Beating the Tennis Demons with Dr. Michelle Cleere

Summary

Dr. Michelle Cleere — Bay Area-based sports psychologist with a Master’s degree and PhD in clinical psychology, 15 years of applied sports psychology work — joins Lisa Stone to present her “Beating the Tennis Demons” framework for junior players and their families. Cleere argues that mental skills are fully teachable (like physical skills), that most emotional breakdowns on court happen because players have no alternative tool, and that the most effective parent intervention is not instruction but modeling. She introduces her Control Tree framework for in-match decision-making, explains pre-match inoculation techniques, discusses the cheating problem as a controllability issue rather than a moral confrontation, and describes the critical post-match timing principle: let the dust settle before any debrief. The episode is a practical mental skills curriculum for junior players delivered in direct, accessible language.

Guest Background

Dr. Michelle Cleere holds a Master’s degree and PhD in clinical psychology and has spent 15 years working in applied sports psychology, with a particular specialty in junior and college tennis players in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the author of the “Beating the Tennis Demons” system, which she describes as a structured curriculum for developing the mental skills that junior players need to compete at higher levels. Unlike general clinical psychology practitioners, Cleere works specifically in athletic performance contexts, and her framework integrates competitive sport mechanics (cheating, officiating, match momentum) with cognitive-behavioral tools. She has worked with juniors at all developmental levels.

Key Findings

1. Mental Skills Are Teachable — The Same Way Physical Skills Are Teachable

Cleere’s foundational premise: “Mental skills are teachable skills. Just like you can teach someone to hit a forehand, you can teach the mental skills.” Most junior players and their families treat the mental side of tennis as fixed personality — either you have composure or you don’t. Cleere’s clinical experience reverses this: every mental skill she works on (focus, confidence under pressure, adversity response, pre-match routine) can be learned, practiced, and improved through deliberate training. The implication for parents and coaches is that emotional breakdowns on court are not evidence of character flaws — they are evidence of untrained skills, and the correct response is training, not punishment or shame.

2. The Control Tree — In-Match Decision Framework for Junior Players

Cleere’s central framework is the Control Tree: a two-question decision tree for any disruptive moment in a match. Question one: “Do you have control over this?” If the answer is no — a bad call, weather, opponent behavior, a lucky shot — the instruction is explicit: let it go. If the answer is yes — your own footwork on the last point, your service toss pattern, your between-point routine — the instruction moves to question two: “How are you going to act?” The tree creates a binary sorting mechanism that prevents the cognitive spiral of ruminating on uncontrollables. For junior players who cry or throw rackets, Cleere diagnoses this not as emotional immaturity but as the absence of this framework: “When kids don’t have any other tools, this is what comes out.” Give them the tool and the behavior changes.

3. Pre-Match Inoculation — Name the Uncontrollables Before They Arrive

Cleere’s pre-match routine includes an explicit exercise: identify and name the most likely uncontrollable disruptions before the match begins. If a player knows their opponent has a reputation for bad calls, discussing this before the match — and deciding in advance that bad calls will be filed under “no control, let it go” — means the disruption arrives pre-processed rather than as an emergency. Cleere frames this as inoculation: expose the player to the stressor in a low-stakes context before it arrives at full intensity. “If you’ve already talked about it, then it doesn’t have the same grip on you when it happens in the match.” The parent’s role in pre-match inoculation is to facilitate the naming exercise, not to prevent the disruption from occurring.

4. The Cheating Problem — Uncontrollable, Not Personal

Cheering is the subject on which Cleere’s framework is most counter-intuitive for parents. Her position: cheating by an opponent is an uncontrollable — and the parent or player who treats it as a personal attack is applying the wrong Control Tree branch. A player who responds to a bad call with visible anger is consuming mental and emotional resources that belong to the next point. Cleere’s reframe: “It’s not personal — most players who cheat are doing it out of their own fear and anxiety, not because of anything the other player did.” She teaches players to invoke the Control Tree at the moment of the call: “No control → let it go,” and refocus immediately. This is not about accepting injustice; it is about protecting competitive performance from the damage that moral outrage inflicts on concentration.

5. Simulation Training — Practice Must Include Mental Stress

Cleere identifies a critical gap in most junior training: physical drills simulate the movement demands of competition but not the mental demands. She advocates for simulation training — practice scenarios designed to replicate the cognitive and emotional pressure of actual matches. Examples: playing practice sets where something is at stake (bragging rights, sprints, extra court time), practicing the between-point routine under time pressure, introducing distractions during practice that mirror match day disruptions. “You practice your forehand a thousand times so it’s automatic under pressure — your mental skills need the same repetition.” Players who have never practiced regulating emotions in training will not be able to do it for the first time in a tournament final.

