Tara Jones joined JDS Foods in the Premier Pickleball Masters competition in November, almost exactly a month after she won bronze at the English Nationals in the senior women’s doubles with Julie Mac.
That sounds a busy enough time for anyone – but Dr Jones is also releasing a new book with her husband Professor Graham Jones, aimed at anyone who wants to improve their mental capacity when it comes to pickleball.
‘Gold Medal Pickleball Psychology – Master Your Mind: Raise Your Pickleball Game’ is out this month, and has endorsements from the likes of Louis Laville and Thaddea Lock.
Tara began playing pickleball thanks to her old university friend and former tennis team-mate Claire Bourgoin – now her regular women’s doubles partner, and the woman she is replacing in the JDS team due to injury.
She had played tennis at a very high level in her younger years, but stopped due to a shoulder injury.
“Claire kept going on about pickleball,” recalls Tara. “And eventually, about 18 months later, a club opened up fairly close to where we live in Stratford-upon-Avon, so I dragged Graham down as well because he was a high-level sportsman in his youth – not racket sports, but I just thought he might enjoy it as well.
“We both took to it and really enjoyed it. Learning a new sport, for me, it just felt quite natural because of the tennis and obviously there are a lot of differences
“Then once we started playing, because we both come from a competitive sport background, we thought we need to start entering tournaments, and like a lot of people, just got absolutely hooked.”
Both Tara and Graham are sports psychologists, with incredible careers. Tara was the first full-time sport psychologist appointed by a British nation (Sport Wales), Graham was an academic at Loughborough University, and both have worked with Olympians, World and Commonwealth Champions and elite performers across a wide range of sports.
And their knowledge sparked plenty of conversations with other players.
“Because we had people coming to us, and some of the more elite players coming, when they found out what we did, I started thinking about, ‘What about the research? What about the work we’ve done with Olympic champions, world champions and so on that applies to pickleball?'” says Graham.
He started drafting an article – and that gradually developed into a book with Tara as co-author.
“It combines both our passions, the pickleball and the psychology,” she says. “In pickleball, the games can be so short, things change so quickly. You could almost walk on the court and believe so much that you’re going to win, or conversely the opposite, and you’ve won or lost a match almost before you’ve even started.
“Or similarly, you get into a real pressure situation at 10-all, second server, and it’s your opponent serving, and all the pressure that’s entailed at that point. So there’s so many different examples that we thought actually pickleball psychology is a little bit different to other sports.”
“My sport was basically big team sport, rugby, and there was a lot of people involved in it, so racket sport was pretty foreign to me,” says Graham, “and I was playing in [pickleball] tournaments and watching people play and seeing how irate and angry they were getting. ‘Hang on, you’re supposed to be here to enjoy it. It’s a game!’ So I think that stimulated it as well.”
Obviously, being married to Tara, who has a long and impressive resume in racket sports, that begs the question – has she ever lost her temper on court?
“When I played tennis, I largely I was very calm, but now and again I did lose it a bit!” she admits. “I think that’s probably one of the reasons why I actually got into psychology because when I was in tennis, there were loads of kids in England, certainly far more than now, who were really good at tennis, but they weren’t breaking onto the international scene. So it was before Tim Henman, for example.
“And I kept thinking, ‘What is it? Because they seem to have all the skills and the technical ability,’ and then thought, Actually, it’s obviously psychological,’ and also I obviously wasn’t the best psychologically, so that got me interested in it.
“Certainly now I’ve started pickleball, I absolutely apply it to myself. So people do say to me, ‘You seem really calm on court. Even if you’re down a few points, you seem to really handle it really well, both in singles and doubles.’
“People sometimes think that being mentally tough, it’s you either have it or you don’t. Graham’s earlier research found that, yes, some people do just have it in but you can develop it. You really can learn how to create the right mindset and be mentally tough in all those situations – and certainly I’m finding that by applying it to myself.”
That’s why the book is targeted at the general pickleball population – not just the very best.
“People do still experience those things, like nerves, or pressure, whether they’re competing in tournaments or just playing in social settings,” concludes Tara.
