{"id":7,"date":"2004-03-31T15:13:07","date_gmt":"2004-03-31T23:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=7"},"modified":"2004-03-31T15:13:07","modified_gmt":"2004-03-31T23:13:07","slug":"competition-routine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/competition-routine\/","title":{"rendered":"Competition Routine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Having recovered from a bout of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/tennis-elbow\">tennis elbow<\/a> (are you sure you should be listening to me?) that curtailed my season last year, I am playing one set of singles and one set of doubles once a week in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lataweb.com\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Tennis Association<\/a>. To increase my chance of actually improving my game, I occupy my mind with positive, constructive thoughts. It helps to break competition down into the following parts:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li> practice: I rent a court for an hour before competition and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/practice-routine\">practice<\/a> just as I would on practice days<\/li>\n<li><a name=\"mentalprogram\"><\/a> point: before each point I run through a mental program<\/li>\n<ul>\n<li> I free my neck (this is that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/07\/free-your-neck-grunters\">Alexander Technique<\/a> stuff)<\/li>\n<li>smile at the thought of winning the next point and think about where I want the ball to go.<\/li>\n<li>mentally rehearse my next stroke &#8211; usually a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#serve\">serve<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#returnofserve\">return of serve<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>say the score.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>after each point: I congratulate myself if I win. If I don&#8217;t win, I forget about the last point and start the process above all over again.<\/p>\n<li>game &#8211; on the break during crossover I mentally rehearse shots other than <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#serve\">serve<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#returnofserve\">return of serve<\/a><\/li>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#forehand\">forehand<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#backhand\">slice backhand<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#forehand\">two-handed backhand<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#highbouncingshot\">high bouncing shot<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#approach\">approach<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#volley\">volley<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#backhandoverhead\">backhand<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#overhead\">forehand overhead<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#dropshot\">drop shot<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li>set: sometimes I have to wait up to an hour to play the second set. During this time I practice footwork<\/li>\n<ul>\n<li>footwork for baseline shots<\/li>\n<li>footwork for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#approach\">approach shot<\/a><\/li>\n<li>footwork for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#overhead\">overhead<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisdiary.com\/2004\/03\/strokes#serve\">serve<\/a> motion without the ball<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li>day: I can be nervous on days of competition. If the wind is blowing,<br \/>\nit&#8217;s even worse. Whenever I think about the competition, I mentally rehearse<br \/>\nthe steps above &#8211; practice, point, game and set. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Having recovered from a bout of tennis elbow (are you sure you should be listening to me?) that curtailed my season last year, I am playing one set of singles and one set of doubles once a week in the Los Angeles Tennis Association. To increase my chance of actually improving my game, I occupy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-skills","category-tennis-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}