Tennis requires a state of constant attention and alert. Maintaining correct attention focus is usually difficult for most players; it's a difficult state to achieve and easy to lose. If we missed the attention, we missed the point. Without a doubt, to obtain good sports performance, attention skills are essential. It must be kept in mind that for an athlete to attend to the relevant stimuli of each occasion, he must be interested in it. Attention without interest is almost impossible to happen.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian psychologist with one of the most complicated surnames in the history of humanity, was the creator of the concept of “Flow”, a term widely used in sports and work environments. Is defined as a zone of optimal energy, where attention is totally directed to the process of execution and nothing else. It's in this “Flow” where the best performance, both in sports and work, is achieved and where the execution of the task is enjoyed. At work, they're those moments in which we are totally immersed and passionate in the task, when we lose track of time and no other thoughts get in the way. In sport, this state occurs only when attention is fully focused on the factors relevant to the execution of the task being developed and when the player is away from negative thoughts and other forms of distraction that impair execution.
Have you ever had the feeling in a training session or match that you were totally focused on the present moment and couldn't miss the ball? Are those moments in which one feels focused and where the blows “flow.” The best tennis players in the world are those who, in addition to having great preparation and physical, technical and tactical skills, have highly developed attentional skills that further elevate their sporting performance.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Play and intrinsic rewards. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 15(3), 41–63
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