sansaephanh
Professional
Hi guys!
My name is Nick. 22 Year old male born and raised in Oakland Ca. I've been half assing tennis for a while now, apart from when I first started. Tennis isn't the most popular sport in my upbringing, but I got into it from a cartoon (PoT for those anime saavy) and started playing with some rackets my mom picked up from helping someone move.
Flash forward to present. After living my life in which ever horrible way I chose to live it, I decided I want to fix my horrible tennis and join my friends in a 3.0 league. I might be playing a Combo league as warm up if I can find a partner.
With that in mind, I really want to start putting the work in. From conditioning to technique. being random rated between 3.0 and 4.0 by peers isn't amusing anymore. I want to be random rated at 4.5+:twisted:. Random rating is what I call when people see someone playing and say, "oh, you look like a 1.0." I don't know whether to be modest or insulted when I hear ratings, so I'm tossing it all away and will focus on the betterment of my game and health. Physical, mental, and spiritual strengthening will be worked in this process.
I am inherently clumsy and lazy. So I will be keeping myself in check with this thread. I'm always up for a conversation about tennis and how to improve.
First on my list: My serve. I know I still need to work on basic conditioning and fitness, but I've given myself every sort of arm/wrist/shoulder injury that I could get. This is mostly do excessive "arming" and lack of proper shoulder preparation.
I currently have a pinpoint serve and hit reaaaalllly open. Lack of knee bending and proper shoulder set up has been giving me major fatigue in my shoulders and has been pinching my rotator cuff. I've never thought much of it because I hit some nice serves with it and didn't play many matches. Now that I have a drive to better myself and matches to play, I want to create the most effective serve possible (for me). Before I could not do a platform stance for the life of me due to balance issues (which is something I will also work on, but lets stay on point), but have recently learned that my personal rhythm and toss were the main contributors to knocking my platform off balance.
I've been working on a toss similar to most pros.
Arm relatively aligned with the baseline, simple "down together up together" rhythm, and really follow through with the ball to the location I desired. It took me a few tries, but I got it!
It being 2 am in the morning I have no where to practice this toss. I believe a toss cannot be truly practiced unless you are making contact with the ball in a comfortable position. Due to living position I can't just go outside and wail on balls that will fly into the street or pound the walls, neighbors would literally shank me to death.
So I made some tennis balls
Paper + Duct tape = Perfect tossing material.
The noise is still a bit loud, but at least it not huge pounding sounds and balls flying everywhere. I have a 22x12 foot concrete backyard with 2 walls with windows on them and i can only serve along the 12 feet side. These practice balls are perfect for working on form and contact without having a tennis ball coming 50 mph back at my face. I use about 3 layers of printing/writing paper to create about the size of a tennis ball and layer of duct tape for durability and deformation purposes.
I highly recommend making a few if you're in a similar living situation with near zero safe areas to serve into.
Back to progress.
And progress it is indeed. I finally started to feel comfortable tossing it and contact never felt so easy! It really is better for my arm! Even with a less then light warm up I can feel the ease of swinging. The only thing I'm worried about now is getting to the same level of variety/power/control I had with my previous form. I don't think power and spin will be too difficult as I feel this form (similar to feds I suppose) gets both of these without much effort, but control and variety will take quite a bit of practice. Of course these are just what I'd like to see within a short period of time, but I need some major practice and experience under my belt!
I'm thinking of getting that tennis camera that hangs on the fence. The one on youtube ads, the volleycam? anyone have experience with that?
But either way, I want to get videos of myself for analytical purposes and public critiques.
Here we go fellas. Wish me luck!
My name is Nick. 22 Year old male born and raised in Oakland Ca. I've been half assing tennis for a while now, apart from when I first started. Tennis isn't the most popular sport in my upbringing, but I got into it from a cartoon (PoT for those anime saavy) and started playing with some rackets my mom picked up from helping someone move.
Flash forward to present. After living my life in which ever horrible way I chose to live it, I decided I want to fix my horrible tennis and join my friends in a 3.0 league. I might be playing a Combo league as warm up if I can find a partner.
With that in mind, I really want to start putting the work in. From conditioning to technique. being random rated between 3.0 and 4.0 by peers isn't amusing anymore. I want to be random rated at 4.5+:twisted:. Random rating is what I call when people see someone playing and say, "oh, you look like a 1.0." I don't know whether to be modest or insulted when I hear ratings, so I'm tossing it all away and will focus on the betterment of my game and health. Physical, mental, and spiritual strengthening will be worked in this process.
I am inherently clumsy and lazy. So I will be keeping myself in check with this thread. I'm always up for a conversation about tennis and how to improve.
First on my list: My serve. I know I still need to work on basic conditioning and fitness, but I've given myself every sort of arm/wrist/shoulder injury that I could get. This is mostly do excessive "arming" and lack of proper shoulder preparation.
I currently have a pinpoint serve and hit reaaaalllly open. Lack of knee bending and proper shoulder set up has been giving me major fatigue in my shoulders and has been pinching my rotator cuff. I've never thought much of it because I hit some nice serves with it and didn't play many matches. Now that I have a drive to better myself and matches to play, I want to create the most effective serve possible (for me). Before I could not do a platform stance for the life of me due to balance issues (which is something I will also work on, but lets stay on point), but have recently learned that my personal rhythm and toss were the main contributors to knocking my platform off balance.
I've been working on a toss similar to most pros.
Arm relatively aligned with the baseline, simple "down together up together" rhythm, and really follow through with the ball to the location I desired. It took me a few tries, but I got it!
It being 2 am in the morning I have no where to practice this toss. I believe a toss cannot be truly practiced unless you are making contact with the ball in a comfortable position. Due to living position I can't just go outside and wail on balls that will fly into the street or pound the walls, neighbors would literally shank me to death.
So I made some tennis balls
Paper + Duct tape = Perfect tossing material.
The noise is still a bit loud, but at least it not huge pounding sounds and balls flying everywhere. I have a 22x12 foot concrete backyard with 2 walls with windows on them and i can only serve along the 12 feet side. These practice balls are perfect for working on form and contact without having a tennis ball coming 50 mph back at my face. I use about 3 layers of printing/writing paper to create about the size of a tennis ball and layer of duct tape for durability and deformation purposes.
I highly recommend making a few if you're in a similar living situation with near zero safe areas to serve into.
Back to progress.
And progress it is indeed. I finally started to feel comfortable tossing it and contact never felt so easy! It really is better for my arm! Even with a less then light warm up I can feel the ease of swinging. The only thing I'm worried about now is getting to the same level of variety/power/control I had with my previous form. I don't think power and spin will be too difficult as I feel this form (similar to feds I suppose) gets both of these without much effort, but control and variety will take quite a bit of practice. Of course these are just what I'd like to see within a short period of time, but I need some major practice and experience under my belt!
I'm thinking of getting that tennis camera that hangs on the fence. The one on youtube ads, the volleycam? anyone have experience with that?
But either way, I want to get videos of myself for analytical purposes and public critiques.
Here we go fellas. Wish me luck!
