Emotional Intelligence
For Competitive Tennis Players
Helping players, parents, and coaches navigate the emotional journey of competitive tennis.
Built for players.
Helpful for parents.
Practical for coaches.
BUILT FORTHE ENTIRETENNIS ECOSYSTEM
FOR PLAYERS
Learn how to compete with greater awareness, composure, confidence, and emotional control.
FOR PARENTS
Better understand the journey your child is living and learn how to support it with wisdom, steadiness, and perspective.
FOR COACHES
Gain practical language and tools to help develop the whole player, not just the strokes and results.
What Is
First Ball
To Last?
Tennis is emotional by design.
Pressure, frustration, fear, doubt, adversity — players live through these daily.
Emotional skills can be trained.
Perspective, resilience, composure, awareness, and recovery are skills players can build.
FBTL helps players build them.
Through practical tools, routines, reflection, and emotional training.
What Members Gain
Emotional Awareness
Recognize what you are feeling before it takes over your performance.
Better Self-Talk
Build an inner voice that can hold up under pressure.
Competition Readiness
Use routines that prepare you emotionally before match-day stress arrives.
Perspective
Develop a healthier relationship with winning, losing, growth, and the long tennis journey.
Resilience
Respond better to mistakes, slumps, setbacks, and emotional swings.
Shared Language
Give players, parents, and coaches a common framework for navigating the journey together.
What Experts Are Saying
Voices from the tour, the booth, and the college game — the same message: this work was overdue.
“A Home Run. I so wish I had a Program like this when I was coming up.”
Tennys Sandgren
American former touring professional
“So overdue and so needed for today’s playing environment.”
Kelly Jones
Former ATP World #1 and elite coach
“Phenomenal. This program will change lives.”
Patrick McEnroe
ESPN broadcaster and former touring professional
“So very well presented — concise, powerful, to the point.”
Dick Gould
Former Stanford coach
What's Inside
First Ball To Last is designed to be practical, relevant, and easy to apply. Every part of the program is built around the real emotional demands of competitive tennis.
Teaching Academy
The classroom of FBTL. Learn the emotional skills, concepts, and character traits that shape the tennis journey.
Daily Routines
The emotional gym. Simple habits that help players check in, reset, prepare, recover, and build steadiness over time.
Emotion Racket
A tennis-specific tool for identifying emotional states and making better adjustments before they hijack performance.
Pep Talks
Short scripts and practical responses for the moments when nerves rise, confidence wobbles, frustration builds, or pressure gets loud.
Player's Box
Guidance for parents and coaches who want to support the player without accidentally adding more weight to the journey.
Character
The deeper foundation: honesty, composure, accountability, courage, perspective, and the traits that make belief more durable.
The Story Behind FBTL
Barry Buss has spent a lifetime in tennis—as a player, coach, teacher, observer, and storyteller of the game. First Ball To Last grows out of that lived experience and out of a deep belief that the emotional side of tennis deserves far more attention than it has traditionally received.
FBTL is not generic mindset content repackaged for athletes. It is a tennis-specific emotional intelligence program built by someone who understands the journey, the environment, the people in it, and the pressures players and families face along the way.
Join First Ball To Last
Build the emotional skills behind better tennis.
For players. For parents. For coaches.
Start Your Membership
First week free. We just need your info. No credit card.
Monthly
$10 / month
First week free · then $10/month
- First week free
- No credit card to start
- We capture your info and you can begin
- Full access for seven honest days
- After the week, membership continues at $10/month
Full Year
$100 / year
full year of EQ training for the cost of a private lesson
- Full year membership — $100
- Signed copy of First Ball To Last
- Teaching Academy, Daily Routines, Emotion Racket
- Pep Talks, Player’s Box, Character
- Profile dashboard and monthly features