These tennis mental skills are as vital in terms of your tennis training as hitting forehands and backhands.

Let's be honest, the more successful players are mentally tougher than the others!

Is it a fluke that Federer and Sampras have so many titles and Safin so few for a player of his ability?

What do people mean when they say Nadal is so mentally tough?

Can your mind game get you through matches?

Is your mental approach more important than than your technique?

One of the most powerful tennis psychology skills is that of goal setting.

Goal setting is a powerful way to turn your tennis vision of the future into reality. By knowing exactly what you want to achieve you will be able to concentrate all of your efforts in the right directions as well as being able to quickly spot any distractions that may pop up.

Also, you will find that well-set goals are very motivating.

Your self-confidence will explode as you start setting and achieving goals and get nearer to your overall target.

How To Do Goalsetting

First create your "big picture" of what you want to do with your tennis.

Second, break these down into smaller and smaller chunks that become weekly goals.

Finally, now you have your plan, start working towards achieving it.

SMART Goals

The best way to make goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic.

SMART stands for:

S Specific (e.g. I want to improve my tennis rating from 6.2 to 5.2 NOT I want to improve my tennis.

M Measurable (you must be able to measure exactly whether you are reaching your targets or not.

A Attainable (can you eally win all 4 Grand Slams this year?)

R Relevant (e.g. improving your 1st serve % WILL help your game but mowing the lawn on a regular basis wil not!)

T Time-bound (Give yourself an exact date to do things by as this will stop you wasting time!)

PLEASE NOTE - As you make progress please don't react wrongly to any goals that you don't achieve.

These are NOT failures!

Because everything you do provides you with valuable feedback, you just have to learn to use this feedback you get to re-align your goals as necessary. You really need to realise that this is a normal process that you must follow.

By using the above system to set your goals followed by regularly checking progress and making any adjustments necessary you will find yourself hitting your tennis targets and your tennis goals on a regular basis - NO QUESTION!