The Environment Ivan Illustrations
Absolutely — here are four clever, witty, sharp illustration concepts that specifically dramatize the stress of the tennis environment (not cutesy), and each one includes:
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Exact placement tag you can paste into the chapter
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Full art direction (scene, characters, visual metaphor, tone, caption options)
I’m using your established vibe: smart cultural callbacks, dry humor, and the FBTL “EQ lens” (stress as information + preparation as power).
1) “RECALCULATING: JUNIOR TENNIS”
Placement (insert right after):
“…the importance of the environment in our Earthly existence, I would like to share some ideas about a different kind of environment, the competitive tennis environment and all its unique attributes.”
Annotated tag to add in text:
[ILLUSTRATION 1 — “RECALCULATING: JUNIOR TENNIS”]
Concept (what we see):
A sleek, modern GPS dashboard screen (like in a car) except it’s labeled “Tennis Environment Navigation System”. The route is “First Ball → Last Ball” and the system keeps flashing:
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“RECALCULATING…”
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“HAZARD AHEAD: Expectations”
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“WEATHER WARNING: Emotion Storm”
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“DETOUR: Bad Calls”
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“TRAFFIC: Parents”
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“ARRIVAL TIME: Unknown”
In the corner is a tiny icon of a tennis ball with a pulse line like a heart monitor. The overall vibe: high-design, not cartoonish.
Why it’s witty + smart:
It ties your “environment” theme to navigation + uncertainty, and instantly frames tennis as a volatile landscape you must prepare for.
Caption options:
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“The tennis environment: always recalculating.”
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“Welcome to the match. ETA unknown.”
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“You are still on the fastest route.”
2) “YELP REVIEW: JUNIOR TENNIS TOURNAMENT WEEKEND”
Placement (insert right after):
“If junior tennis got Yelp reviews, there would be many one-stars.”
Annotated tag to add in text:
[ILLUSTRATION 2 — “YELP REVIEW: JUNIOR TENNIS”]
Concept (what we see):
A clean “Yelp-style” review card on a phone screen titled:
“Junior Tennis Tournament Weekend (64-Draw) — ⭐☆☆☆☆”
Review text (short, punchy):
“Came for ‘character-building.’ Stayed for the existential dread.
Pros: snacks, sunshine, occasional victory milkshake.
Cons: single elimination, 7-hour wait, emotional meltdowns, adults behaving like hostage negotiators.”
Below it are tiny icon tags like a product listing:
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“No Coaching Allowed” (a crossed-out speech bubble)
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“Continuous Uncertainty” (a spinning loading wheel)
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“Toxic Crowd Potential” (a warning triangle)
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“Outcome Not Guaranteed” (a question mark trophy)
Why it’s witty + smart:
It takes your line and makes it visual — and it critiques the environment without preaching.
Caption options:
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“Would not recommend (unless you bring EQ).”
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“The vibes are… single elimination.”
3) “THE PARENT SPECIES FIELD GUIDE”
Placement (insert right after):
“…the pacer, the panther, the talker, the stalker, the chart keeper, the cheerleader.”
Annotated tag to add in text:
[ILLUSTRATION 3 — “FIELD GUIDE TO TOURNAMENT PARENTS”]
Concept (what we see):
A field guide page (like a nature book / scientific diagram) titled:
“Tournament Parent: Subspecies & Behaviors”
Six small vignettes arranged in a grid — each shows a silhouette parent (not detailed/mean) with a label and one “behavioral note.” Keep it sharp, observational, not cruel.
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The PACER — wears a smartwatch, walking a trench into the concrete
Note: “Steps increase as score tightens.” -
The PANTHER — crouched, eyes locked, predatory focus
Note: “Believes eye contact influences outcomes.” -
The TALKER — narrating loudly to no one
Note: “Coaches from the stands using ‘weather reports.’” -
The STALKER — lurking behind fence posts like surveillance
Note: “Approaches court only on break points.” -
The CHART KEEPER — clipboard, obsessive tally marks
Note: “Turns childhood into analytics.” -
The CHEERLEADER — clapping like a metronome
Note: “Volume directly proportional to insecurity.”
Why it’s witty + smart:
You wrote a killer list — this turns it into a memorable, evergreen visual that readers will laugh at… then recognize.
