The world of junior development is brutal. (If you’re a rec player reading this who never had to deal with the wasteland that is youth tennis, consider yourself lucky.) Parents spend thousands, to even hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hope that their children will someday “make it.”

Secretly, perhaps only to themselves, they’ll admit, “Maybe I am trying to live vicariously through my children.” But that thought is swept aside as quickly as it arrives before mental resources are again devoted to helping their progeny succeed on the tennis court.

There’s travel, tournaments, finding the best coaches, gear, string, shoes, clothes, private lessons. After the costs mount and a small fortune has been sunk into children, questions begin to arise.

Questions like: “Why aren’t they training harder? I’ve given them everything they could have hoped for?” “Why aren’t they playing better in tournaments? We’ve made everything about their tennis, delivered everything to them on a golden platter?”

“And now when I say they should keep playing tennis… all of a sudden they want to quit?” “After everything we’ve done for them… I can’t believe they’re not grateful. What’s going on?”

How do we square the circle here; where we try to understand why children who’ve been provided a lot of opportunities during their developmental years, no longer want to continue competing, or decide to throw away their tennis all together, often leaving in their wake broken family dynamics and resentment?

I’ve spoken to my fair share of tennis players who’ve said things like: “I’ll never touch a tennis racket again because of my tennis experience.” I even know of a player who aspired to return to competitive adult tennis after a hiatus post junior tennis career, who, when competing in a tournament against a junior player, got so triggered by his opponent’s father’s erratic and shameless behavior on the side of the court, that he decided to hang up his tennis rackets once more.

Intense.

An outsider might think: “Thankless children… don’t you know what your parents did for you?”

But the picture is a lot more complicated than that.

To understand how, first we need to understand Richard Ryan and Edward Deci’s Self-Determination Theory.

Spawned in the psychology world, and adapted into sport, exercise, and performance psychology, Self-Determination Theory is an incredibly powerful and succinct way of understanding why individuals decide to engage in certain behaviors.

Because, that’s what motivation is; a descriptor of why people choose to engage in certain actions. A quick Google search gives us the definition: “[T]he reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.”

Deci and Ryan posited that human beings have 3 core psychological needs, which they derived from research in intrinsic motivation, developmental and clinical psychology, and organismic theory. Importantly, these are not the only psychological needs that human beings have. But they are thought of to be replicable across peoples and cultures. And they are:

There are quite a few more layers and nuances to cover, but I’ve laid out the basics for you. Deci and Ryan’s theory notes that when all three core psychological needs are met, these are the conditions for human flourishing and intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation, by the way, is, I would argue, the most important type of motivation.

Whenever these conditions are not met, the individual will suffer.

Can you see where I’m going here?

All of this leads us to where I see the most mistakes being made in the tennis world.

Let’s take it case-by-case and begin with autonomy. Tennis parents have a way of cajoling, convincing, and worse, when push comes to shove, guilting their children into doing things. Whether that’s spending more time on the practice court, playing in tournaments, or simply persisting with tennis even after the child feels that they no longer want to participate.

Taking away someone’s autonomy—their sense that they are the ones who are in control of their life—is a surefire way to breed resentment and distrust. This is especially the case as the child develops and starts to form a sense of their own identity. Sure, perhaps you can use pressure on a 17-year-old to get them to do something. Try to employ the same tactics on a 25-year-old and you are setting yourself up with a recipe for disaster. 30? Good luck.

The problem is that pressure from authority figures can create compliance instead of motivation and ownership. When a child or teenager or even adult feels like they are not the ones choosing to play tennis, or that it’s something they must do because of all the sacrifices that were made, that’s where frustration and animosity start to work their way into the picture.

You might say, “Well, it’s true. Parents and coaches did sacrifice a lot for the player so they should continue playing the way that we think we should.” Sure, this is not to neglect the many hardships parents endure while bringing their children up to any sort of playing level.

But have you considered putting yourself into the child’s shoes? How does a young tennis player take that motivation with them into a tennis match? A tournament? The countless hours one has to spend getting themselves ready to compete? If their perception is that, “I’m doing this mostly for someone else,” how are they going to put in their best effort? How will they stay committed and engaged when the going gets tough?

If you feel you cannot get any better, would you persist? The answer is usually no. And that’s why people leave certain areas and in our case tennis. Tennis players as they come into adulthood often feel as if they’ve reached their own individual peak—whether that understanding is legitimate or not, is a matter to discuss.

