Kim Michael Wittenberg Kim Wittenberg is founder and director of the All Atlanta Junior Tennis Academy in Alpharetta, GA. Coach Kim has specialized in working with juniors for over 30 years. He worked in Europe for 23 years, where he developed many world class players. Among his successes are Wesley Whitehouse, 1997 Junior Wimbledon Champion, Horst Skoff, ATP #20, Marco Born, 2007 NCAA Divsion 1 Doubles Champion, Dustin Brown, currently ATP #450 and many others. View all articles by Kim Michael Wittenberg

Everywhere you go in tennis today you hear players, parents, and coaches talking about mental toughness. My question is, “is it more important to be rock solid technically or mentally tough?” I don’t buy into the mental toughness argument!

Being a successful junior or professional player has more to do with a sound technical base and good tactics than mental toughness. If you can’t hit the ball where you want in a stress situation, mental toughness won’t help you. Being mentally tough is really about being confident and positive about one’s technical and tactical game, confident that you can perform because of hundreds of hours of practice and repetition. A racecar at LeMan with a faulty engine design will never beat Audi because the team and driver are mentally tough!

If you have a weak link in your game a good opponent will normally find it.
A great opponent will abuse it! Being extremely intelligent and mentally tough won’t help you when your backhand is not rock solid and you have to pass Pete Sampras. Confidence in your game is developed with great technical skills, lots of hard work and an excellent understanding of strategy. There are no short cuts.