Caption options:
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“Observe from a distance. Do not feed.”
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“Every environment has its wildlife.”
4) “THE ‘NO COACHING’ GLASS DOME”
Placement (insert right after):
“…players are not allowed to leave the court, nor are they allowed to talk to anyone, or to receive any coaching, instruction, or consoling.”
Annotated tag to add in text:
[ILLUSTRATION 4 — “THE GLASS DOME: TWO KIDS + A CAN OF BALLS”]
Concept (what we see):
A tennis court depicted like a science experiment terrarium or museum diorama under a transparent glass dome. Inside: two small junior players on opposite baselines — tiny figures in a huge space.
Outside the dome: blurred adult silhouettes (parents/coaches) with speech bubbles that bounce off the glass like they’re muted. A sign on the dome reads:
“EXHIBIT: PURE COMPETITION (NO OUTSIDE CONTACT)”
On the base plaque, like a museum label:
“Age: 11. Duration: 7–8 hours. Tools Provided: Rules (partial).”
Why it’s witty + smart:
It nails your point: tennis is an isolation chamber, and asking kids to self-regulate inside it is borderline absurd — unless we train EQ.
Caption options:
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“Welcome to the isolation chamber.”
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“Hardware trained. Software under load.”
Bonus: If you want one more “pro tour” illustration later
You’ve got a perfect spot for a fifth, if you ever want it:
Placement after: “So, how does one prepare for such a charged environment?”
Concept: “Worst-Case Scenario Bingo” card (bad calls, hot opponent, hostile crowd, foot fault, coach warning, cramps, wind, etc.) with “KEEP FIGHTING” stamped across it.
If you want, I can also rewrite the four insertion lines in your exact voice so the illustration tags feel “native” (like little stage directions) rather than pasted in.
Done — here are four “native” insertion lines (in your voice) that tee up each illustration cleanly, plus the annotated placement tags.
1) GPS / “RECALCULATING: JUNIOR TENNIS”
Place right after:
“…the competitive tennis environment and all its unique attributes.”
Add this paragraph + tag:
[ILLUSTRATION 1 — “RECALCULATING: JUNIOR TENNIS”]
If Earth Day is about protecting the planet from what we’ve done to it, tennis day—every day—is about protecting the nervous system from what the sport does to us. Because the tennis environment isn’t a place; it’s a moving target. It’s a GPS that never stops talking. Recalculating… recalculating… hazard ahead… ETA unknown.
2) Yelp Review / “JUNIOR TENNIS TOURNAMENT WEEKEND”
Place right after:
“If junior tennis got Yelp reviews, there would be many one-stars.”
Add this paragraph + tag:
[ILLUSTRATION 2 — “YELP REVIEW: JUNIOR TENNIS”]
And not the polite kind of one-star either—the scorched-earth kind. The kind that reads like a travel warning: “beautiful facility, excellent snack bar, emotionally hazardous conditions.” Because for a lot of kids (and parents), that weekend isn’t competition. It’s exposure therapy—performed live—without the therapist.
3) Field Guide / “THE PARENT SPECIES”
Place right after:
“…the pacer, the panther, the talker, the stalker, the chart keeper, the cheerleader.”
Add this paragraph + tag:
[ILLUSTRATION 3 — “FIELD GUIDE TO TOURNAMENT PARENTS”]
It’s like a nature documentary nobody asked for. Same habitat, same concrete benches, same sunburnt forearms—and wildly different coping strategies on display. If you ever wondered how stress travels through a tennis ecosystem, don’t study biology. Study the parents. They’re the weather system.
4) Glass Dome / “NO COACHING: PURE COMPETITION”
Place right after:
“…benign encouragement from the stands was permitted if your parents were into that kind of thing.”
Add this paragraph + tag:
[ILLUSTRATION 4 — “THE GLASS DOME: TWO KIDS + A CAN OF BALLS”]
Which is the wildest part of the whole tradition: we take kids, hand them a can of balls and a rulebook they only half understand, and then seal them inside a silent aquarium of pressure. No leaving. No talking. No help. Just two nervous systems trying to solve a math problem while the building is on fire.
