ATP Player Blog

Life on Tour With Jean-Yves Aubone (@JYNole) August 2015 Update #9 A Message to Junior Tennis Players
Jean-Yves Aubone, Tennis Atlantic

A Message To Junior Tennis Players

Dear junior tennis players,

You’re not alone.

Recently I asked my followers on Instagram to e-mail me with any questions they had regarding the life of a professional tennis player or tennis in general. To my surprise, the majority of e-mails I received were from junior tennis players looking for advice on how to deal with low confidence, getting frustrated all the time, and handling their nerves. In more simple terms, they were looking for help with the mental side of the game.

As I read each e-mail carefully, I remembered I was just like them. I remembered how a devastating loss could put me into complete sadness. I remembered how many times I would lose matches because I got nervous during big moments and made some bad decisions. Before answering I thought to myself, “what do I wish I knew then that I know now?”

I wish I understood the importance of training the mind.

For most of my life, I tried to have fun on the court. I tried to let it fly and enjoy the game. I tried endlessly to believe in myself and my abilities as a tennis player. Yet every time things started going wrong, I would get so frustrated things only got worse.

I was always told to have fun and play relaxed but how could I when I was losing? I was told to not worry about winning or losing, but how could I when the ultimate goal was to win? Telling someone to do something without giving them the proper instruction on how to do it, is completely useless.

Up until the last year and a half, no one had ever taught me how to actually play relaxed. No one taught me how to not get frustrated if I started losing. No one ever taught me how to breathe properly so that I could calm myself down. No one ever taught me how to quiet the damn voices in my head that repeatedly said things such as:

“I suck at tennis.
I hate this game.
I knew I was going to lose.
This always happens to me.
I’m just not good enough.”

These mental wars I had with myself were the primary reasons I quit tennis after playing at the collegiate level. The wars began to tear me apart. I suffered on the court and off of it as well. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and quit. Nothing in life, especially a damn game, is worth suffering so much over.

Two years after college the stress from tennis faded away and I decided to leave the office life and give tennis another try. Unfortunately the mental wars began again. I still hadn’t learned how to control my thoughts and nerves. Out of complete desperation, I finally decided to work with a mental coach (I prefer mental coach over psychologist). Slowly I started to learn the proper way to think, the proper words to use in my head, and the proper way to breathe so I could slow my heart rate down when I became nervous.

Since then, tennis has become less stressful and the emotions of it almost never spill into my personal life. More importantly, at the age of 27 I’m finally able to enjoy the game to the fullest.

We (tennis players) are willing to put an extraordinary amount of hours practicing how to hit a tennis ball, yet almost never work on the most important part of the game: the mind. When a professional tennis player or coach is asked how much of the game is mental, the typical answer is roughly 80%. If the game is about 80% mental, then why are we spending nearly 100% of our practice time on the court and in the gym? The numbers don’t make sense.

My best advice to junior tennis players: start working on the mental side of things as soon as possible. Read books; I personally recommend to begin with The Inner Game of Tennis and Winning Ugly. If your coach is not training your mind- ask him to. If he does not have the proper skills to do so, then find a mental coach. Don’t waste years of your tennis life being continuously stressed on court. Enjoy the beautiful game while having an easier pathway to being the best player you can be.

Life on Tour ATP

Life on Tour with Jean-Yves Aubone (@JYNole): February 2015 Update #2

Jean-Yves Aubone, Tennis Atlantic

February 2015 Update #2-Atlanta,Georgia, USA

For two full years I’ve been training and staying in shape. I take two months off of tennis because of an injury and the first few days are as if I’ve never trained at any point in my life. I’ve always been astonished at how easy it is for someone to lose their fitness and how difficult it is to get it back. It really isn’t fair. During the last few weeks of recovery from my achilles bursitis I went through some swim and weight lifting programs to get my fitness back. Unfortunately, there is no substitute for a normal training program that is tailored for professional athletes. On the first day back at Ginepri Performance Tennis Academy in Atlanta I found myself getting my tail kicked by a few of the 14 and 15 year olds in the gym. Not only was I slower than them but they were using heavier weights than me! I felt so pathetic that sometimes I just had to laugh. It was a very humbling experience, but I knew it was just part of the process of getting back to professional shape.

JY doing single leg box jumps

As tough as it’s been to get my fitness levels up, it’s been even tougher getting my movement back. When I first started to practice I realized that I still had some discomfort in my achilles. After roughly 7 weeks off this should not have been the case. Both my strength/conditioning coach (Paul Fortunato from Ozone Fitness) and my physical therapist (Barbara Vaughn from SET Physical Therapy) watched me play and noticed that I needed to change the biomechanics of how I run. I was using my calf/achilles/foot area as my main source of energy when going to hit the next shot. This was causing a continuous aggravation of my achilles bursitis. I should have been using my glutes as my main source of energy. In order to achieve this I needed to make sure I was maintaining the athletic position while I moved. Once I’m in the athletic position the hips are loaded correctly and my glutes become my main source of energy. This relieves pressure from the lower leg area and allows me to be lighter and quicker.

