Tournament Analysis: 2/20/16
Well — certainly not the prettiest of victories, but a victory nonetheless. Let’s dive in.
Strategy
I had a feeling it would be an interesting match going in — I was right. Played against a 50-something leftie whose life mission was to lob every single ball 50' in the air within 2 feet of the baseline.
This was challenging for a few different reasons.
- My Ego. Every time he lobbed back a rally shot, I visibly cringed. I HATED playing tennis like this. I was antsy, and if I’m being honest with myself, I felt embarrassed that I was playing someone like this — and struggling. When I finally let go (of my ego and stupid mistakes that came along with it) and just started focusing on strategy, things went way, way better.
- My Patience. I dislike playing a game where every incoming shot is full-up defense — it made me want to put pressure on immediately, and recklessly. When I let go of my #1 challenge (see above) and accepted that, “Hey, my volleys aren’t working — but my groundstrokes are” and ran him corner to corner until he was exhausted and I forced a mistake or a short lob — I started winning more points. In fact, I went so far as to bounce around between points so he KNEW I wouldn’t wear down — and he KNEW he was. Mental victory: Karl.
Overall I’m pleased I was able to make the shift — it wasn’t pretty, and I’m a surprised how long it took me so long to let go of my ego, but I did it.
Serves
A big trouble-spot for me, as I’m still working to feel out my newly formed second serve. I double faulted more times than I care to remember, however when I shifted gears to just focusing on making less mistakes on my 2nd serve (than trying more 1st serves when ahead in the game), things started coming around.
Biggest takeaway: keep my eye on the ball as LONG AS POSSIBLE.
Groundstrokes
Overall fairly happy here — I should have been more aggressive hitting through the ball instead of using an excessive amount of spin ACROSS my body, but I got the job done. Remembered to exhale as I hit maybe 50% of the time.
Approach shots needed a bit more punch, and I could have used angles more effectively —specifically: mixing in short angles with deep ones.
Would have liked to attack his backhand even more than I did, but I did enough.
Balance wasn’t great today, but good enough. More practice here for sure.
Volleys
The MAIN thing you do against a lobber: come to the net. Unfortunately, my volleys refused to work. I gently placed instead of punched far too many volleys, and didn’t stay with them through the hit. Probably an outgrowth of being antsy the entire match.
Solution: keep cool, mix in coming to the net when possible, and keep that forward motion with the ball out in front.
Return of Serve
Probably the WEIRDEST of all things: his serve spun in not only the wrong way, but REALLY weird the wrong way. I struggled like crazy to get a feel for returns.
Granted: I think this also shows how much I rely on instinct vs watching the ball the whole way.
While my normal returns weren’t working, I also knew he wouldn’t attack if I made a simple chop return (deep or not), and my main focus here became: get the ball in play. Not pretty, but it worked for now. Need to practice vs more lefties.
Score: 6–4, 3–6, 6–1.
