In this week’s Mind Games column, Motiv8’s Kevin Clancy and Enda McNulty spoke to Conor Niland about the mental approach that assisted him in becoming the first Irishman to win a $100,000 ATP Tour tennis event at the Israel Open.
As a result of the win Conor lies just outside the world’s top 150, unchartered territory for Irish tennis.
Here, Niland talks about his mental game, how he uses goal setting to motivate and focus himself, the manner he prepares himself for matches and some of the techniques he employs to keep his concentration on the court.
Goal Setting
Conor Niland: My ultimate ambition is to become a top 100 player. At the beginning of 2010, however, I was just coming back from injury and as a result my ranking was closer to 300 in the world. Therefore, I had to be realistic in the goals I was setting myself for 2010. I sat down and decided that I wanted to get myself to 140 by the end of the year. I looked at the points I’d need to get to this level and felt that, although it was a goal that would stretch me, it was realistic to achieve. I then broke this down. I wrote targets around the number of tournaments I wanted to qualify for, the stages I wanted to get to in other events and examined the different aspects of my game I needed to address in order to get to where I wanted to get to. I found this process helpful in focusing my mind on exactly what I wanted to do.
Preparing for Events
CN: I take a very professional approach to my preparations. I try to be as professional as I can in my preparations. I like to imagine myself the morning of a match, being able to relax over beakfast and not be too uptight. I then think about going to the courts, how I will listen to my music on the way, and how I will be in the warm up, focused and raising my intensity. I’ll also go through different scenarios that I might encounter in the match the next day – what I’ll do with my first serve, the feeling of hitting a backhand down the line, the routine I have between points. I found this approach very helpful during some of the matches in Israel because when I was out on court it was like I was more ready for what was going to happen.
On the court
CN: I like to keep things simple. I follow my between point routines as they help to keep me focused and take my mind off any distractions that might be around me. I found it easy in Israel to play one point at a time and to put past points behind me as soon as they were finished with. I hardly thought at all about my opponent, which is something I have gotten much better at in the last year, and just kept the focus on myself and my own performance.
Motiv8 wishes to congratulate Conor for his exceptional performances in 2010 and wishes him the best of luck for the future.
Kevin Clancy & Enda McNulty
Kevin Clancy and Enda McNulty are Performance Consultants working with Motiv8 (www.motiv8.ie).
For more on Conor Niland, check out JOE.ie’s exclusive interview with him ahead of the coming week’s French Open qualifiers.
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