Staying focused with distractions/pressure

One of the biggest problems I'm facing lately has been playing in front of spectators and my fellow table tennis peers. During practice nights I'm one of the more dominant players in our local club and regularly end the night coming out on top or very close, many times with one-sided  3:0 or 3:1 set victories. I'm always relaxed, focused, and play the shots I want to hit with players up to and slightly above USATT 1800.

However, my game really seems to spiral downhill during the club's weekly unsanctioned tournament. These are once a week and generally attract a lot of spectators; the playing room is fairly small, so the spectators are reasonably close to the tables (the atmosphere is similar to this Timo Boll visit at Spin LA -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boi1kmKrPFc ..albeit with about twice as much room and so space isn't an issue). The scene is fairly similar to that, with mostly tournament participants, family members, and casual observers all closely packed around the playing area.

During some of these weekly tournaments, I seem to lose to the people I beat 3:0 with regularity on club nights without the spectators or pressure. To add to the frustration, the losses are normally to the handful of coached kids who are only 11-14 years old and 200-300 pts lower ranked. They are usually fairly erratic on club nights and almost never beat me. But on tournament nights, they're like fearless attacking warriors and always seem to make shots with far greater percentage than on practice nights.  This has really been frustrating as a couple of the kids I've gone streaks of beating 15-20 times in a row on practice nights are turning around and beating me on tournament night.. then I go right back around to win on the practice night, only to lose again the next tournament appearance. Again, these are unsanctioned tournaments without ratings points but we all take them pretty seriously still.

I find I tend to rush my shots and serves more in this atmosphere when a lot of people, including all of my table tennis friends/opponents, are watching. This leads me to not move around as much, clam up, and play more of a drive and block game, as opposed to looping and dictating play like I do on practice nights.

Also, I often go into a sort of exhibition mode where I play shots that'd be more fun to watch than will actually win points. I don't know why I do this. I just can't seem to think clearly or focus when a lot of people are around; people even come up to me afterwards and say "that's not how you usually play" and I agree with them.

Any tips or observations appreciated.



Edited by FinalFight - 01/27/2015 at 2:28pm

I feel your pain.  I am the worst person in the world about this, so I'll wait for some of the better players to chime in and they'll be able to help you more.  For now, here are a few suggestions:

Edited by Ringer84 - 01/27/2015 at 2:35pm

Seems to me that you are probably concerned a lot about what other people think.  So I think you need to either figure out how not to care about that or else distract yourself from the fact that many people are watching. You need to tune the crowd out.  

Some people perform better on stage, some don't. In your case I suggest you don't make eye contact with spectators. You shouldn't care what they think, it's just you, your opponent, the table, and the ball. When the match ends, you can look at everyone's reaction.

You know how people sometimes ask or joke 'what would Jesus do' in this situation? You can laugh, but sometimes when I am shaken in a critical situation I try to imagine what would Zhang JiKe do in this situation. What kind of face would he put for this point. How aggressive would he be. Like what I am up 10:9, after I was up 10:5 and lost 4 in a row and now im defending the last game point. It really cools down my panic.
However that will not work for everybody and certainly it wont work for Ma Long fans or people not familiar with ZJK and his clutch performance. But if you start monitoring your own self you will notice that some things cool you off. Try to remember those things and play them in your head before a critical point.
By the way, that problem exists for most people regardless of you level. Even pros can't keep it cool. I read in this guy's blog recently that the only reason Waldner and ZJK never seem shaken is because they suffer from the GOD (superiority) complex. They always believe that they are better than their opponent and they can come back no matter what the score. Whatever works, I say. If I played like Waldner or ZJK, I would most definitely have God complex as well :)

playing more competitions should help