Perhaps the single most important thing you need to do before and during a tennis match is reach and maintain your prime intensity. Intensity refers to amount of adrenaline, oxygen, and blood flow your body has. Too much intensity and your muscles are tight, you can’t breath, and your body is shaking from fear. Too little intensity and you feel tired, unmotivated, and weak. In either case, you do not play your best.

Before you reach your prime intensity, you have to know what it is. To do this recall several occasions when you played your very best and very poorly. Remember how your body felt, for example, when you played well, you may have felt energized, your heart was pounding, and you had a good sweat going before your match. When you played poorly, you might have been shaking, had difficulty breathing, and your muscles were tense. Next, remember your thoughts and feelings. In good matches, you may have been very positive and felt happy and excited. In bad matches, you may have been thinking negatively and been a little afraid. Also, note the event, the level of competition, and the match site. When you had a good match, it might have been on your favorite surface, say clay, at a lower level of competition, and on a beautiful day with ideal conditions. When you had a poor match, it may have been on cement, on a windy, overcast day. The chances are there are some common factors associated with when you played well and others when you played poorly.

Once you establish those common factors related to good and bad tennis in matches, you can actively work to avoid the factors connected with poor play and reproduce the factors associated with good play. By identifying your prime intensity, you have taken a first important step to controlling your match rather than the match (and your opponent) controlling you.

Remember, “Do the thing you fear the most and keep doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to overcome fear.”