Back with a Vengeance

Its been 3 weeks since I've been able to play... why you ask? Because of this... I wreck my leg being very stupid. Being even stupider I refused treatment for a whole week while it didn't heal which lead to a massive infection and so and and so forth.

In any case I've spent the entire time analyzing everyone of my tennis vids and I have a massive hitlist of things I will be working on because as of next week I'm hitting the court with a vengeance...

Footwork
- Split step on time, not late or its useless
- Stay on balls of feet
- Reaction time, quick first step
- get back to middle using cross step, don't get caught flat footed

Serve
- Kick, Kick, Kick Consistency
- Placement and control

Forehand
- More shoulder turn
- Must bend more at the knees and step in, don't open stance every shot
- Hit in front of me, I'm 90% hitting long when I hit late
- Early preparation

Backhand
- Dip the racquet head down, more brush. I'll deal with the net balls for now, I want good form to build off of.
- Get away from hitting too many slices.

Volley
- If stuck in mid court, goto the net, don't back pedal to the baseline
- Finish the point
- Improve coverage area and minimize passing shots

Mental
- Stop hitting to center, default location of all my shots will be the opponents backhand
- Focus on predicting my opponents shot and get there early
- Don't get Angry
- Control the point, don't just react
- Be methodical, every one has weaknesses, I need to be able to exploit them

Basically by summers end I want:
- to be a solid 4.0
- 50% 1st serve, 80% 2nd (non dink) serve
- 90% forehand consistency on easy and med shots
- 80% backhand consistency on easy and med shots
- footwork reflect my quick feet and speed
- to play against andrew and steal 3-4 points off him in a set

6/8/2008 Vs Ball Machine

Rented the ball machine again and making more progress now. I've been having a few issues with my footwork, forehand inconsistency and now backhand inconsistency. My serve believe it or not has gotten better. I'm about 40% on 1st serves and 70% with a 2nd Kick serve. With the ball machine I tried to stay on top of staying on my feet and split stepping but after a while that just faded. My take back problems stemmed from me taking the racquet back with both hands which would essentially FORCE me to turn my shoulder. The draw back was that my timing was off a bit and I was hitting too close to my body instead of in front of me, resulting in balls going long.

Dipping my racquet head down on my backhand has also been an issue. I'm just more powerful and consistent with the compact motion. I'm going to really work on changing this.

Quick update

Been dealing with some sore tendons in my meta tarsals, but I played today against a very capable 5.0 and although the score showed i got wiped, I was actually pretty proud I was able to hang in with some nice rallies against him. I'm not used to hitting against someone who gives me some pace, so it was really nice to be able to open up and throttle my racquet. I popped my strings, but it was due anyways. I guess if i can work on the mental aspects of my game, maybe, just maybe i got a shot at being decent after all.