THE ENVIRONMENT: ITS ALL AROUND US
Centuries ago, well before Hubbel and Webb and the modern radio telescopes, the astronomer Ptolemy declared our planet Earth the center of the universe, with all other celestial bodies orbiting about us. Little narcissistic, needing to be the center of everything, those Divine Right of Kings years hit different I guess. Yet, Ptolemy's bold assertion was missing a few key details, not the least being any factual evidence to support his gaudy Earth-centric claim.
Fast forward a century. With our understanding of the universe expanding, Ptolemy's Earth-centric ideas were not only being challenged but ridiculed. Credit for setting our planetary record straight shifted to the astronomer Galileo, who re-assessed the Earth's GPS as an ordinary planet in an intricate solar system of celestial objects orbiting a heat-providing star named the Sun, with our solar system just one of billions of equally intricate solar systems in a galaxy vaster than anyone's mind could grasp.
The
Church and State, being the powers they were, did not take kindly to
Galileo’s Earth-bashing blasphemy. Skeptics of the Earth-First point of
view faced imminent death if they failed to recant their demoting of
Mother Earth's status in the cosmos—nothing like the threat of a
medieval quartering to set scientific progress back a few eons.
In
time, data showed that Galileo was correct, our Earth one of many billions of
planets that make up our gigantic universe. Since then, Science and
Religion have waged a historic battle over the origins of our magnificent mysterious
existence, with science storming back from a set and a break deficit,
now cruising to a comfortable and seemingly eternal victory.
Educated discussions regarding the make-up of the universe can quickly get uncomfortably scientific. Humanity, a proud species, was understandably dejected by Earth's fall in intergalactic status. Pulling a Freudian move several centuries before Freud was born, Mankind took Earth's cosmic demotion out on Mother Earth herself with a few centuries’ worth of Industrial Revolution. Earth's vast hidden resources were soon extracted to the Earth's surface, where man and his ever-burgeoning ingenuity took over. The results of Mankind’s toiling are the advanced industrialism of the world we live in today, with all the benefits and comforts we enjoy daily.
But all gain and no pain does not exist in progress
The year was 1962, when Rachel Carson's Earth-shaking book Silent Spring was released, resulting in the birth of the modern Environmental Movement. The unforeseen byproducts of man's ceaseless industriousness turned out to be quite damaging to Mother Earth, poisoning our water, air, food and soil, all in the name of progress.
A new battle has emerged between the forces of industry and environmentalism, one we are all a party to. Who among us doesn’t want a gas station with cheap gas on every corner? But our conveniences come with a cost. The story of our age is finding the right balance between development and conservation, with each party equally determined to gut the other. Humanity, the beneficiaries of both, is stuck in the middle, trying to find a compromise where both forces can flourish equally.
On April 22nd, 1970, the inhabitants of our planet began celebrating Earth Day. Though Earth Day acknowledgements come in many forms, at their core is humanity's newfound respect and care for Mother Earth's environment and the crucial role humans play in its preservation.
Us tennis humans are no strangers to sacred the connection between Man and Earth. Who can forget Boris Becker's grass-stained too tight tidy-whities from diving volleys at Wimbledon's hallowed grounds?
(becker photo)
Rafael Nadal made clay courts worldwide his own private sandbox, soiling his shoes and socks with Mother Earth's confounding crushed red brick clay (confounding to his opponents, I should say)
Growing up playing in sunny Southern California, my peers and I felt the power of the Earth with every forehand load, leaving our blood, sweat, and cartilage on the unforgiving indigenous hard courts that grow in Los Angeles’ concrete-jungle habitat.
As the world stops on Earth Day to recognize the importance of the environment in our Earthly existence, I would like to share some ideas about a different kind of environment, the competitive tennis environment and all its unique attributes.
If there’s one thing tennis competitors can agree upon, whatever your age or level, the tennis journey is long, the environment stressful, an environment if not properly understood, negatively impacts ones success and overall enjoyment of our great sport.
So let's take a look at the tennis environment from a variety of angles.
NEVER PUT MY KID THROUGH THAT
It's the Environment...
Easter break 2011 in sunny Southern California, a client and I were on a backcourt at Rancho Las Palmas Country Club in Rancho Mirage, CA, working on a teaching video with tennis videographer John Yandell for his seminal site Tennisplayer.net. Yet I'm struggling to keep my focus, for off in the distance, I hear the faint echoes of sounds once familiar, the cracks of well-struck balls a couple courts down.
