hard to stay calm, too hard not to get frustrated, too hard not to miss. But tennis rarely works well when the brain enters full control mode.
One of the biggest misunderstandings in tennis today is the idea that every mental struggle should be solved by becoming tougher. In reality, many players don’t need more toughness. They need more freedom. Because there are players who technically can play at a very high level, but emotionally they feel restricted during matches. You can see it in the body language, in the hesitation, in the tension of the swing, in the legs that stop moving naturally. It’s like they’re playing with the handbrake on. And most of the time, behind that tension there isn’t a lack of talent. There’s fear of suffering emotionally if things go wrong.
The truth is that tennis feels everything. It feels when you’re playing scared. It feels when you become obsessed with results. It feels when your entire focus is avoiding mistakes instead of playing freely. And the more a player treats every match like a personal evaluation, the more the body loses natural rhythm. That’s when the arm becomes tight, the legs feel heavy, and the player starts saying things like, “I don’t know why, but I can’t let go during matches anymore.” It becomes frustrating because often the level is still there during practice. Then the match starts, and it feels like becoming a completely different person.
I honestly think one of the most important moments in a tennis player’s growth is understanding that not every match has to define who they are. Because nobody plays freely when they constantly feel judged, especially by themselves. And this doesn’t mean becoming less competitive or caring less about improvement. It simply means learning not to turn every mistake into an emotional disaster. Mistakes are part of tennis. Bad days are part of tennis. Tension is part of tennis. The real problem begins when the player starts experiencing all of this as a permanent threat.
Sometimes the most important thing isn’t immediately finding another technical solution or another mental strategy. Sometimes the first real step is simply being honest with yourself. Asking whether you’re still playing to grow and compete… or mainly playing to avoid the emotional pain of losing. For many players, that question changes everything because they finally realize the issue is not only about tennis itself. It’s about the emotional weight they’ve slowly attached to it over time.
And from there, the work becomes different. Not trying to control every emotion. Not trying to become perfect. But slowly learning how to breathe again on the court, accepting that tennis will never feel fully clean, fully safe, or fully under control. Because many players haven’t actually lost their level. They’ve lost freedom. And when they reconnect with that freedom… very often, their tennis starts coming back too.
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Federico Coppini
Mental Coach & Tennis Coach
Founder – Coppini Tennis Academy
🎾 https://www.coppinitennisacademy.com