How tennis players deal with nerves and intrusive thoughts when milestones are at stake

The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 French Open quarter-finals.

PARIS — On Monday during the French Open, fans on Court Philippe-Chatrier received an unexpected message from the clay below.

“I s… my pants,” said men’s quarterfinalist Flavio Cobolli, after the 24-year-old Italian’s fourth-round victory over American Zachary Svajda turned out to be more complicated than he, or the crowd, expected.

Cobolli was leading Svajda 6-2, 6-3, 6-7(3), 5-2 when his body began to betray him. Groundstrokes started flying long. His serve slowed. His feet no longer moved where he asked them to. Cobolli lost four games in a row before holding serve to stay in the fourth set and then cross the line in a tiebreak to enter the Roland Garros quarterfinals.

“When the match is almost over, you start to think,” Cobolli said at a news conference. “That’s the problem with my character, because I don’t like to think.”

Overthinking – and fear of underwear – isn’t the only way tennis players experience nerves. They describe wanting to vomit, shaking hands, tense upper body, shrugging shoulders. These reactions bleed into their tennis. Their reactions become too fast or too slow; their limbs become heavy and the racket weighs in their hands. Squirting forehands, service yips and stuttering footwork are the result.

The air is particularly thick with tension at this year’s French Open. After a tournament full of shocks and setbacks, the men’s and women’s draws are down to five top 10 seeds and one Grand Slam champion. The stakes always get higher the further a tournament progresses, but the openness of this year’s draw further complicates matters.

Lower-ranked players face unusual situations with less formidable enemies in their way, and that brings with it anticipation. A less ominous draw may seem easier, but when a golden opportunity presents itself, the voices in players’ heads grow louder. Such a situation can be even more difficult to deal with than facing an unyielding champion on the other side of the net.

“When I think, especially when I’m nervous, I’ll play different tennis,” Cobolli said.

The physiology of nerves, and how they affect tennis players and other athletes, starts in the brain: the organ that detects threats.

“We respond to threats the same way we did when we were about to be eaten by a saber-toothed cat thousands of years ago,” sports psychologist Sarah Murray said during a telephone interview.

The state of play at this year’s French Open is linked to a pressure dynamic that is fundamental to tennis. Being the underdog and the top dog is a part of any sport, but in tennis the status is not fixed. The scoring system and lack of a clock means players must consistently play from the back and forward, taking into account their overall expectations for a match.

The underdog plays with the psychological handbrake off. As a result, Murray, who has worked with Premier League and international footballers, said their brains are clearer and make better decisions in the moment, without ‘divination’ about what might happen or what might have happened.

The lowest-ranked player left, women’s world number 114 Maja Chwalińska, channels that mentality. “I’m an underdog, no one really knows me,” the 24-year-old Polish man said at a press conference after reaching the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam for the first time.

The top dogs, or favorites, are expected to succeed. This can often lead to what Murray calls “thinking traps”: phrases like “must,” “should,” and “must.” As a player plays a point, his brain may begin to say, “I could get a spot in the semifinals for the first time ever.” Such thoughts cloud the mind, reducing clarity in the moment and preventing them from playing each point on their own terms.

At this French Open, many underdogs have unexpectedly become top dogs. This can lead to a mismatch between expectations and the players’ skills to manage them.

Maja Chwalińska has embraced freedom as an underdog. (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

The brain influences the body’s response to nerves as much as the mind’s. Two systems work together. The sympathetic nervous system, colloquially known as fight-or-flight, releases hormones and activates the nerves rapidly and broadly; the parasympathetic nervous system, also called rest-and-digest, is slower and more goal-oriented.

The first increases irritability and willingness to exercise in response to the tennis equivalent of being attacked by a woolly mammoth. Cue “a whole series of events,” said Dr. Montana Jackson, specialist in sports, exercise and musculoskeletal medicine, in a ballot.

Glucose is released into the bloodstream to provide energy, and the blood vessels dilate and increase flow to the muscles. Adrenaline and noradrenaline, hormones that increase alertness and reaction speed, are also released, but there is a fine balance between willingness and unpreparedness.

A significant increase in muscle activity can lead to tension and tremors, and in a sport like tennis, which requires fine motor skills and precision, this can be difficult to control. Increased muscle activation also increases energy expenditure, which can lead to a feeling of heaviness.

Brain activity also increases during a stress response, causing movements that are normally automatic to occur less and perhaps even slower. Under physical stress, more intensive breathing can in turn cause the carbon dioxide in the blood to drop too low, which also causes fatigue and weakness.

The stress response can also cause discomfort in the stomach. Adrenaline accelerates peristalsis, the contractions and constrictions of the intestines, while draining blood from the digestive system, which can cause nausea.

Then there’s the gut-brain axis, which sends biochemical messages between the nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract. The mind begins to influence the body; the body begins to influence the mind. A vicious circle arises which, as Cobolli discovered, can have unpleasant consequences.

Early in his career, two-time Grand Slam doubles champion Harri Heliövaara lost his first ten Davis Cup matches. “I couldn’t handle the nerves,” he said during an interview at Roland Garros. “Recently I won almost all of them.”

But the jitters don’t go away. The world number 4 said he feels nerves mainly in his diaphragm, the main muscle for breathing. “That’s where it all starts,” he said. “It’s like a big bubble of air that just won’t come out of my system. I want to breathe it out, but it just won’t go away.”

The stop-start nature of tennis makes breathing regulation crucial for the players. Breaks not only bring a greater risk of intrusive thoughts, but also a greater opportunity to recalibrate after the hyper-arousal state of playing a point at full intensity, or experiencing the emotional highs or lows of winning a set or breaking serve.

Breathwork coach Hannah Nedas, who has worked with some of the best English Premier League players, encourages athletes to build a solid breathing practice outside of play so they can more easily utilize it in stressful situations.

“Thoughts will come,” she said, so the difference is made by how quickly athletes can remove them from their minds and, in Nedas’ words, be an “emotional ninja.” Such adaptability to a high-stress environment is crucial for success. “If they don’t know how to manage their mental state, there’s a piece missing,” she said.

That’s exactly what Heliövaara, the 36-year-old Finn who hired a breathwork coach last year, did. He has also used it to complement another approach to his thinking: micro-actions, sometimes of a somewhat strange kind.

After his first win at Wimbledon in 2024, with Britain’s Henry Patten, Heliövaara’s coach told him he looked like a ‘psychopath’ – because he was smiling so much.

“It tells my body that everything is OK,” he said. An intentional change in physiology, whether it be body language, facial expression or even relaxing a fist, can change an athlete’s emotional state.

Before a potentially career-defining match, Murray helps athletes identify the source of a story. “Usually it’s us,” she said. Such stories, which are often untrue, can be unhelpful.

“The game of tennis doesn’t change,” Murray said. “It’s the perception of the game.”

The first step is to recognize the story and then use a mantra or signal to release it. Some players consciously clench their fists when thoughts like, “If I lose this set, my chance is gone,” arise and then relax, a reminder not to cling to imagined outcomes.

As the players enter their tournament-defining matchups at this French Open, they will all look to follow Cobolli’s mantra for the rest – which he uttered moments after calming his nerves just in time.

“It’s my first time and the experience is not high. Sometimes you have to let this moment pass to have a better chance to improve next time.”