A quick perusal of the poster board-sized draws taped to the pro shop windows and only one surname rings a bell: Mac Styslinger, the son of old Junior Davis Cup teammate Mark Styslinger. Strong pedigree indeed, and little surprise his son was a favorite to capture the title. I continued scouring the draws, but to my surprise, Styslinger was the only familiar surname from my era. Something seemed amiss about this. I mean, who better to raise the next generation of American tennis talent than those who lived the life before?
Curious, I began reaching out to my tennis peers, asking them why so many chose not to raise their kids in the tennis life that gave us so much. And then I heard the answer that would change the following years of my life.
Talking to a gal friend from my playing days, I asked her why she never put her kids in tennis, and she stated
"I would never put my kids through that."
And her answer cut deep. What is the 'that' she spoke of? What was so traumatizing about the junior tennis experience for so many of my generation, so much so that they felt compelled to protect their kids from the sport that was so formative to our upbringing?
I'd always known tennis was stressful, traumatizing even to some. But I compartmentalized my experience, not giving it the proper thought it was due. As I continued to ask around, I found more and more of my peers sharing similar sentiments. The life we lived as aspiring young tennis players left some marks. And they'll be damned if they put their kids through the same "that' they went through.
And so began my exploration of what was unhealthy about our collective tennis environment, whether we have made progress over the past generations, and what can be done to improve the quality of the tennis arena for all parties involved.
GROWING UP IN THE TENNIS ENVIRONMENT
As a young player coming of age during the great tennis boom of the 1970's, the tournament week rituals were the same. My morning practices with Dad intensified. Whatever wasn't clicking had increasingly scarce time to get clicking. The night before the tournament, excitement filled the house, for the following day I was going into battle again. I would bluff my way through a distracted half day at school until Dad picked me up, a quick shot home, pack up the car before hitting the interstate for a weekend of pressure-packed possibilities few other kids my age experienced. I was an eleven-year-old kid on a mission… to win a New England sectional tennis tournament and qualify for Nationals.
Dad was in charge. Slicing through the suburbs of Boston, we were a team with a purpose: find the club, park the car, pop the trunk, grab the gear, find the entrance, enter the club, find the sign...
"Tournament Desk Upstairs".
Then the long, slow walk up the stairs to the lobby, the butterflies of competing replaced by the dread of a possible bad draw. Catch a tough draw, and the all-weekend junior tennis event would be over before it started.
Reaching the upstairs lobby, eyes dart to the walls where the draws hung. Find your age group, scroll down from the top, look for your name, hoping against hope not to draw the top seed in the first round. Parents and their kids huddled together, speaking in soft, hushed tones. I can't hear their conversations, but know exactly what they're saying. They're talking about their draw and their opponents and their pathway to the finals come tourney's end.
Sanctioned tourneys were single-elimination events. If 64 kids entered, 63 would lose, with only that weekend's winner escaping unscathed. To win a 64-draw tourney meant winning six straight matches, between Friday and Sunday, within 48 hours, all of them two out of three tie-break sets, precisely what the professionals played. Once the first ball was hit, the weekend cycle was set. Play, recover, wait to play. Play, recover, wait to play. Rinse repeat. Until you either lost or drove home a champion.
In professional tennis, the court is a busy place. Umpires, linesmen, security, cameramen, officials, broadcasters, ballboys and ballgirls, and thousands of boisterous fans. Not so in junior tennis. It’s just two kids and a can of balls, given basic match instructions and a court assignment, often quite far from the eyes of supervising adults.
I was eleven years old. If I got through Friday's first match, Saturday had three meaningful matches on the schedule. If a couple of those matches ran long (and they always did), I was looking at a 7-8 hour day of stressful tennis competition. Again, I was eleven years old, armed with only a basic understanding of tennis's rules and its traditions of sportsmanship. Yet, tennis's braintrust decided that 11-year-olds should go out there and compete all day entirely by themselves. For tennis has some strange traditions. During match play, players are not allowed to leave the court, nor are they allowed to talk to anyone, or to receive any coaching, instruction, or consoling. However, benign encouragement from the stands was permitted if your parents were into that kind of thing.
