“Let him drop the mental crisis he has”: Christian Garin’s latest tantrum alerts Chilean tennis

Christian Garin leaves the Tampere Challenger in the worst possible way . Tunisian Mohamed Aziz Dougaz, ranked 241st in the world rankings, inflicted a heavy defeat on him. He had won the first set by a resounding 6-2 and, after breaking the Chilean’s serve, he led the second, and the match, with a resounding 4-0. He had received an “help” from the ariqueño at the last point: the game ended with a double fault. The Tank stormed the field. “I’m going home,” we heard. And he did not remain in the threat. Sure enough, he left. What went through his head at that moment is an answer that only he can give.

Garin’s gift is debated. In conversations between sports psychologists, this usually always comes up. Very few dare to diagnose what is happening to him. They warn that for this they must know in depth both the athlete and his environment and working conditions . For this reason, they specify, the vision obeys the evidence. In this same circle, there was no one who did not see what happened in Finland, the last sample of the well from which the tennis player still cannot get out .

“We spoke with some colleagues, we discussed and it is very rare. Without knowing what happens to him during the internship, it is difficult to disconnect the athlete from the psychological. We draw the parallel with Jarry, what happened to him and how he coped with the process, with world-class work and how it ended. And the differences are there, in plain sight », explains for example the sports psychologist Fernando Azócar, director of PlanSport. The balance continues. “A lot of television, because you have to be respectful, he looks very confused on how to deal with different situations. It’s a top 50, of this level. The more he can improve, I don’t know, but he can’t be out of 100. With the experience he has and the processes he’s been through, you’d think he has more tools. Yesterday, it was very clear at the level of what he verbalizes, but I don’t know if he takes care of his psychological part. Everyone thinks they have a mental approach that is not the most correct. It makes me doubt. Not to criticize him directly. It’s been a few years now. It’s not a few months. Four months ago he had a chain or two, the injury is getting worse and it’s hurting his progress in the rankings and tournaments “, expands.

The professional points out that there is no doubt that Garin can be competitive against the best. “When you can flow with your technique and your confidence, you can make good matches. What he lacks is that this continuity is systematic, that he can manage it to get closer to this state. Because any situation that goes out of its usual framework affects it. When I see him play his tennis, he can beat the top 50 . The problem is that I feel like this game dynamic is very unstable. It is part of the process, in a routine that lets me know that it can be expensive, but that I continue to work, ”he establishes. In this context, it raises a dispute which goes beyond its scope. “alcaraz For example, he is a young person who works with Isabel Balaguer, with a serious and systematic work that does not depend on a good or a bad party. He had just lost to Djokovic at Roland Garros, on a surface that is not his own, he begins to lose 6-1 in the Wimbledon final and none of this knocks him down . He continued to believe in his game, in his working system,” he said.

It is there, essentially, the doubt on the national racket. “I don’t know what Garin is doing to process this, in a job that includes the technical, the psychological, the frustration tolerance, the reconnection. That’s what the big guys do. Accepting what is happening involves identifying what is happening to focus on where you need to work. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing wrong and there the strategy is different: asserting what I know is fine for me. . The likelihood of it working for me is much higher. It increases a lot. This is where I feel like Garin is missing something. There is accumulated frustration, decorations and shadows, injuries, rankings, sponsors who abandon you. These noises have to be part of the equation. And you have to clean them to see what hurts you. And to work, give it to work. Take the athlete to assume this. That’s what’s hard,” he said.

The conclusion is categorical. “Let go of the mental crisis you are having. It is allowed to rage, but for a little while. The obligation is to return. That the intensity is not so high and it takes as little time as possible to return to work. Tops do it a lot “, he concludes.

His colleague Enrique Aguayo, president of the Chilean Society of Sports Psychology, takes a look at the high mental demands that tennis demands. And he gives another even more famous example. “It’s a week of reactions. There is the racket break of Djokovic the best tennis player in history, a mature guy, who reacts with a lack of control who shows his rival that he declares himself incompetent and then regrets it because he knows that he gives him valuable information “, chart.

Even without going into the specific analysis of the Garín case, it shows elements that allow conclusions to be drawn regarding the situation of the second national in the world ranking, “They are under a very high level of stress every week. High-level sport must be well guided. It is healthy when it is well guided. The amateur is much healthier in this sense. High performance is felt physically, in injuries and, above all, mentally . This requires multidisciplinary teams with very experienced support,” he points out.

Then, directly, he tries to explain when Garin performed in the Nordic contest. “I imagine he felt he was in those days when nothing is going well anymore, instead of breaking the racquet or throwing a ball that might hit someone, to leave. More than one does. The only thing I can interpret is that he felt “I can’t take it anymore” . I don’t know, because I don’t know him. He has tools,” he says.

Later, he focuses on crisis exits. “How you cope involves individual differences. It would do you good to rest, to give with your friends, your family, your partner and to start again. It is so. You have to concentrate the work on the technical details and start over. Tennis is criminal. He has no rationality in terms of tournaments . The menu offers to play every weekend. If the technical staff feels that adjustments need to be made, they will do so,” he insists.

Once again, by way of conclusion, Aguayo calls on the front line of white sport to illustrate. “Two months ago, Nadal said that to return he needed to regain his confidence. If Nadal says that or if Djokovic breaks his racquet… Those are normal responses for anyone. We look at Garin because he is a compatriot, but it happens at 90%. It’s striking to leave the field, but it’s an expression of stress , powerlessness in a sport whose organization is very demanding. There, the technical bodies play their game of chess,” he concludes.

Alexi Ponce, president of the. Association of Sport Psychology and Coaching. Chile, also a specialist in high-level sports, agrees. “High performance has those situations where a person is faced with expectations. A mechanism is flight, flight, but it is not the best and cannot be repeated. This is one of the things to work on, to face. Give them tools, coping strategies . Sometimes you have to change my emotion. There is a rival who is also trying to do things right,” he said.

“Alcaraz has just recognized it. I don’t know if the psychological work makes a difference, but it helps,” he says. In this sense, it calls for optimism. “With a proper diagnosis, Garin has a way out. It is necessary to make the diagnosis in order to train what corresponds, whether it is physical, technical or psychological. The intervention must be located in this zone. If I have a stomach problem, I won’t go to the eye doctor. here is the same “, sentence.