I was hitting against the wall today and one of the kids who plays junior open 18 level (and apparently some mens open tournaments) at our little club asked to hit with me. I thought I'd share:
We rallied for a bit. He can hit huge topspin off his lefty forehand. When he hits that to my bh I have to step in and take it on the rise or I'd be against the fence and the ball would probably still be over my head. He has a good 2hbh and he can slice. I was hanging in the rallies OK. He's obviously better than me and he's fast, but I did some damage. I was taking big cuts at the ball, but I was trying to use a lot of topspin, especially off my fh, to maintain control and I was maintaining a pretty high level of consistency.
He then asked to play a set. I thought that I'd get killed, but I again I did OK, in no small part due to a fair amount of UFEs from him. His serve was very good, but he was going for a lot and had quite a few double faults. He could have taken a bit off and it still would have been quite effective against me. We were into the 2nd set before I actually started getting back some decent balls. He had a nasty lefty American twist that he only pulled out a couple of times, but it was a winner for him every time. I could read it though, so I think I could have made the adjustment if I'd seen it a few more times. He tried to run around his bh on my second serve and go for the big forehand, so I served to his fh a lot to catch him out of position - worked OK. The rallies were actually more even than I thought they'd be. If I hit a weak ball he'd usually put it away, but I tired to just put the score out of my head and keep swinging big but going for high margin placement. I won some 10 ball rallies, hit some winners, forced some errors, got lucky some times (shanked a drop volley off my racquet to win one game - had to apologize for that one).
Final score was 5-7, 3-6. If he went for bit less on his second serve and pulled out that American twist a few more times, and was a bit more conservative on the 2nd ball returns he probably could have made it 2-6, 2-6. If I was serving a bit better I could have pushed the score a bit more to my favor. Still I was happy to be able to hang with him in the rallies more or less.
His thoughts after we played:
We rallied for a bit. He can hit huge topspin off his lefty forehand. When he hits that to my bh I have to step in and take it on the rise or I'd be against the fence and the ball would probably still be over my head. He has a good 2hbh and he can slice. I was hanging in the rallies OK. He's obviously better than me and he's fast, but I did some damage. I was taking big cuts at the ball, but I was trying to use a lot of topspin, especially off my fh, to maintain control and I was maintaining a pretty high level of consistency.
He then asked to play a set. I thought that I'd get killed, but I again I did OK, in no small part due to a fair amount of UFEs from him. His serve was very good, but he was going for a lot and had quite a few double faults. He could have taken a bit off and it still would have been quite effective against me. We were into the 2nd set before I actually started getting back some decent balls. He had a nasty lefty American twist that he only pulled out a couple of times, but it was a winner for him every time. I could read it though, so I think I could have made the adjustment if I'd seen it a few more times. He tried to run around his bh on my second serve and go for the big forehand, so I served to his fh a lot to catch him out of position - worked OK. The rallies were actually more even than I thought they'd be. If I hit a weak ball he'd usually put it away, but I tired to just put the score out of my head and keep swinging big but going for high margin placement. I won some 10 ball rallies, hit some winners, forced some errors, got lucky some times (shanked a drop volley off my racquet to win one game - had to apologize for that one).
Final score was 5-7, 3-6. If he went for bit less on his second serve and pulled out that American twist a few more times, and was a bit more conservative on the 2nd ball returns he probably could have made it 2-6, 2-6. If I was serving a bit better I could have pushed the score a bit more to my favor. Still I was happy to be able to hang with him in the rallies more or less.
His thoughts after we played:
- He thought my bh was better than my fh. Interesting, because I think the opposite. My bh is flatter, I can hit it hard, but I can get way more racquet head speed on my fh, so more spin and pace. Most winners come off my fh.
- He thought my fh was pretty flat, but I was hitting with what I would characterize as quite a bit of topspin. He could definitely get more topspin on his fh, but his topspin mostly didn't bother me and actually gave me more time to get into position for my shot.
- He didn't say anything about my serve, but I need to focus in it a bit. I've been working on my ground game for the last year and my serve hasn't gotten a lot of attention. It's been my strongest stroke, and I got some points off of it today, but overall it's starting to lag my groundies. My second serve definitely needs a bit more pop, both spin and pace.