People often say: “Oh, he lost it mentally”. So, is this only a mental problem when you miss a certain shot in a difficult moment? I’m not so sure.

Let me tell you one quick story. It’s a true story about a man whose name is Drazen Petrovic. He was the best European basketball player, and he was one of the best shooters in the game of basketball. My (Nick) university professor worked with Drazen as his physical conditioning coach.

And he said to us, Drazen was never the tallest or the most athletic or the strongest player, but he was by far the best player. Drazen gradually developed a routine of a shooting practice that he did every day after the normal practice when everybody from the team went home. He did 400 shots from different court positions. If he was not happy with some position he did or with the score in some position, he did it over again and he did this every single day.

So, the interesting thing here is this. There was one typical strategy that all the coaches from NBA and national coaches applied when Drazen was playing. When the difficult moments in games arose and when the team needed to score, the strategy was always to pass the ball to Drazen.

No matter if it was a free throw, a three pointer or a little shorter, his scoring percentage was through the rough. The question is do you really think that Drazen was so much better mentally than all other players?

Or was it also a question of his training routine and the finest invisible technical skill that he developed with the years and years of consistent practice?

When the emotions get involved in a tennis match, there are no easy shots. And if you keep missing certain shots, please don’t purely call this a mental problem.