I always get nervous while playing and mess up, how can I stop this?

Question

Whenever I'm in a match that counts, I always mess up and s***w up because I get too nervous or over-confident.

Today I was playing an opponent and I was winning 3-0 the first 20 minutes and I started to get over-confident and started making silly mistakes.

He caught up soon and I lost 6-3(we only played 1 set), I felt so embarrassed. But, this always happens to me.

How can I stop becoming so nervous while playing?!

Answer 1

Start playing the ball and not your opponent.  Set up you point and execute....dont try for a winner with every stroke.....try to get in the "comfort zone", a groove if you  will, let the fab strokes flow out of you arm.

Answer 2

What I do is ignore the score and pretend it's 3-3. I'm not over confident cause I'm not winning but I'm not nervous cause I have the chance at winning. Basically just take a deep breath and just chill and enjoy the simplicity of the ball swooshing past you.

Answer 3

thats because your not concentrating hard enough...in a match, all you need to do is set your mind on playing the match...in the Philippines, we have  this horse driven carriage called Kalesa...the horse 's eyes are blocked from the sides with a gadget called "tapa oho" which would only show the straight way to go in the streets.....its really a mental thing so you better be prepared next time...Focus on the match....

Answer 4

chill out && relax and dont get cocky ha

Answer 5

dont think about the game or the score, just hate the people u are against and focus on trying to destroy them and eat their souls.. I mean u really really should hate them for this to work. Picture some one u hates face on them, imagine u caught them with ur mom, or that they are f**s that came on to u, anything to make u mad and wanna kill them, then PLAY BALL!

Answer 6

don't get nervous

Answer 7

forget the score. take it point by point and let someone else do the scoring. when one point is over, forget who won it. move on to the next one. obviously you want to take what you learned about your opponent with you from point to point but that's about it. seriously, if you forget each point as it's played, you have no reason to get overconfident. play each and every point like its the game winning, set winning, or match winning point as well.

Answer 8

It sounds more like a loss of focus.  Anytime you make a simple mistake - I mean when you hit something really bad, that normallywould be a piece of cake, chances are really high you lost focus for a moment.

What you do then, is quickly asess why you lost the point. How should you have hit that.  Quickly correct it in your mind and make a motion, so your muscle memory is not compromised by the mistake.