Visit Dr. Cohn’s Baseball Mental Game Tips to improve your mental toughness for baseball.

If you have seen Melanie Oudin’s remarkable 3-set wins, you have witnessed her big-time comebacks against top players in the world.

How is she’s pulling out those matches come-from-behind victories? Is she that talented or skilled? Or is it sheer grit and determination?

To beat the top players, it’s all of the above. But I left out her most important weapon–and it’s not her ability to run down balls consistently–it’s her mental toughness!

“I think the biggest weapon can be mental toughness. It doesn’t have to be a stroke or a shot or anything like that. If you’re mentally tough out there, then you can beat anyone. I think that’s what I really did well today and I’ve done in my past matches. I’m so focused and I fight super hard. So it’s not going to be easy to beat me or I’m not going to back down at all,” said Oudin.

What is mental toughness in tennis?

Read Melanie Oudin’s Secret Weapon: Mental Toughness at Sports Psychology for Tennis

Have you watched the action at the U.S. Open? A lot of surprises this year. We’ve seen some early exits by top seeded players…Are these early exits caused by a poor mental game or physical game?

For example, Ana Ivanovic lost to Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine in the opening round of the US Open. In this case, her first round exit was caused by a poor mental game, as she confessed…

“I think I’ve been thinking about everything too much and trying to address lots of issues with my game,” Ivanovic said.

“My fitness is at one level, mind at another, my game is at another level. I think these all these things have to marry to get into the right direction and have to fit.”

What’s the culprit? Ivanovic has lost trust in her game. She got sidetracked with too many methods or solutions…

“It looks convincing, 6-1, 7-5, but a few points here or there, your focus is not right on break point, maybe you are the better man, but you end up losing because you lost focus on the biggest points,” Federer said. “That’s why you’ve always got to push yourself.”

No matter what the score is, maintaining your focus is important to your performance. Some players lose points or games because they lose focus for just a game or two.

Federer was down 0-3 in the second after winning the first easily. He lost his mental edge for just one moment. He coasted on his talent. He forgot to focus to the max. Was he distracted? No. I think he let up for just a moment and found himself down 0-3.

Read how Federer lost his focus but still won…

This is a common problem for young athletes. Kids are social beings—and they tend to compare themselves to their friends. But in sports, this is a bad thing to do. Making comparisons to other athletes hurts kids’ confidence.

Here’s one sports parent whose athlete struggles with confidence when friends do well:

“My daughter is a sprinter, long jumper and hurdler. She lacks confidence generally, in particular because a friend seems to be a natural at everything and beats her. Her friend has done hurdles once and already beaten my daughter’s best time, which has shattered her self-confidence. How do I build her confidence back up?”

Read youth sports psychology tips to boost your sports kids confidence…

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Do you or your athletes fear other athletes will see you as weak if you have to do mental training or work with a sports psychologist? Still today, athletes buy into

“I have friends who perform better than me and they don’t read any mental training books. Every time I open my mental training book I feel no motivation to read because better athletes don’t do anything to mentally prepare themselves. I feel that I’m weak by being probably the only guy going to try-outs that reads mental training books. I have only heard of a very few great athletes that do mental preparation.”

When I receive these emails from athletes, I’m surprised that people still view mental training or sports psychology as a weakness and thus think they are inferior because they need to do mental training. Unfortunately, a few athletes still buy into myths about sports psychology and thus shy away. This is an interesting–and misguided–conception about the value of sports psychology.

Read entire article at Peaksports.com>> Myths About Sports Psychology

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As a matter of fact, I saw an ESPN interview with Brett Favre about playing his first game with the Minnesota Vikings this week. He talked about feeling the butterflies and pregame jitters again, something he has not felt in a long time:

“Today, sitting in the hotel, all of a sudden, I starting having butterflies, I’m like, ‘I haven’t felt this in a long time,” Favre said. He went on to say that the pregame butterflies means he still cares about playing football. He would be worried if he didn’t feel the jitters… If he didn’t want to play or be on the field, and did not care, that would be a clear sign that he’s ready for retirement — for good!

Read more at Peaksports online mental training system…

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Golf psychology expert

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In this week’s tennis psychology session, Dr. Cohn teaches you how to overcome the fear of making mistakes. Many tennis players try to avoid making mistakes, which can cause them to tighten up and play tenatively. Listen to the podcast to learn the mental game keys to bounce back quickly from mistakes: http://www.sportspsychologytennis.com/?p=2156