To make this adjustment on court I’ve had to go through some practices just doing basic beginner basket feeding drills at a very slow place. If I tried to go too fast then I would move incorrectly and start to feel some discomfort in the achilles area. I spent a lot of time practicing with Robby Ginepri and at first there were many times when I struggled to continue long rallies. My feet couldn’t keep up. If I did keep up it was because I was moving incorrectly causing more discomfort. In the gym we focused a lot on strengthening the glutes through exercises such as single leg dead lifts and lunges.

There were definitely some moments of frustration during this training block. We are always making technical or strategical adjustments in my game but relearning how to move is a rare one. Throw in the fear of re-injuring myself and my patience was definitely tested. I’ll never forget how happy I was when I first started to really feel a big improvement with my movement. It was about two weeks in to my training and I was in the middle of my first full on practice set at Georgia Tech against one of their players. In between one of the points I turned to my coach Joseph O’Dwyer and said, “man, I’m losing but I’m so happy to be playing.”

JY with Kenny Throne of Georgia Tech Tennis

Jean-Yves Aubone
February 2, 2015

Life on Tour with Jean-Yves Aubone (@JYNole): January 2015 Update #1

Jean-Yves Aubone, Tennis Atlantic

Tennis Atlantic is proud to begin our partnership with ATP professional Jean-Yves Aubone, Jean-Yves is a former two time All-American NCAA college player at Florida State University, and he has won multiple ITF futures titles in his career. He is currently ranked in the top 500 in the world and you can track his journey on tour, and efforts to move up in the rankings here on Tennis Atlantic. He will be providing a down to earth, and detailed account of his life as a professional player, and an up close and personal take on the ITF futures and ATP challenger tour from a players perspective. We look forward to his contributions on a bi-weekly basis for our site. To get to know JY better please visit our writer bio section.-The Editors

January 2015 Update #1-Miami, Florida, USA

While everyone else has been preparing and even begun the 2015 season, I’ve been at home patiently waiting to start my offseason training. It’s been seven weeks since I played my last match. It’s also been seven weeks since I last played any real tennis. I’ve missed so much time due to achilles bursitis. Achilles bursitis occurs when the bursa (small fluid filled sac located at the back of the heel) becomes inflamed. I played with it throughout 2014. I never stopped because it never became inflamed enough for me to stop playing.

Athletes tend to make the mistake that if the pain is manageable then they will play. At the end of the day that’s all we want to do. We just want to play. Why stop because of a tiny amount of pain? Well because that tiny amount of pain, if not treated correctly, can turn into a lot of pain. That’s what happened to me. By the end of the year I was struggling to run, jump and even walk. The pain was too great and I had to cut my season short by a few weeks.

After seeing a doctor in South Florida I was informed that the recommended treatment for achilles bursitis is rest of 4-6 weeks, lots of ice to remove the inflammation, and loosening the calf muscle through stretches and massages.

Unfortunately I’ve had to take the entire 6 weeks away from the court. The only exercise I’ve been allowed to do is swimming and non-impact exercises in the gym. Fortunately these things have kept me in somewhat decent shape so once I get back on the court it won’t take me long to get into my normal form. After all this time I feel close to 100% but I still need to take it slow because of how delicate the injury is. I’m hitting some balls down the middle but with very little movement. Hopefully in a week I can have a full practice.

One of the toughest parts about having to take so much time off is how to spend that time. I’ve continued to wake up early to maintain the same routine as if I were training like normal. This way it’s not so much of a shock to my body when I return to a normal practice schedule. Unfortunately by the time I’m done swimming, going to the gym, and start icing it’s only 11am. By 2pm I start to lose my mind. One of my favorite things to do in my spare time is play golf, but I can’t do that because it aggravates the injury. All my friends and family are at work so I can’t meet up with anyone. I’ve been reading and watching Homeland a lot but that can only provide so much entertainment. I clean my apartment every other day. The only thing that keeps me calm is that I’m doing what is necessary to lengthen my career.

By far the most difficult thing has been taking so much time off when I finished the year so well. I made a really good run during the back half of the year and was excited to keep it going. I reached four ITF singles finals and won one of them. This injury has been a big reminder that an athlete can never do enough to take care of his own body. It’s always worth it to spend extra time doing things such as stretching, seeing the doctor and getting massages. I’m glad I was reminded of this now rather than after a serious injury that could have forced me to miss an entire year or even end my career.

For the moment my only goal is to get back to being healthy. I don’t want to have ranking goals in the back of my mind right now because I can’t risk coming back too soon and hurting myself again. I know with the help of my team it will only be a matter of time before we get back to making runs deep into events.

Jean-Yves Aubone
January 8, 2015