Your Mental Health Matters

We place utmost importance on the mental health of our students and have structured our programmes to maximise their mental health.

Tennis has therapeutic qualities - playing the sport provides a mental retreat from the stresses of work and allows us to return to our busy lives refreshed.

Stimulating Mental Development

The physical benefits of playing tennis are well documented - from enhanced aerobic capacities to reduced body fat percentages.

Besides the physical benefits, tennis also improves mental health in many ways. One of which is the improvement of brain function. According to studies conducted specifically on tennis players, tennis has been linked to the generation of new connections between nerves in the brain.

This stems from the need to constantly problem-solve during tennis matches, as players have to stay alert and employ tactical thinking for extended periods.

Research also found that fast-paced sports like tennis enhance the production of important proteins in the brain as well as boosting the production of cells in the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain associated with learning and memory functions.

Our coaching sessions include drills of varying pace to improve your physical and mental conditioning.

With an understanding of mental development, our coaches will not only look out for the technical skills that you acquire (groundstrokes, volleys, serves) but also keep track of improvements in your agility, balance, hand-eye coordination, and reaction times.

Stress-Management Skills

Tennis can enhance mental health through the development of stress and anxiety management skills.

The physical, mental, and emotional demands of tennis often require players to develop methods to keep these stressors in check. Continued practice and play of tennis over time might lead to players developing their own methods of managing stress and even using these methods to their advantage.

We have integrated stress-management skills into our training programs. Our coaches will teach methods such as establishing routines (for example, bouncing the ball a fixed number of times before each serve), mental imagery, self-talk, or even mindfulness techniques, all of which have been proven by research to manage players’ arousal and stress, thereby enabling optimal performance.

Play! Tennis successfully incorporates life skills beyond tennis into its training programs, so that you will be able to manage your stressors both in and out of the court.

Stress and anxiety are often the root causes of many mental disorders, such as depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and anxiety disorder - the most common mental disorder in the world!

Being equipped with methods to manage stressors greatly decreases the negative impact of stress and anxiety that we might encounter in our everyday lives.

These skills that you pick up from the sport will be relevant in your daily lives as well.

Individualised Goal Setting

Tennis can help build your self-esteem and self-confidence. As a largely individual sport, tennis allows you to clearly note your achievements and growth in the sport. Meeting personal goals, reaching higher levels in the sport, and of course, winning matches, can greatly boost your self-esteem.

Studies have found that tennis players have high personal efficacy, which refers to the belief in their abilities to reach their desired goals, as well as lower competition anxiety and high confidence in themselves and their abilities.

Your coach would set goals for you during training in the form of performance targets. For example, you might be tasked to hit 5 forehands cross-court, or hit 3 kick serves.

Because your coach knows your level of play, your coach will be able to set challenging, yet achievable goals that can help enhance your self esteem when met.