Monday, April 27, 2009

Tim v Puerta

Had a decent hitting session with Puerta again. My backhand is getting its power back as I was able to rip a few nice winners from that wing. I still need work on my timing but that will come with practice. My footwork was attrocious though. I was really sluggish on the court and just not feeling it. Maybe it has something to do with playing at 7 am in the morning, i dunno... I will say we were much more consistant than last time and I was able to gradually warm up, instead of going balls to the wall on the 1st hit like usual.

We even played a set. I lost of course... 6-2 (both points off breaks). My serve wasn't bad, just inconsistant (didn't do any serve warm ups). I even managed to rip a couple aces, and after adjusting my grip to an eastern backhand, my kicks were falling in a bit. I'm still slicing on the Ad side though... I'm finding I'm doing better dealing with the return of serve, but i'm still succeptible on down the line.

I think if I warm up my serve I would hold a few times and our games might get more competitive.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Drakulie, Panterka and Puerta... Oh My

Finally got a chance to play some real tennis after the big move. Hit with Drakulie and Panterka from the TWSFC. Both of them are insane, and while being all round great people, are really good players (Panterka being a former #15 in Poland). I'm surprised they put up with me as long as they did.

Them rallying after having their rhythm interrupted by me


Drak's 1HD Backhand (this is how its done)


Panterka would bagel me in flip flops


The bright spot of the day (other than meeting them) was Drak actually said I have a very heavy forehand in terms of topspin and pace. Coming from a guy who can blast 120 mph serves and is swinging a kps88, I'll take that as a real compliment. I always knew I hit with an excessive amount of spin, I never though it had enough pace to garner praise from anyone 3.5 and higher. On a whole though, my movement wasn't so great bc I'm terrified of messing up my knee again on clay. My backhand wing was deplorable... and I was actually hitting long on my FH. I got lots to work on, but its nice to know, I have a decent weapon on my FH.



Also got to play with Puerta and we're making it a weekly thing. The rallies were good once we got warmed up. We were kind of all over the place at 1st since the balsl were a mix of clay balls and hardcourt balls. I also realized I forgot to pack my tripod so I had to afroengineer a stand using my tennis bag and the water sweeper. Needless to say it wasn't stable. I felt good about our hitting session though. My feet were a bit lazy but my backhand, though horrible, wasn't as bad as its been in the last month. Its getting there. My set up was correct, good follow through, just need to get the timing issue down.

Monday, April 13, 2009

I Hate the Sun



I got to play a little bit of tennis this weekend. Actually played some matches with my friend Dave. It was about 2 pm in the afternoon and the heat was blistering. Dave hasn't picked up a racquet in quite some time but he has some excellent reflexes and motor skills and was able to block back about everything I gave him. We played a quick 10 pt tie breaker which I took 10 - 8 (after blowing a 6-1 lead). He insisted on some match play and thats about where I unraveled. I've been pretty bad with practicing my serve and coupled with serving with the sun in my eye. I was about 5% on my 1st serve. Just like my issues with Luis, when my opponent doesn't give me some pace to work with, I either overhit or hit into the net. And of course that led to frustration, swearing and just a loss both physically and mentally.

The left shoulder feels fine though, and I'm going to be bringing it back into the mix. This week I'm working on my serve, and next time we play, I'll practice some drop balls to calibrate myself on hitting balls with little or no pace.