Ep. 10 - Bob Dallis and Team Environment in College Tennis

Bob Dallis is in his 19th season as the Head Coach of the Dartmouth College Women's Tennis Team. Prior to Dartmouth he was the Head Men's and Women's Tennis Coach at Colgate University and was the Head Men's Tennis Coach at Boston University. He was a four-year member of the Boston University Men's Tennis Team and played on the professional circuit. Bob completed his doctoral degree at Boston University in Sport and Exercise Psychology where he completed his dissertation on "The Design and Implementation of an Elite Training System for Tennis."

Notable moments from the interview: 

2:34 - Bob describes his introduction to coaching college tennis at age 23 and his path to pursuing a doctoral degree in Sport Psychology 

6:04 - Creating a team culture in college tennis and the difficulty of "getting into the team room" at Dartmouth 

11:14 - College tennis as a team sport and how one player's negativity can lead to the negativity of their teammates 

16:05 - How to practice "positive response training" at practice in a team environment 

19:20 - Bob discusses how his Sport Psychology doctoral dissertation fits into his coaching style and philosophy 

28:01 - The importance of practice matches for college tennis players 

32:40 - How video analysis and match analysis can help improve performance 

36:06 - The importance of accepting the outcome and focusing on the process and doing your best 

41:18 - The improvements of college tennis players over four years 

To learn more about Josh and Brian's backgrounds and sport psychology businesses, go to TiebreakerPsych.com and PerformanceXtra.com. If you have feedback about the show or questions on the mental game in tennis, email us at [email protected] or use the hashtag #tennisIQ on Twitter. Don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube or your podcast platform of choice (Spotify, Apple, Google, etc.) to stay up to date on future episodes!