One year was all it took for Armando Espinosa to find the root of all evil for the Cyclone tennis team.

It was not the level of talent on the roster that caught the ire of the first year assistant coach. Also spared was the team’s playing facilities and coaching staff.

Rather, Espinosa placed the blame on one unforeseen, yet extremely important, aspect of tennis.

“The biggest weakness of this current team is that we are not mentally tough,” Espinosa said. “Whenever we found ourselves in a close match, we did not have the familiarity needed of knowing how to finish it off.”

To most, this may seem an implausible answer. Yet, in individual sports, a player’s mental toughness is as crucial to his or her performance as equipment.

The greatest evidence of this idea is the Stanford University women’s tennis team. Since the program’s beginnings, the university mentally trained all the members so they would be ready for any situation that may arise. One of the most important lessons taught was how to concentrate and control the wide range of emotions experienced throughout a match.

Using these methods, the Cardinal has reaped many benefits and evolved into one of the most storied collegiate programs in history. Their illustrious history can best be described by two unfathomable statistics.

In 1987, the Cardinal lost the very first Pac-10 title to Cal-Berkeley. Stanford has won the conference title every one of the 21 years since. Their success stretches to the national level as well. Since its creation in 1982, Stanford has claimed the NCAA women’s tennis national championships in 16 of the possible 26 years.

ISU sports psychologist Marty Martinez a proponent of Stanford’s method of training, since maintaining emotions is important in individual sports such as tennis. The 25-year veteran in the field says the importance a person’s mental attitude serves in tennis can best be depicted by the famous Yogi Berra quote, “Baseball is 90 percent mental; the other half is physical.”

“I feel that that, in a strange way, that makes a lot of sense. Your conditioning is 50 percent, and mental is another 50 perecent,” Martinez said. “Yet, once you compete, your mental ability is really at 90 percent. Your mind is functioning extra to allow your body and your technique to work at the right time in the right way.”

This past season, the Iowa State tennis team dealt with its fair share of distractions, including their head coach leaving to take care of her sick father and a road stretch than spanned six meets. Both paled in comparison to the Cyclones’ struggles in conference play.

Entering the season, the tennis team wanted nothing more than to finally get the conference victory that had eluded them since Feb. 2, 2002. After seeing their season end at the Big 12 conference championships, the Cyclones’ losing streak remained intact at 81 consecutive meets.

Senior Chrissy Derouin admits the stretch of losing constantly remained in her mind as the year progressed. As the season wound down, Derouin began to her to doubt her talents.

“This was my last year, so I wanted it more than ever. I stepped into every match, regardless of our record, wanting to win. Each time we lost, it hurt more than the previous time,” Derouin said. “I was used to winning and being successful in juniors and in high school, and that always brought me confidence. Once we started losing, though, it was tougher for me to believe in myself.”

Martinez said that it is not uncommon for players who face adversity for the first time to experience the same emotions as Derouin. The key to getting through such situations is making sure emotions do not have a direct effect on play.

“There is no problem in trying to win. Problems occur when distractions outside of their control – such as not getting a call – wind up affecting their anger and they get frustrated,” Martinez said. “They need to make sure that take a breath of fresh air, let the things out of their control bounce right off them and focus on the task at hand.”

To help players regain their focus, Martinez instructs them to adopt the approach of “next.” The athlete forgets what has just happened to her and instead tells herself something as small as “I am going to get this next serve” or as big as “I am going to get this next game.”

Martinez says that the best athletes in every sport are those who are mentally strong.

“John McEnroe was one of the very best, and mentally he would just explode. He could overcome his emotions and still compete because he was just that good. No one else is close to being that talented,” Martinez said. “If you look at the mentally tough kids in high school, many of them may not be the best athletes on their team. Eventually, as they get more coaching and continue playing, they turn out to be the better players in college.”