But this is where competence comes in. If someone perceives themselves as not competent to the level that they should be at based upon the time and effort that they’ve devoted to a skill, then they’re not going to have any motivation to continue on in that domain.

Tennis example: A tennis player at 22 feels that she’s “hit her ceiling,” and can no longer get any better. She has an ego-orientation, so she measures herself by the results of her peers and external benchmarks. She has no mastery goals or self-referenced goals and challenges she’s working toward. More than that, she feels she’s expended all of her mental and emotional resources, given all of it to a sport that has given her just what she deserves. And what she deserves isn’t good enough (for her).

In this scenario, this player is experiencing a lack of competence. Forcing her, applying pressure to keep playing, or insisting that she’s not seeing things in the correct light and that she should continue playing tennis is another recipe for friction and disagreement.

“My parents don’t get it.” “They’ve never played tennis.” “They think I’m going to be a top 200 player and I didn’t even finish my collegiate career with a national ranking.” “They’re delusional.”

Those are the kinds of thoughts that the player might experience.

On the other hand, if a player is in a coaching, training, and supportive environment where they feel that the sky is the limit and that they’re constantly improving and supported along on their journey to mastery, building competence is something they can lean into. Winning and losing take a back-row seat to building a high level of skill.

And finally we come to the last psychological need: relatedness. For this need, a person needs to feel connected to and accepted by a community or sporting culture. Take the example of the kid in junior tennis who everyone knows is a cheater.

Sadly, their cheating is probably because of parental pressures and the pressures they feel to put wins on the board as opposed to any internal character flaws. This 13-year-old is most likely trying to avoid an hour-long lecture on how much money is being spent on their tennis and how they need to start getting results. This is why they resort to hooking. Parents (and coaches) create the environments in which this kind of behavior thrives. I’m not saying it’s correct or right—only that it’s understandable that it would develop.

If this player, as he continues to grow, starts to feel a sense of shame or ostracization from the tennis community, then he’s not going to have motivation to persist. This is because he’s lacking intrinsic motivation. Sure, when the athlete is younger and more weight is given to the thoughts of his parents, he might persist. That’s because when we’re younger we tend to value the thoughts of parental figures more. As we age, the balance shifts towards friends and social contacts.

So as this player starts to come of age and realizes that he’s pretty much a leper in his community, his intrinsic drive to participate is really going to suffer. “Why would I want to be part of something where I’m rejected? Where people give me dirty looks? Or people know my reputation for cheating?'“

So the next time you see a cheater at your local tennis tournament, sure, have some contempt for them. But also consider showing them a little pity. No child willingly becomes the local “hook.”

The tragedy is that most sport parents don’t start out with poor intentions. No one willingly enters this arena with the thought that, “I’m going to destroy my relationship with my children.”

But motivation doesn’t respond to sacrifice, cajoling, and even guilt.

I entered sport psychology curious to know about performance anxiety, its causes, and how to remedy its effects in tennis players.

But as I’ve gotten deeper and gained more breadth with my education, I’ve come to realize that the why of things matters, too. Motivation, and why people choose or choose not to do certain things, is underneath it all.

And if you can understand and pull the right levers to build lasting motivation in tennis players and yourself, you’ll find that tennis becomes a place of mastery, of constant improvement, of resilience after losses, and constant enjoyment.

Disclaimer: I am not a licensed psychologist, mental health counselor, PsyD, or clinical PhD. I am currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology and am a sport psychology practitioner-in-training, working toward the Certified Mental Performance Consultant® (CMPC®) credential provided by the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). My work focuses on applied, non-clinical mental performance consulting, using evidence-based techniques grounded in psychology, sport science, and applied sport psychology to help athletes enhance focus, manage pressure, build confidence, and improve performance. I do not provide mental health counseling or clinical therapy. When needed, I will always refer clients to licensed mental health professionals for concerns beyond the scope of performance consulting. I have over 20 years of experience in tennis, including as a player, collegiate and professional coach, and director of programs. I am certified by the Professional Tennis Registry and am a member of Tennis Australia. My goal is to bring athletes the best research-backed insights to support long-term development and performance. If you are a researcher or practitioner and feel I’ve misunderstood or misrepresented any concept, I welcome you to reach out, and I will gladly review and issue corrections if appropriate.