preparing for my first match, practice match vid looking for help

[tonygao]

Hi Guys,

just registered my first tourament for 3.0 level player. I am alll excited and need to make my recent training sessions more competition oriented, meaning more practice matches vs drills.

so, please take a look at this practice match vid and critique my game. any advice is welcome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vidyp-w6IU

 

[maverick66]

you have a good baseline game. You seem to have good consistency off the ground and that will really help you in the tournament. Staying with good cross court patterns will be a good way for you to win. Especially at that level.

The other thing I noticed is you dont seem to be comfortable going to the net. Remember to hit your approach down the line and try to close to the net. Your volley shouldnt have ot be amazing to win the point from there.

The biggest thing I noticed is you can hit a pretty good ball from the baseline and if you stay consistent with your strokes from back there you should be in a good position to win.

Best of luck to you out there.

 

[dozu]

game looks good man... practice is paying off...

nice and steady, should be no problem for 3.0, or even 3.5

something to work on for the future, but not necessarily for the immediate tournament coming up... to go further up the skills pyramid, you will need more racket head speed.

right now your swings on both sides are fairly well connected between the body and the arm, considering the time you have played... in the future you need to improve on using more legs/hips/core to put more juice on the ball... juice meaning pace/spin.

approach shots and volleys look like need more work that your standard groundies.... need better technique to put a lot more juice on attacking those short balls... and on the volleys you have issue reacting to the ball.... but these are longer term goals.

you have good hand-eye coordination, and movements are quite natural around the court..... just need to play more, against higher level players, so you are forced on working out the weak parts.

by the way that's a strange looking court with so many lines... I'd be confused.

 

[Tennis_Monk]

Playing pretty good for a 3.0 player. I would say you will be rated at 3.5 in certain leagues.

I liked your serve action. Little more work on it and you can move quickly up the chains.

 

[tonygao]

thanks man, you are always the fastest to respond ;-)

the lines on the court are for badminton. actually i used those on the other side of the court as targets to hit at, keeping me from going too agressive, hahaha.

regarding the racket head speed, I am now trying to use weight transfer to generate more pace on my shots, which is from discussion with Tricky. besides the technical issues, i also have some mental issue, especially when facing short balls, i tend to be very tentative. i guess i just need lots of basic drills of short balls and practice matches to be more comfortable and confident in my strokes to overcome it.

 

[Larrysümmers]

watch this before your warmup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgSMxY6asoE

 

[GetBetterer]

Well, I wouldn't recommend this at the match, but your backhand could use some work.

You have the right form but you're not accelerating your racket through, and therefore it leads to a frail backhand.

In all honest, I don't think you're a 3.0 but either way, good luck at the tournament (but you won't need it)!

 

[DeShaun]

Your game looks really nice. It's really fluid and relaxed. It's a very pleasing game to watch, in my opinion. Although, it may be too relaxed. If I was you I would be hoping that the tournament directors don't make me play against someone who mostly hacks junk with loads of spin and relies on his speedy footwork to retrieve every ball. I see your partner in the video hits with moderate topspin often, and his ball comes down in the middle third of your court roughly fifty percent of the time. His hitting pattern and the spin that he uses are something that you may end up wishing your opponent in the tournament gave you; so, for the tournament, be prepared to move your feet a whole lot faster because you may end up having to chase a great deal more balls, in getting yourself to many more positions and depths in your court, than your partner in the video is forcing you to cover, and not only this, but once you reach the position you may have to answer to tricky, junk balls produced by strokes (your tournament opponent's) not as aesthetically pleasing as yours which can be offensive to your sense of taste or how the game should be played, possibly causing disruption to the clarity of your thought processes on court. So, be prepared because you have a very good looking game, which I find enjoyable and soothing to watch, but your partner is hitting with moderate topspin and not using angles very aggressively. So, be ready to move your feet faster in the tournament, and if your opponent has an ugly game let this remind you to slow down your thoughts and focus on the very next point, one point at a time, so that you can beat him and exit the court faster.
GOOD LUCK!!

 

[spacediver]

On many of your forehands you are too far behind the ball and end up having to lean forward. I like the way your backhand looks, but am not experienced enough to offer a critique of it.

 

[only4theweak187]

transfer weight forward into attackable baseline balls. need more core and shoulder turn along with leaning into the shots, will add more pace and weight.

 

[fruitytennis1]

watch this before your warmup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgSMxY6asoE

Best song ever!!


Your easily better than a 3.0-prob better than a good # of 3.5s also. The only big problem was on the approach shots get the to the ball, set up early(feet), then hammer it. In the vid i remember you running through a few.

 

[Djokovicfan4life]

This song's better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jYcW1nEsGk

 

[fruitytennis1]

This song's better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jYcW1nEsGk

Good song. The Eye of the tiger still wins

 

[maverick66]

This song's better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jYcW1nEsGk

Sweep the leg.

The people that are telling him to change this and improve that are not actually reading the thread. He is playing a tournament soon he doesnt have time to change strokes. He has what he has. Right now its about trying to help use his current strokes to compete the best he can.

Like I said use your consistency. At that level the hardest thing for players to do is keep a rally going. If you can do that you have a huge advantage over the other player. Just look at how many threads there are about people crying about pushers. I am not saying push but consistency wins.

 

[dozu]

^^^ right on... and my earlier suggestion was meant for your longer term improvement also.... not for the immediate tournament you have to play.

I shot a video of myself this morning... partner and I used 4 balls over 12 minutes...

in future practices if you have consistency in mind, it will carry you far.. my partner is a legit 4.5 without big weapons, other than what typical 4.5s can do (will make you pay on short balls).