No, junior tennis was literally the purest form of competition, with parents the supply chain, procuring, producing, and delivering products to sustain performance. Water and nutrition from the store, the emergency stringing of the favorite racket between matches. To say nothing of the transportation and clerical duties required for entry and attendance. And most importantly, the time invested. A successful tournament run meant being away from their lives and homes often for three straight days, sitting nervously, impatiently, hanging on every point like they were playing themselves. The investment was extraordinary for all parties involved, the only tangible return on that investment being victories.
With everyone clumped together for such long stretches, tournament sites could be toxic. They brought out the drama in people. Yelling, cheering, excuse making, arguing, backstabbing, gossiping, complaining, the harsh words of verbal abuse...and that was just the parents.
Us kids created our own drama, constantly carrying on, off the court, and on. There was the usual mean girls/bullying/Lord of the Flies/horse play/practical joking stuff kids do when unsupervised. But on the court was where the behavior really heated up—tantrums and breakdowns colored triumphs and defeats. Tennis was a test of skill tempered by a test of nerves. Expectations ran high here. Tennis was a high-ego sport. Alpha Dogs and roadkill. So much bravado, false and otherwise. Yet the historical numbers didn't lie. If you were a top junior in America in the 1970s, you were in the company of future greatness. Who among us would that be?
Hence the nerves. The week of, the night before, on the drive to. Match time, and a cautious, anxious excitement filled the air. Yet always some kid getting sick in the bathroom before a match, or the deer in the headlight freeze of the young and overwhelmed. The human body reacts to stress differently. Let's say some kids handled their shit better than others.
And that applied to the parents too, for they all had their coping skills. The pacer, the panther, the talker, the stalker, the chart keeper, the cheerleader. To watch your flesh and blood compete at tennis, where nothing was given, everything earned, knowing once they walked on that court, there was nothing you could do to affect the outcome. Not to say some didn't try. Parents would cheat. They gave signals. A smile meant approach. A touch of the hat meant move the feet. Not exactly the carrying-ons of a third base coach, but if you watched closely enough, the codes were not hard to break.
Why all the tension, you might ask? As stated, the rankings didn't lie. To win one of these events vaulted a player into the Nationals conversation. Once there, you're among the best in the nation. And being the best in the USA in the mid-1970s meant you were among the best in the world. And though the pathway to professional tennis was a long shot for even the most successful and talented juniors, you were in tournaments with future champions and world number ones. And though it bordered on delusional to start preparing for a professional career at such a young age, to come of age with professional-level skill and athleticism and not be prepared to make the jump would have been downright criminally irresponsible.
So tennis was stressful—stressful to watch and even more stressful to play. With the outcome always unknown, the player who managed the stress best often prevailed. More matches were lost than won, with players often succumbing to the pressure. And it made sense. Human emotions in the extreme can only be experienced in short bursts. One can only swim in stress for so long.
So when tennis matches got stressful, part of every player just wanted the match over, win, lose, or tank, mainly to cease the stress, for competitive tennis often wasn't fun. It was nothing but prolonged anxiety. The whole experience was intense, with the pressure and expectations weighing upon young junior tennis players.
I always felt if a parent was to subject their child to such a challenging environment regularly, they best really have their acts together. Yet if parents really had their acts together, they would never subject their kids to such an environment.
Of course, nobody tells you any of this when you enter your first event. If junior tennis got Yelp reviews, there would be many one-stars.
With no manual, everyone's expected to know how to behave. A seat of your pants experiment in growing up. Everybody grab a vine and swing on into the great unknown. A bunch of perfectionist parents grooming perfectionist kids, all trying to play a game perfectly that is impossible to perfect, all the while being expected to behave perfectly.
And it was in this environment I would spend seemingly every weekend of my childhood, going in to battle, junior tennis style, the "that" my friend so hoped to protect her offspring from.
THE PROFESSIONALS
My experience aside, It's well documented across the sport that growing up in junior tennis is a first-order stress event. What about the professional game?
Again, for all competitive tennis players, the journey is long, the environment is stressful.
One would think that, with their maturation, global success, mad skills, and oodles of experience, professional players would easily handle the demands of the competitive tennis environment, but that just hasn't been the case.
Fans of professional tennis need look no further than the cases of Agassi, Capriati, Osaka, Fish, Anisimova, Barty, Kyrgios, Raducanu, and countless others. These world-class players took extended breaks in their careers, the grind of the tour environment overwhelming their emotional coping skills.
