April 4, 2008

Milwaukee, WI (UWIRE) -- Hustling back and forth, senior Maria Calbeto was on the run.

Her opponent had gained the advantage, forcing Calbeto to run side-to-side just to keep the ball in play. On her fourth sprint, Calbeto managed to regain some element of control. She might win the point after all.

Then Calbeto hit the ball into the net.

"I worked hard to get control and lost focus," she said.

In an individual sport like tennis, mental toughness and focus is vital to winning a close match. If a player is floundering, teammates can only sit on the sidelines and watch. Calbeto won the match but had a momentary lapse of focus that could have cost her against a tougher opponent.

Rob Keheo, a performance coach from Johnson Creek, Wis., is working with the Marquette women's tennis team to promote not only mental toughness, but also physical toughness and playing with "heart."

"Athletic competition, as I view it, is a test; a test of the heart, mind and body," Kehoe said. "Every time a player steps on line to compete, the outcome is how well they do on the test."

Keheo met with the team for the first time before winter break and has since met several more times with the team and individually.

At first, his words were met with doubt, especially because the team had heard the inspirational speeches many times before, almost never with consequence.

"I was skeptical of the general motivational statements," sophomore Maggie Wilson said.

Calbeto said she did not think his statements would apply to her.

"You hear very general statements and you forget," she said.

During individual meetings, Calbeto said Keheo told her to focus on the present, to play the point and not worry about what happened in the last play. She began to remember.

"The first few matches, I did not play well. I was not confident and I was afraid to lose," she said. Now his instruction "helps me to calm down and focus on each thing I can control," Calbeto said.

"He was able to break it down well," she said. "We could focus on my own psychological struggles. He told me to focus on only the ball as it comes across the net. Play like the opponent is simply giving us a ball to hit."

Keheo said that to succede, players need to be able to focus on the tiny details of every shot.

"Tennis is a dueling marksmanship competition," Keheo said. "You are trying to hit targets on the other side of the net.

"They need to ask, 'What's the purpose of my shot? What type of shot do I need to hit the winner?"

Although Keheo calls himself a performance coach, his type of performance-enhancing counseling is practiced by sports psychologists. David Yukelson, the director of sports psychology at Penn State, said that many times athletes are over-thinking while they play, causing them to make mistakes.

"I try to teach them how to have composure and mental toughness," he said.

Yukelson is one of the few in-house sports psychologists working for a university in the nation. Most schools, like Marquette, use consultants like Keheo.

Keheo's advice was different for each person.

Calbeto said she now plays a match point-by-point and remains focused on each shot. The instruction seems to have worked. She started the season 2-5 in singles play, but but Calbeto has won six out of her last 10 matches.

One more thing has helped.

"I'm not afraid to lose," she said.

(C) 2008 The Marquette Tribune via UWIRE