The young tennis player who is afraid of making mistakes is the one to be fearful of. More mistakes doesn’t equalize worse player.
We need to help the players to get into the “trial & error” process in training. Recognizing that the mistakes are fundamental & essential for learning.
Tennis is an extremely complex sport where the children needs to be interdependent, they need to be taught the value of discovering, failing, adapting & learning.
Creating a learning environment
1. Provide sporting problems for the players that enable them to be challenged, to fail and try different options. (Learning opportunity)
2. Talk less, let the players struggle & try more solutions on their own. Talk to the players about the level of their intention. Avoid at this stage to evaluate the outcome (Let the players discover)
3. Assist the players in adapting to the current situation on the basis of what they have discovered (Adapting)
4. Help the player recognize what the actual take aways of the drill/session is in order for the player to apply what he/she has learned in the future. (Learning)