BURNOUT IN COMPETITIVE JUNIOR TENNIS PLAYERS .3. INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES IN THE BURNOUT EXPERIENCE

This is the third in a series of manuscripts reporting results from a research project designed to examine burnout in competitive junior ten nis players. Individual differences in burnout are examined by discuss ing idiographic profiles from three athletes who were identified as ha ving burned out in the earlier phases of the project. These cases were chosen as they represented different substrains of social psychologic ally driven and physically driven burnout. In particular, the three ca ses included: (a) a player characterized by high levels of perfectioni sm and overtraining; (b) a player who experienced pressure from others and a need for a social life; and (c) a player who was physically ove rtrained and had inappropriate goals. It was concluded that although i mportant patterns result from content analyses across participants, th e unique experience of each individual must be recognized.