Learning to Win Through Practice Pressure

 How do you learn to play your game at critical moments? There are fundamental problems in the way most people practice. Many players try to incorporate change from a lesson directly into match play. Or they consider effective practice to be simply hitting balls or repetitively drilling. Unfortunately these approaches do not lead to real improvement. Making changes that will hold up in match play requires players to take critical intermediate steps. These steps are competitive drill games that allow players to build their confidence under pressure, but less pressure than in matches. In the last article, we looked at a series of these drill games designed to improve basic strategic elements--serving accurately under pressure, hitting more consistent volleys, and playing winning point geometry. (Click Here). Now let's delve a little deeper into the psychological realm. In this article I want to present three more very powerful practice games. Play them for a while and you will likely find out something new about yourself, or specifically, why you fail at crunch time and how to reverse that. I know these games work, because I developed them from my own competitive experiences, motivated by my frustration in closing matches, especially...