Friday, June 12, 2009

Hitting at UM

Not able to hit during the week, I manage to find time in between work and class to work on my serve for about an hour. I've been making unbelievable progress. My 2nd serve is really coming along. I still play it safe and spin them in, but I've been using my kick serve as a 1st serve as well by tossing more in front. I need to be more consistant on my ball toss though, b/c if I'm off a little the ball noticeably doesn't kick up as much. Ironically my serve on the Ad side of the court (particularly the 1st) is way more consistant. I think its the more closed stance I use on the Ad side. I might  go back to serving close stance on both sides to disguise my serve a little better but I find myself consistantly hitting up the middle too much and not being able to go out wide (unless I slice). Whatever, I'll take it, my service as been such a crutch with my game, I'm happy its finally working.

Funny thing, I saw someone waiting for their partner so I asked him to hit for a bit. I saw him warming up these silly looking chop shots so after I fed a shot to him, I was almost knocked out of my shoes by an extremely hard, extremely flat ballistic tennis ball. I think he's the flattest and one of the hardest hitting guy's I've played with. It was awesome, I was feeding off his pace and just ripping some really heavy forehands back and forth. Of course, my backhand was a bit lacking in umph but it held on. I wish I would of gotten his name, bc it's the first time I got to play with someone where I could comfortably stand way back on the baseline and just crush the ball. 

Hoping to find someone to hit some pick up tennis this sunday at 7 am... otherwise its just more serve practice.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Kick Serve! and rallying with John

While waiting for John to show up I finally had a break through with my kick serve. My issues were that I was trying to impart the spin with the pronation of my wrist at contact. I went out yesterday and just tried to hit up and over the ball and viola! I nailed 11 out of 12! I'm hoping to build off this... if I can develop a reliable 2nd serve, I can finally just open up on my 1st serve.

Despite not playing for a while me and John had one of our best hitting sessions today. Rallies were easily 7 balls and more and we had a lot of fun just chasing shots all over the court. Suprisingly enough was the appearance of a Net game for me. I wasn't flubbing up vollies but at times me and John had several net to net exchanges. I felt really good on the court today. I was really seeing the ball well and I've come to realize which forehands to hit in which situations. My backhand was also consistant. I flubbed up only when trying to rip one. My 2 hander on the run really lacks any depth though but I can hit my slice deep now to give myself time to recover. I hope this keeps up!