Psychological skills of Brazilian table tennis players

The objective of this study was to characterize and investigate possible differences in the use of psychological skills by Brazilian table tennis players of different genders and performance levels. The sample consisted of 199 athletes participating in the Brazilian Table Tennis Championship aged between 15 and 49 years who were divided by performance level gender years of practice age ranking and use of psychological preparation. The main results highlight the greater use of automatism and emotional control in both training and competition situations by athletes with higher performance levels and longer practice time as well as the greater use of internal dialogue by female athletes. As this is one of the first studies of its kind with Brazilian table tennis players and given the importance of the psychological dimension in performance the evidence obtained seems to suggest that psychological skills should be systematically trained and evaluated in table tennis players to improve their sporting performance.