Supporting players on and off the court: the importance of Performance Lifestyle & Psychology in tennis
• 2 MINUTE READ
Ever wondered what support pro tennis players get away from the sport to maintain a healthy lifestyle – including mental and physical wellbeing as well as personal development.
We spoke to Rachel Newnham – LTA Performance Lifestyle National Lead – about her role in helping tennis players reach their potential with both lifestyle and psychological support.
Describe what you do, who you are currently working with and how regularly you work with the players? What do you do ahead of Wimbledon?
We are a psycho-social team comprising of Performance Lifestyle, Performance Psychology and Clinical Psychology. As a team we support players and their teams holistically off and on court.
Performance Lifestyle supports areas such as wellbeing, education, personal development & transitions.
Performance Psychology supports areas such as emotional regulation, team dynamics and developing on court performance strategies.
Clinical Psychology provides mental health and wellbeing support. We work across the player pathway from U14 juniors through to our Elite players.
How crucial is your work to the modern game and getting a British player to number one?
The need for support for wellbeing and mental health has grown and grown over the last few years. Ultimately a player’s wellbeing is crucial to performance so supporting a player with any challenges or distractions that are affecting their wellbeing is a priority to ensuring they can perform to their best.
This is completely individual to each player, so a bespoke level of holistic support is needed to help them both develop themselves and manage their wellbeing.
How has your advice and expertise changed over the years – particularly with all the scrutiny and trolling some players face on social media?
Social media has played an increasingly bigger part in players lives over the years, so ensuring that players understand what this looks like, especially during the Induction to one of our programmes, is vital in helping them, their parents and team to navigate the good, bad and ugly that comes with social media use.
It is not something players can escape from in this day and age and positive use of social media can bring great benefits to them as professional players, so helping them understand how best to use it and support them when they face online abuse is important.
What are the challenges you face in the role?
One of the biggest challenges we face can be when we are pulled in to support a player reactively, when something goes wrong. By supporting a player proactively, whether that’s with their wellbeing, on court routines or personal development, we can provide consistent support and impact which can have multiple benefits over the long term and provide a cushion for when things are not going so well.
What’s your number one tip?
Make time to look after your wellbeing and find what strategies work for you. We live busy, hectic lives but investing time in your own wellbeing can only ever have a positive impact.