6. Post-Match Timing — Let the Dust Settle Before Any Debrief

Cleere’s most actionable guidance for parents: the post-match window is the highest-risk environment for destructive intervention. Her protocol is explicit: after a match ends (win or loss), no tennis conversation for at minimum 15-30 minutes, and in some cases much longer. The two questions she endorses for when debrief eventually begins — mirroring Wayne Bryan’s approach that Lisa Stone references — are: “What did you do well?” and “What would you do differently?” Both questions are retrospective and forward-facing; neither is blame-assigning. Cleere’s clinical rationale: the emotional nervous system takes time to return to baseline after competition, and attempting a debrief during the emotional activation window produces defensiveness, not reflection. “Let the dust settle. Then talk.”

7. Parent Body Language as the Invisible Transmission Channel

Cleere addresses parental influence on junior mental performance through a mechanism most parents don’t consider: body language at courtside. Parents who watch with visible anxiety — clutching hands, wincing at errors, leaning forward during close points — transmit their emotional state to the player even when they say nothing. Cleere’s observation: “Kids are watching their parents more than their parents think they are.” A player who looks at the parent box and sees a calm, supportive face during a tough stretch receives a different cortisol signal than one who sees visible parental distress. Cleere recommends parents actively practice their own composure as a performance variable — not for their own sake, but because their nervous system regulation is directly influencing their child’s.

Actionable Advice for Families

• Introduce the Control Tree framework before tournament season begins — practice applying it to everyday competitive situations (sibling arguments, school conflicts, sports failures) so the two-question habit is automatic before it’s needed on a tennis court
• Prepare a pre-match inoculation list specific to each upcoming opponent or tournament condition: name the most likely disruptions, apply the Control Tree to each, and agree on the response before leaving for the court
• Practice the post-match debrief script: “What did you do well?” followed by “What would you do differently?” — make this the only two-question format for any match debrief, win or loss, and enforce the 15-30 minute cooling period before any conversation begins
• Audit your own courtside body language as a parent — record yourself watching a match if necessary, and identify moments where visible anxiety or frustration may be transmitting unhelpful signals to your player

INTENNSE Relevance

• Mental skills curriculum for players: Cleere’s framework that mental skills are teachable (not fixed) is directly applicable to INTENNSE player development programming — the league’s coaching staff should integrate a structured mental skills curriculum into the pre-season and in-season player development calendar, not treat composure as a scouting criterion (you either have it or you don’t)
• Control Tree as in-match coaching tool: INTENNSE’s mic’d-coach format creates an unprecedented opportunity to deliver Control Tree interventions in real time — coaches can verbally guide players through the “do you have control? → act accordingly” framework during the substitution windows and between-bolt transitions that the format already builds in
• Simulation training in practice: INTENNSE team practices should systematically include high-stakes simulation scenarios — points played with bolt arc stakes, team scoring implications, crowd simulation — so that players have regulated these emotional states before they arrive in a live broadcast environment
• Adversity response as competitive advantage: In INTENNSE’s rally-scoring format where every point matters and losing a bolt arc changes team standing, the ability to reset immediately after a lost point is more valuable than in traditional scoring systems; players who have trained adversity response through Cleere’s framework will perform better in the format’s compressed-stakes environment
• Parent education programming: Cleere’s body language finding — that parent composure is a performance variable — is an argument for INTENNSE to offer family education programming at live events; parents in stands who understand their nervous system’s effect on their player (even at the professional level) will create a better in-arena environment for performance
• Coaching accountability for mental skills: The league’s coaching evaluation framework should include assessment of how coaches teach mental skills, not just tactical skills — a coach who can implement Cleere’s simulation training and Control Tree teaching will develop more resilient players than one who prepares only physical and tactical readiness

Notable Quotes

“Mental skills are teachable skills. Just like you can teach someone to hit a forehand, you can teach the mental skills.”

“When kids don’t have any other tools, this is what comes out — the crying, the racket throwing. Give them the tool and the behavior changes.”

“Do you have control over this? No? Then let it go. Yes? Then how are you going to act?”

“It’s not personal — most players who cheat are doing it out of their own fear and anxiety, not because of anything the other player did.”

“Let the dust settle. Then talk.”

“Kids are watching their parents more than their parents think they are.”

“You practice your forehand a thousand times so it’s automatic under pressure — your mental skills need the same repetition.”