Mental Resilience in Young Players
Intro
As I grow and develop players on and off court, I notice that there are different mental aptitudes among young players. Some young players really embrace challenges and they strive under pressure. Some are less equipped to deal with challenges and pressure.
The Sasha Test
Ideation
I have developed a simple test to quickly filter young players into those two groups. I call it the “Sasha Test” in credit to Alexander Zverev (who is lovingly called as Sasha by his fans). The idea was inspired by Sasha and Djokovic’s exhibition match during AO 2025 season. During friendly rallies, Sasha would suddenly hit a very hard and fast shot to change things up and entertain the crowd. I borrowed the idea to implement in my orange ball No Limits Girl Squad . Initially, I just wanted to entertain the kids and also blending in some agility and reaction training like parents hides vegetables in their spaghetti. The girls were super excited whenever I gave them a sasha test and constantly screams at me: “Do it again!”
One young player who really impressed me is Laurel. (Please don’t tell her that I have given so much praises to her on the internet, she will happily lose her mind and I still have a class to run XD). Every time, I hit the ball hard to her (attention: not at her, I was careful about the direction of the ball), I can tell from her face that she’s excited about the challenge and wanted to tackle it. Failure after failure, every time she tries harder than last time. “Do it again!” she would ask me with passion and enthusiasm, to the point that we are out of balls in the basket and she still wanted to keep going. I can see the determination on her face and she just exhibits so much confidence and zestiness towards life and tennis. I can tell that she’s hungry for it, hungry for the tougher shot, the tougher challenge and she’s eager to grow and develop her game.
Laurel’s positivity and resilience also inspired Katy who just joined us this term, unlike Laurel, Katy is more on the shy side of personality but she also made her desire to grow known to me by throwing balls to me when I told her we were out of balls. She also wanted to keep going and train hard even though she just started playing tennis this term, I can tell she learns quick and she doesn’t get frustrated or upset by failures much. Katy just keeps on trying and growing.
Expansion
Today, I did my “Sasha Test” in another orange ball class with players who are of higher calibre than the no limit girl squad. There were an odd number of players in the class so I got to join and pair up with some of them! First one was little Sammy. He’s smart and swift like super sonic. I gave him a Sasha Test and he didn’t even flinch. He was happy to play ball and up for a challenge. He handled the pressure. While our top player Spark let pressure handled her during her Sasha Test. I can tell she was not happy about it and her feelings were a bit hurt. I was also a bit sad inside but I wanted to toughen her up a bit. Later, she expressed that the net was too high, the shot was too heavy, hence, we can’t get many rallies.
What did I hear?
Excuses.
Yes, loads of excuses.
Training Young Players’ Mental Resilience
The Challenge
It is HARD to train young players. They are so young and so little. They are still developing biologically, physically, and emotionally.
It is hard enough to train their techniques, fitness and game play. It is even harder to train their mental resilience because we naturally feel soft towards kids (at least I do.) Each kid also have their own timing of their development in those dimensions (biological, physical and emotional). Kids of the same age or age group playing junior tournaments could be of drastic height and strength differences. Spark is definitely going to encounter and play with young players of her age who are stronger and taller than her one day. What do we tell her then? Grow faster? Get a shorter kids with no power to be her opponent? She’s already number 1 in her class and if everyone in her environment only tells her how good she is and babying her, how can she develop her mental resilience when the scale is not in her favour? I have seen her putting the balls away hard and win points. She had no problem doing that and enjoys the joy of victory, but when her coach, and adult, decided not to baby her and hold her accountable, she got sad and start to look for excuses.
I might have been a tad harsh but Do you think Djokovic will give it a second thought to beat 17 yo Fonseca if he’s in his way to grand slam championship? You think Rybakina had any second thought to beat 16 yo Emerson Jones Round 1 of AO 2025? No.
And yes, they are grown adults beating teenagers. However, 17 yo Mirra Andreeva just won her first Master 1000 and became the youngest player with such achievement in history beating players who had higher rankings and way more experiences. You think Mirra would find excuses such as “the ball is too hard?” “the net is too low?” during her journey to championship? Or did she just toughened up and played her best?
The How
I am not interested in the WHY players differ in their mental resilience aptitude. I will leave it to the researchers. I am interested in the HOW. How can we develop players from young age not only their skills and fitness but also their mental resilience?
I am no expert but I think step one is hold your players accountable and not looking for excuses, especially after they grow out of red ball.
Step two is ownership: own your weakness and your strength, be honest with yourself and your coaches.
Step three: teach them how to fail. Many coaches only coach their players to win. Only few coach young players how to fail. A great coach needs to let their player fail strategically from time to time to challenge them, to get them out of their comfort zone and ego without burning their confidence reserve. Young players need to learn how fo fail and how to deal with failure both on court and in life. Like learning martial arts, before you learn how to punch, first learn how to fall without injuring yourself.
It’s simple but it is hard to do so because feelings will be hurt and unfortunately, learning and growing do not have shortcuts. If you want the muscle, you must endure the pain.
But you know what? Kids are more resilient than we give them credit for.
I just hurt a kid’s feelings yesterday because he didn’t want to get out of his comfort zone to chase the shots. He cried. It’s heartbreaking for me. I don’t ever want anyone to cry but as part of their journey growing up, it’s important for them to learn how to deal with discomfort, challenge, and failure. It’s NOT my job to take care of his feelings but it is my job to ensure that he grows as a player, as a person and maybe later as a man. I simply sat down and told him: “I love you and it is because I love you, I want you to grow and become more and more independent and capable as a player and a person, that’s what I was doing on court.” I think he understood me and even he did not say it, I know he loves me too.
