Abstract: Mental skill training, represented by cognitive interventions, is widely used in athletic skill training. Among them, representation training and self-talk are effective in improving athletes’ performance, and it is supported by many research findings. However, whether they are equally useful for athletes of different levels is still in question. The current study aims to test the effects of cognitive intervention in improving tennis serve accuracy. Male players from both the national youth volleyball team(n=24) and a college volleyball team participated in the test. 3×2 between group design was used. The experimental group received 6 sessions of representation training of serve or self-talk training of serve in 2 weeks while the control group watched physical training videos at the same time. Accuracy of first serve was adopted as the independent variant and height the covariate. Results show that: for elite players, both representation training and self-talk can improve their accuracy of first serve and representation training is more effective; for college players, only self-talk is effective and representation training presents no significant effect. The effect of self-talk on improving accuracy of first serve is more significant for college players than for elite players. The study supports that cognitive intervention is effective and proposes that the matching of mental skill training method and competitive level is an important precondition to ensure the effect of mental training program.

Key words: Representation Training, Self-talk, Cognitive Intervention, Tennis, Serve