On court, we've seen the stress of tennis repeatedly manifest in the head-scratching behavior of Tarango, Djokovic, McEnroe, Kyrgios, and none other than the greatest female player of all time, Serena Williams.
Who could forget the 2019 US Open Final between 23-time major champ Serena Williams and first-time major finalist Naomi Osaka?
Serena walked on the court, about to play one of the more consequential matches of her career. Chasing history, seeking to break the all-time majors record in the finals of the US Open, the stakes couldn't be higher. Compounding Serena's climactic moment was the setting. The match was to be played in the largest, loudest, craziest court in all of tennis, Arthur Ashe Stadium, Flushing Meadows NY, a court she's had historic success on, but also the court of several of her most challenging moments as a professional, badly losing her composure on more than one occasion.
So, how does one prepare for such a charged environment?
One crucial facet of managing the tennis environment deftly is preparing players of all levels for every imaginable situation they could encounter.
So let's recreate one of my favorite coach-player pre-match conversation: Lets play the worst-case scenario game.
As a player, are you prepared for absolutely everything not to go your way out there?
Are you prepared for a slow start, a hot opponent, a crazy crowd, some bad calls, (maybe a foot fault at the worst of times), some equally bizarre calls that question your character, (your Coach gets warned for cheating), and every other scenario, imaginable or not? Are you prepared for absolutely EVERYTHING not to go your way, yet you’ll refuse to panic, keep your cool, and keep fighting until the very last shot of the last point?
That no matter how badly things are going, you will not go away until you find a way?
That is how every competitive tennis player, from Serena Williams to the beginning junior needs to prepare for the highly stressful environment of tennis competition.
For in spite of everything Williams has accomplished, she was about to enter the most stressful competitive environment in all of tennis, an environment she has a history in, some amazing, some not so amazing, with the entire sporting world watching.
How does one prepare for such an experience?
We saw in a graphic way what can happen to a player even of Serena's abilities if a player enters a match unprepared. She lost
track of the primary purpose of all competition (conduct ourselves from first
ball to last in ways that allow us the best chance at success)
The Serena case may seem extreme, we will be watching US Open Finals, not playing in them. But think about yourself momentarily. Think about all the different competitive scenarios you may face. Playing a friend, playing a rival, playing the top seed, playing a pushover, playing in front of friends, playing in front of foes, playing with a struggling partner, playing cheaters, playing fist pumping rah-rahs and so many more, where a tennis match becomes no longer about shot execution but becomes a test of emotional and stress management. Being unprepared for the moment's peculiarities can overwhelm us and will adversely affect our performance.
The Stress of the Environment. If not prepared, it will get the best of us..
To have long-term success at tennis, players must regularly make themselves perfectly vulnerable to highly uncertain outcomes under enormously stressful conditions. Players must be able to put every fiber of their being into an activity that frequently isn't going to go their way, week in and week out. Giving the best of yourself to an endeavor and having it not be good enough is a unique pain. It's not for everyone. But it can be for you if you apply the tenets of my FBTL program.
As stated earlier, A running joke in our coaching industry is if parents are going to place their kid into such a stressful environment, they best have their act together... And if they really had their act together, they'd never subject their kid to so much stress.
But let's put a new spin on this. If they had their act together, they'd make sure right from the first ball that they fully understood the environment they were putting their child in and prepared them and themselves thoroughly for all that can transpire.
You do it for where you reside, you do it for the school you attend, we do it in restricting access to social media. If an environment isn't potentially volatile, we don't subject ourselves to it.
Yet the tennis environment somehow gets a pass.
And that is what FBTL is all about. A proactive preventative program that prepares competitive tennis players for what lies ahead. We've spent too long assuming players will figure all this out on their own when the historical record screams from the top court that's just not accurate.
Predicting the future is a losing game. With the recent ascent of AI, who knows what society will look like in 10,15,20 years
But after spending 50 years in the tennis industry, I know that tennis's emotional demands haven't changed.
Knowing this, why as a sport have we continued to leave a player’s emotional response to such a stressful environment to chance?
With FBTL, it no longer needs to be this way.
BOXES What we can do to improve environment soon
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