First Ball To Last

An Emotional Health and Wellness Program For Tennis Competitors

Greetings and welcome to my project, First Ball to Last, a one-of-a-kind emotional health and wellness program for competitive tennis players.

Emotional health issues have been rampant in our sport of late.

Within the past few years, we've seen former world #1 Naomi Osaka step away from competing after going public with her struggles. Former American tennis star Mardy Fish was the subject of a Netflix documentary about his mid-career anxiety attacks. The mercurial Australian star Nick Kyrgios has struggled mightily with his emotional health on and off the court. Australian Ash Barty stepped away from tennis for a second time, no longer able to enjoy the tennis life despite being the world's number one player.

The list could go on and on...And these are tennis' professionals.

This public outbreak of personal struggles comes at a curious moment in emotional health. Never as a sport have we known more, never have we been collectively more aware, and never have more resources been available to people struggling with emotional issues. Yet, we continue to see more and more players unable to manage their tennis lives emotionally. What gives? Well, it’s not tennis. The demands of the sport I grew up with haven't changed. But society has, quite rapidly, with many of the changes, social media and the like, proven quite demanding on one's emotional life. So, despite our increased knowledge and awareness in the emotional health space, we’ve been unable to keep pace as a sport.

One constant of the tennis life is that competitors are volatile, intense, fiery, and reactive. Half the battle in tennis is managing the intense swirling emotions we experience training and competing. The tools provided with FBTL will act as our own personal cooling rods, providing us with the tools to manage the challenging emotions experienced in training and competition on the tennis journey without melting down.

I've been involved in the tennis industry for 50 years at every level: player, coach, journalist, author, and analyst. I've had a front-row seat for all of tennis' significant movements, from the popularity of the Boom to the surge of professionalism to the dizzying advancements in technique, equipment, training, and coaching.

As a tennis historian, I firmly believe we are on the cusp of the next great movement in the tennis industry: the emotional health and wellness of those competing in our great sport.

At First Ball To Last, we can be the first and best in a rapidly emerging and vast market.

So much of the sports psychology, therapy, and mentor/coaching world is reactive. Nobody wins a big event and runs to their sports psychologist. The dynamic historically has been a series of recurring episodes; try everything on your own with minimal improvement. Ultimately defeated and humbled, competitors crawl meekly to get professional help, but often far too late, with their issues already metastasized and traumatizing. Up to now, the entire system has been reactive, a last resort. And don't get me wrong. This dynamic has been helpful for generations now.

But why not make strengthening our emotional awareness our first priority? Why have we been slow to be proactive and preventative, making emotional intelligence an integral part of our tennis lives?

Much of this should be common sense. One doesn't go to the beach without a towel, sunscreen, and glasses because one knows the conditions there. One doesn't go to the mountains without a hat, gloves, and layers of warmth because one knows the conditions atop a hill. Yet, knowing how emotionally challenging the tennis life can be, we engage in it completely unprepared, leaving so much of our emotional development, management, and ultimately our success to chance.

Well no longer

FBTL applies the best time-tested disciplines of emotional intelligence, positive psychology, cognitive psychology, spirituality, and recovery to the tennis experience. The tools acquired through my FBTL methodology (detailed in the How FBTL Works video) will not just be performance-enhancing but life-enhancing, giving competitors an unshakeable foundation for life and all its future challenges.

So that when a competitor has hit their last ball, they can take all the skills learned here throughout the tennis journey and apply them to all of life's next challenges, whether it be education, career, family, or, God forbid, Pickleball

These traits include resilience, maintaining a healthy perspective, developing belief in themselves, instilling impeccable character, playing with joy, passion, and honor, and dozens more.

All traits embodied, not just by the greats of our sport but also by society's healthiest and most successful among us.

I can't promise we will ever play like our idols, but we can compete, train, and conduct ourselves like them. We can make them our role models, learn from them, emulate them, and, in the process, become role models ourselves for the next generation of tennis competitors.

Why is Emotional Health and Wellness vital to me? My story is well documented. As a teen, I pursued excellence in tennis with undiagnosed and untreated emotional issues, issues I dangerously began to self-medicate as a precarious teenager, compounding my issues for much of my adult life and destroying my dreams of seeing my talents all the way through.

I had the game and the fire. However, I lacked the tools to manage the uniquely stressful demands of the elite competitive tennis journey.

What would I have given for a program like FBTL during my playing days?

Picture it—an App on your phone, available at a moment's notice, containing everything you need to navigate the tennis life best.

The emotional health and wellness of the tennis competitor is a topic dear and close to my heart.

I invite you to browse my site and sign up for FBTL’s upcoming Beta test.

Moving Forward: I’m seeking several levels of engagement

First, I need volunteers to participate free of charge in the beta test rollout of my program over the next few weeks and be willing to give feedback about what works, what doesn’t, and ways FBTL can be improved.

Second, I seek content creators who see opportunities to collaborate on content to improve subscribers' look, feel, and user experience.

Third, I seek tech savants to assist in mobile APP development. I lack the experience in this space to discern who is for real or not.

Lastly, I'm seeking investors to partner with on aggressive marketing campaigns and mobile app design. If you're intrigued, please consult my For Investors section.

My contact information is on the site. Hope to hear from many of you soon!

Firstballtolast.com