Coping strategies and psychological well-being in adolescent competition tennis

Abstract

The study aimed to examine the types of coping strategies preferred by adolescent competition tennis players and specific attention was paid to understanding these strategies’ perceived effectiveness and the coping strategy’s subsequent effects on well-being. The sample for the study was made up of 27 adolescent tennis players with a mean age of 15 years who participate at a high competitive level. The Approach to Coping in Sport Questionnaire (ACSQ-1) was used to measure the coping strategy used by the players and their psychological well-being was assessed by the Psychological Well-Being Scale. The results indicated that the emotional calming strategy was the tennis players’ preferred coping strategy in general. At the same time, emotional calming and active planning were the strategies the players’ considered to be the most effective in terms of improving performance. An additional finding was that players with lower levels of self-acceptance relied more heavily on the emotional calming strategy and those with higher levels of self-acceptance used mental distancing more frequently. Players who perceived greater environmental control relied more heavily upon mental distancing as their preferred coping strategy. These findings indicate that individual differences were present in terms of preferred coping strategies and that the strategies produced differentiated effects on well-being for young competition tennis players.