5 Pivitol Moments in a Continuing Journey of Mastering the Mind in Tennis

Introduction

At the time of writing I am 47 years old, a full-time tennis coach for the Northwest Tennis Academy (Tamworth, Australia), play tennis competitively as a my main hobby, and have an eight-year-old daughter who plays competitive tennis. The mind aspect of sport has always been a fascination to me and what I focused on in both my undergraduate and postgraduate sports-based degrees. This post is an attempt to reflect on my key learnings by selecting five pivitol moments in my journey so far........

Pivitol Moment 1: The Inner Game

In June 1997 (aged 18), I guaduated from Colchester Sixth Form College and took a gap year. I spent three months coaching at a residential camp in the Pocono Mountains, travelled in America and Canada, and then returned home to England. I then started building my hours as a coach and also focused on developing my own playing skills. For a number of years I had played my mate Dan who was a year younger than me and had come to tennis relatively late. I had generally managed to get the better of Dan but suddenly he started beating me regularly. My initial conclusion was it must be my racquet's fault, so I brought a new one! A few days later, I arrived early for my hit with Dan and watched the last part of his private lesson. Dan was working on 'open stance forehands' (a new concept to me at the time), and was hitting the ball incredibly hard. A 'light bulb' went off and I realised that the coaching Dan had been receiving had lead to his improvement. Up until that moment in my life I had unknowningly adopted a more 'fixed' approach to learning, in that I did not conceive that someone could improve their skills significantly and thought that you 'had what you had'! Once the lesson finished I excitely spoke with Dan's coach Simon and arranged to start lessons with him. Over the course of eight months I had fifty plus lessons with Simon and would say he has had the single biggest impact on me of anyone I have met in my life. Developing my both my knowledge and own game lead to significant increases in my confidence as a person, player and coach. The main focus of Simon's work was developing my technical skills but he also started to get me thinking about the mental skills aspect of tennis, with his main recommendation to read Timothy Gallwey's book called The Inner Game of Tennis (first published in 1974!). To this point I had struggled to enjoy the challenges of competition and have often been left frustrated and angry about my results and performances. Gallwey's concept of 'the two selfs' really helped to start managing my thoughts and feelings more effectively. 

Pivitol Moment 2: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People 

2012 was a challenging year for me, both in my work and social life. My girlfriend broke up with me and I failed the group assessment of my Level 4 Coaching qualification. I found it difficult to accept both situations and I was experiencing lots of uncomfortable emotions. Another Simon (my Head Coach from the Canterbury Tennis Academy), provided guidance on my journey at this pivotal moment. Simon had recommended a book called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey a few months earlier and the book had been sitting unread on my shelf. Reading the book provided me with lots of 'light bulb moments' and gave me a framework, which started to help me make more sense of the world. 'Habit 1' is to 'be proactive' and I took this approach to the reassessment of the tennis qualification. I undertook training with a tutor and practiced the group coaching situations on a weekly basis with a couple of collegues. I started to see my initial failure as a blessing and an opportunity to develop my skills. I performed well in my reassessment and took much confidence from achieving this qualification and the challenges it provided me with. On a wider level the book helped me realise how I had become a very 'work centred' person and why failing the qualification had hit me so hard. I started to try take a more 'principle centred' approach to my life and this helped form better relationships in my both my work and social life. 

Pivitol Moment 3: Headspace

In October 2013, I met my wife Katherine. A month after our first meeting she organised a surprise for my 35th birthday, which turned out to be attending a talk by Ruby Wax! I had grown up watching Ruby on TV shows but had not seen her on TV for several years. It turned out she had been suffering with mental health challenges and had undertaken a deep dive into 'mindfulness'. At this point in my life I had not come across the concept of 'mindfulness'. During the talk Ruby made the whole audience participate in a group meditation, which I found an uplifting experience. I read Ruby's book and for a few months did not do much with my learnings. After experiencing a few challenging sitiations I talked with my friend Leon, and he recommended looking into an organisation called Headspace. I read their book The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness and started using their free App based mediation course. I found the daily practice of a 10-minute-guided-mediation often uncomfortable in the thoughts and emotions that would surface. I could feel postive differences though and stuck with it for another two years and then decided to buy the lifetime use of their full App. I find this App a fantastic tool in helping me to cope with whatever challenging situations that I experience, as it has a wide range of different mediation courses. Chronic feet pain was a particular challenge I experienced in 2016 and the 'Pain Management' mediation course proved invalauable as it help me realise a key problem was my underlying anxiety about whether I could continue working as a full-time coach. Trying to mediate every day and attempting to live more mindfully moment-to-moment have help me in many areas of life, including playing competitive tennis and being a more effective coach. 

Pivitol Moment 4: DNA-v

I had been a regular listener to Simon Mundie's podcast (currently called A New Way of Being) for several years, when I heard his 2021 interview with sleep expert Guy Meadows. This was where I was first came across ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy). I studied general psychology and sports psychology academically and as a hobbiest but had never found a specific approach to psycholgy that resonated with me. I initially read a book called ACT Made Simple by Dr Russ Harris and particularly found the concept of a 'choice point' very useful (we can move towards or away from what matters). Having tried out lots of mental skills models in my coaching of children I had realised a few years earlier that finding more youth focused models was vital if I wanted to be more effective in this area of my coaching. So I was very excited to find a youth friendly version of ACT called DNA-v developed by Joseph Ciarrochi & Louise Hayes. I have read several of their books and completed their online certification called DNA-v: The Youth Model of Acceptance, Mindfulness, and Positive Psychology. I really like the simplicity of the model and use their ideas in my coaching to help children understand how their mind works and the concept of values. 

Pivotal Moment 5: The Performance Decoder

In 2025, I decided to re-engage in competitive tennis after a hiatus. Coaching full-time and playing competitive tennis as a hobby have been a constant source of conflict for me. It can be hard to spend more time on court on top of my coaching hours. I also tend to put pressure on myself 'to play perfect tennis because I am a coach’ and then experience challenging emotions when 'things did not go as I want'. However, I am yet to find an alternative hobby that provides me with as much challenge and joy as playing tennis. I have enjoyed the four competitions I have played since my return and managed my thoughts and feelings better than anytime before. However, I am even more excited to play competitions in 2026, as in recent months I have been learning through my friend Tanya Lawton (The Performance Decoder). I have known Tanya since 2008 and was excited when she decided to publish her own books. Since first reading The Inner Game of Tennis in 1998, I have read and studied a plethora of content on mind skills from lots of different genres. Tanya’s approach stands out for me for firstly being tennis specific, and secondly being person specific. I found Tanya's first two books (The Performance Decoder & Sixth Sense: Emotion) essental reading to understanding her overall apporoach and the key ingredient of developing a deeper understanding of emotion. I then did Tanya's quiz and her report gave me amazing insights into my strengths and weaknesses and specific activities I could do to get the best out of myself. The clicher for me as been reading Tanya's third book The Armour Paradox, where I now feel I have a fuller clarity in how I can improve as a player and a coach. The key learning for me is finding ways to help players to be able 'express' themselves rather than 'protect' themselve and how difficult that can be. I realise how much of my competitive tennis life I have been playing in 'protection mode' (fight, flight or freeze). I am watching professional tennis through a different lense now. I recently rewatched the 2025 Wimbledon Ladies Singles final and Amanda Anisomova's post match press conference, where she describes 'never being able to shake off her nerves' (she lost 6-0 6-0).