Good Rallies, No Matches

Started off last week with some rallying with Aaron. He was about 1.5 hours late so I really got to work on my serve and I think I just still need to learn how to hit through my kick serve. My 2nd serve is still a liability.

Aaron really wanted to focus on control drills so we tried hitting crosscourt to crosscourt for a while. I realized that the degree of control I have is very fuzzy. Down the line and sharp angles cross court I'm fine with, but I'd say 50% of my inside out forehands landed center and for rallying purpose, hitting slightly left, or slightly right is a bit of a problem.

I tend to use alot of topspin to control my ball. I give my cross court forehands tons of spins to give it a massive topspin to have it land shallow and wide and my running forehand down the line has a mix of topspin and sidespin to reel the ball in. All in all a good session.

This weekend I got to hit with a good friend of mine. He's a rusty 4.5 - 5.0. A really knowledgeable guy when it comes to tennis. I finally got a taste of what I dish out to most people, bc Puerta hits with alot of topspin like I do. I was a tad off, netting more balls than I'd like, but considering the last time I hit with him 2 years ago, i was 1/20 on forehands, I'll take it.

We had a nice slugfest on the baseline, but Puerta's a very deliberate tennis player. He not only moved the ball left and right, but had a very good eye on the angles and depth. Definitely going to step up my game and do this again. I need to stop being so sluggish with the footwork. I seriously need to anticipate the ball bc I was getting my timing messed up when Puerta switched up the topspin and slice. My backhand was so-so, but it still needs lots of work. I can't have it be a liability.