Totally Mental

What really happens when a player loses confidence? It was painful to watch Dinara Safina, world number 1 tennis player lose her forth round match at the US Open because she played like an amateur who stayed back passively waiting for her opponent to make mistakes rather than to play a match that forced her opponent to keep up with her game.

I have to examine my own squash game and I ask myself now whether I play poorly because of an actual shortcoming or whether I play without confidence and delude myself into thinking that I play badly because of one of the other reasons - poor fitness, inadequate technique, etc.

Even with poorer fitness, isn't it possible to sustain my playing level with strong confidence? If so, how do I train myself to believe in how well I can play and push through fitness or skill deficiency?

Leading up to the day of my lesson, I had been thinking to myself that my fitness was off. I made myself believe it. I even thought I should ease into my running and biking because I wasn't fit enough to go the distance that I had gone before. Surely it was a sign I lost confidence in myself already. What would have been my performance if I simply believed all along that my fitness was no problem at all. Would I have just not given a thought to it and simply ran the 1600m or played aggressively against Richard?

I started my lesson by warming up with Tim. For the first 5 points, I dominated the T and outplayed Tim. Then suddenly I felt a slight letting out of intensity and instantaneously I believed I was fatigued. I started to play as if I was fatigued. I took my eyes off the ball and the other player. I started thinking about recovering my strength. I wanted to wait until I caught my breath before putting forth a dedicated effort. All these signs now tell me I had somehow lost confidence in my ability to play my best. And so I actually played the way I thought I would play, poorly!

Another tell tale sign of lost of confidence is when I believe I have to go for that winner on that next shot, because I don't have what it takes to win the rally any other way. The way back to positive mental strength is to play the right shot or more simply the obvious shot, and play it well of course. Only a confident player plays the obvious shot; and build on it.