Precompetition Anxiety and Stress in Tennis: Review of Literature

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to examine the impact of competitive stress on tennis athletes and propose solutions for controlling and treating it. Pre-competition stress is a negative feeling for an athlete, which most often comes from expecting a victory. In the present work a general reference is made initially to human stress, which is caused by a variety of factors, whether specific or not, afflicting a large part of the population. Then follows an introduction to the basic features of precompetition anxiety, followed by an observation on the psychological stressrelief skills and how they can be applied. In conclusion, the overcome of the stressful situations depends on maintaining focus of predefined goals, gaining competitive experience and preserve emotional balance during the process.

Impact of Basketball Match on the Pre-Competitive Anxiety and HRV of Youth Female Players

“…However, in our study, we did not find a significant increase in pre-competitive anxiety. In this regard, team sports athletes showed less pre-competitive anxiety than single-sport athletes [52]. This can be due to the responsibility of success or failure not falling solely on one athlete [53].…”

Precompetitive anxiety and self-confidence during the 2023 Finnish Padel championship in high level men’s players

“…It is worth noting that, in racquet sports, players have to constantly make decisions in short periods of time ( Castillo-Rodríguez et al, 2014 ) and coping with high-pressure situations is intrinsically linked to performance ( González-Díaz et al, 2012 ; Knight et al, 2016 ; Martínez-Gallego et al, 2022 ). In general, in individual sports, compared to team sports where responsibility is shared among all team members, athletes present an increased amount of precompetitive anxiety ( Koronas et al, 2020 ). However, according to Rodríguez-Cayetano et al (2022) , when comparing tennis (singles format) to padel (doubles format), the results are not like this in every case, differing depending on the sex.…”