People have a tendency to establish a routine, and when things become routine, they often lose the careful attention that they deserve. Think of the first time that you got behind the wheel of a car. You were likely nervous and incredibly attentive. After driving for an extended period of time, you became more and more relaxed behind the wheel. People often become so relaxed that we fail to give the task of driving the attention and caution that it deserves. The same can be said of practice. You play tennis in a practice setting so often that it can become routine. It can simply become something that you do everyday. It could easily become no different for you than brushing your teeth or getting into car to go to school. Practice often becomes excessively comfortable.

​    A common mental mistake made by athletes is that they perform better in a practice setting than in a match or tournament. In these instances, the player has allowed the match or tournament to become something special and distinct from practice. The solution to this is to stop looking at any form of playing tennis as special or unique. Playing tennis is playing tennis regardless of the venue. Whether in practice, against your best friend, at a local school against an opponent that you have beaten 100 times, or in the state or national finals, playing tennis is playing tennis. However, people are creatures of habit. It can be difficult to view a game, set, or match in practice at a court in which you are comfortable as identical to any other match or tournament. Here are five ways to make practice seem like the real thing.

1. Wear What You Are Going To Wear During a Match. In practice, we often wear clothes that we are more comfortable in rather than what you officially wear on the day of a match. This automatically serves to distinguish a practice from a match. If you want you make practice seem like the real deal, wear what you will wear on match day in practice.

2. Play Different People In practice, we often pair up with someone who is our best friend on the team or someone that is of a similar skill level to ourselves that will push us to be better. However, when you solely play against one person or handful of people, you learn their strengths and weaknesses and modify your game to play to that person. Giving yourself a variety of different looks will help you to prepare for a match or tournament. You often won’t know your opponent’s style of play in a match, so try to diversify your practice partners as much as possible.

3.Use the Same Pre Match Routine For Practice As You Do In Matches And Tournaments
Your pre match routine is meant to serve as a switch. It lets your mind and body know that they need to be prepared to compete. When you flip this switch before practice it will help you to treat practice the same as any tournament or match. Your body will not understand that you are just in a practice. All your body will understand is that it is time to compete.

4. Treat Your Diet And Sleep Pattern the Same Before Practice as Before Matches And Tournaments The days leading up to matches and tournaments, we tend to become stricter in our diet and sleep patterns. When we have long lay off periods between competitions, we tend to eat more junk food and are less disciplined with the amount of sleep we get. This only seeks to distinguish practice from matches. If you want to treat practice the same as matches and tournaments. Treat your diet and sleep patterns the same in the days leading up to and including practices as you would for a match or tournament.

5. Evaluate Things You Did Well And Areas That Need Improvement Wins and losses often incentivize us to evaluate the things we did well and areas where we need some work. However, it is vital that we become less concerned with wins and losses and more concerned with performance. Therefore, our performance must be evaluated in all areas that we play tennis. Our play in practice must be evaluated the same way that our performance in competition is evaluated.