| | | Welcome to the December 2020 update from Tennis Server, http://www.tennisserver.com/  Greetings,  In his December column, John Mills offers some tips on how to get some practice and stay in shape during a time in which you want to stay away from being in close proximity with other people. See: " Things To Do During Covid-19".  We all go through cycles in our tennis game when our play isn't up to the level that we normally enjoy. In his reprised column in this newsletter below, Tennis Warrior Tom Veneziano explains how to make your game the best it can be even when your play is in a down cycle. See: "Learn to play badly well!."  We are excited to read news of upcoming COVID-19 vaccines, and look forward to life in general and professional tennis in particular returning to a safer and more normal schedule this summer. Please be careful out there. Be sure to read this guide from the USTA: Playing Tennis Safely during the time of COVID-19: Player Tips and Recommendations.  Wishing you a safe and joyful holiday season and a happy new year!  Have fun on the court!  Cliff Kurtzman Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Tennis Server   Please feel free to forward this newsletter to a friend, and suggest that they go to http://www.tennisserver.com/ to sign up for their own free subscription.  We will miss you if you leave, but if you should decide that you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, just click here to unsubscribe.   The Tennis Warrior by Tom Veneziano Â
 The Tennis Warrior is brought to you by Tom Veneziano (tom@tennisserver.com). Tom is a tennis pro teaching at the Piney Point Racquet Club in Houston, Texas. Tom has taught thousands of players to think like a pro with his Tennis Warrior System.  Learn to play badly well!  You may think that is a strange title, but it will all make sense in a moment. When you are in a match you will always experience cycles from good to bad, bad to good, back to bad again. This is the nature of sports and it's your responsibility to be mentally prepared for these cycles. Once you learn to adapt effectively to these cycles, life on the tennis court can become beautiful.  Often players play well for 15 minutes, then all of a sudden they begin playing poorly (and you thought it only happened to you!). Maybe they are just a little tired or maybe their opponent is playing spectacular tennis. Whatever the reason, they are definitely in a down cycle fighting to stay in the match.  When this scenario happens to you, here is a mental tip that the top pros have mastered. YOU MUST LEARN TO PLAY BADLY WELL WHEN YOU'RE IN A DOWN CYCLE!  For example, on a scale of one to ten (ten being the up cycle and one being the down cycle) you're playing poorly at level four. When you are in a bad cycle the trick is to understand that this is normal and part of the winning process. You must fight to stay at that level until momentum begins shifting back in your direction. In other words you learn to play poorly better than most. How? By mental toughness! What happens to most players in their down cycles is they lose their mental fight, become frustrated, develop a negative mindset, and plummet into the three, two, or one level. Instead of fluctuating between ten and four in their match play they are now fluctuating between ten and one!  Now you tell me, if everything is equal and one player is fluctuating between ten and one and the other is fluctuating between ten and four... who will win?  Everyone fluctuates in match play, but it should be obvious that your mentally tough competitors MINIMIZE their down time by MAXIMIZING their mental skills during these pressure situations. The top pros are well aware that part of winning is an inner desire to own that extra intangible inch that catapults their game onto victory.  The only question that remains is... when you are confronted with this predicament will you posses the mental skills necessary to play badly better than most? Since reading this tip, you should!  Your Tennis Pro,  Tom Veneziano       In Tom Veneziano's book "The Truth about Winning!", tennis players learn in a step-by-step fashion the thinking the pros have mastered to win! Tom takes you Step-by-step from basic mental toughness to advanced mental toughness. All skill levels can learn from this unique book from beginner to professional. No need to change your strokes just your thinking. Also available at a discount as an E-Book.  Audio CDs by Tom Veneziano:  The Refocus Technique: Controlling Your Emotions in Tennis.  Think Like a Pro -- 2 Audio CDs. Three minute free sample (real audio): http://www.tenniswarrior.com/audio/sample_audio.ram  Training for Pressure Play -- Audio CD. Four minute free sample (real audio): http://www.tenniswarrior.com/audio/pressure-play-sample.ram   Becoming a Tennis Server Sponsor/Advertiser  Our readers continually tell us they are hungry for information on tennis-related products, equipment, tournaments, and travel opportunities. There is no better way to reach the avid online tennis audience than through the Tennis Server. For information on advertising through our web site or in this newsletter, please contact us by using this form or call us at (281) 480-6300.  We have a variety of sponsorship programs available, and we can connect you with a highly targeted tennis audience at rates that are lower than many web sites charge for reaching a general audience.   Linking to the Tennis Server   We frequently receive requests from people for a graphic to use in linking from their site to the Tennis Server site. We've created a graphic at:  http://www.tennisserver.com/images/button.gif  that you are welcome to use in conjunction with a link to http://www.tennisserver.com/. You are welcome to copy this graphic and use it on your site for this purpose. Please be sure to include an ALT tag with the graphic: ALT="Tennis Server".   Newsletter Ground Rules  The Tennis Server and the Tennis Server Newsletter are copyrighted publications. "Tennis Server" is a registered trademark and "Center Court for Tennis on the Internet" is a trademark of Tennis Server. This newsletter, along with the editorial and photographs on the tennisserver.com web site, are copyrighted by Tennis Server and its contributors.  Our newsletters cover updates to the Tennis Server and other tennis information of general interest. Mailings occur approximately once a month. The newsletter sometimes contains commercial tennis-related content from Tennis Server sponsors.  Tennis Server earns a small commission if books or other products are purchased using links to Amazon.com on our web site or in our newsletter.  We keep the addresses of mailing list subscribers confidential. If someone asks us to distribute tennis- related materials to the mailing list, we might do so for them, and we might charge them for doing so if there is commercial content to the message.  See you on the courts,  --Cliff Kurtzman for Tennis Server  | | |
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