ReopeningWed's 5.0+ Video Diary

[ReopeningWed]

11/09

12/10: First Update

I'm slowly trying to turn around the love hate relationship I have with tennis and am starting to play again after taking an extended break. This is the second time in seven months that I've played, and I hope to use this post as a way to track my own progress (the way I did long ago when I started playing tennis way too late in high school).

I hope to work my way back into men's open form and compete at a 5.0+ level, open myself to the opinions of friends in the talk tennis community, break down my thought process and short term goals in my practices and how that leads to long term improvement, and find hitting new partners along the way.

To everyone in the NorCal Bay Area: if you want to play, please reach out to me and I'll try to figure out something that works mutually and fits with my university schedule. Also please feel free to ask ANY questions at all, and I'll try my best to answer from my personal experience and history with tennis academy training.

My notes from this hit:
-I feel slow and not in tennis shape
-I am uncomfortable on my backhand wing, which is by far my strongest shot
-I don't get low enough in general or move my weight forward on the backhand side

For my next hit, I'm going to try and capture two or three minutes of isolated drilling so I can gauge where my cross court shots, net game and serve/return game are currently at, and try and figure out a camera setup with that can shoot in 60 fps.

 

[FiReFTW]

Whats your tennis history?

 

[Hmgraphite1]

Wish I was starting at your level to improve from. Any knowledge you can share will be appreciated.
Gopro does 30/60/120/240 fps , probably alot of other options also

 

[ReopeningWed]

Whats your tennis history?

Started playing tennis when I was 14, had no backhand and couldn't hit three consecutive balls for a long time. Started getting coached by JoeyG, a longtime member of this community (bless that man's soul, I owe him so much). Developed a bit of a forehand and serve, was REALLY good at generating spin, and could hit exactly one backhand in a row for a long time, and struggled tremendously mentally and with consistency (I had a REALLY bad habit of not watching the ball as long as I needed to, lots of shanks). Shattered my wrist after high school and took a year and a half off of tennis recovering and doing therapy and playing tennis left handed and getting fat (this was absolute garbage, I'm extremely right hand dominant and I can't hit a two handed backhanded no matter how much I've tried to learn). My right hand healed, started playing tennis again for a year only to find that I had a retina detachment in my right eye (dominant side as well), and after THAT surgery spent 3 months just getting used to seeing again and becoming coordinated and relying on my left eye.

Once I was relatively healthy again, I played my first college tennis season at a junior college and realized that it was extremely frustrating to be a "pretty 4.5 player in practice with potential to hit HUGE shots, with 4.0 execution in matches", and I hit the practice courts again, this time really humbling myself and looking to make big changes.

I volunteered for a local tennis academy (not going to name drop but the head coach used to play in the same tournaments as Andy Roddick as a junior, and I would consider them to be the BEST "afterschool style" tennis academy in the Bay Area, despite not being a corporate/international brand name), and took every hitting partner I was assigned, oftentimes swallowing my pride and hitting with kids as young as 11 who were quite talented, but often with with players in the 13-16 age range. Because I could already hit huge shots, my goal in hitting with them was to be consistent, hit deep heavy balls, hit my spots, and keep the rally going as long as I can. Sometimes it was hitting down the middle, a lot of the time we were working on cross courts and down the line rallies, sometimes I was a serve bot, and the rest of the time I was feeding balls and helping out any way I could. I was playing 6 hours a day at this point between my second men's college tennis season and being a part time tennis coach.

 

[Shroud]

I'm slowly trying to turn around the love hate relationship I have with tennis and am starting to play again after taking an extended break. This is the second time in seven months that I've played, and I hope to use this post as a way to track my own progress (the way I did long ago when I started playing tennis way too late in high school).

I hope to work my way back into men's open form and compete at a 5.0+ level, open myself to the opinions of friends in the talk tennis community, break down my thought process and short term goals in my practices and how that leads to long term improvement, and find hitting new partners along the way.

To everyone in the NorCal Bay Area: if you want to play, please reach out to me and I'll try to figure out something that works mutually and fits with my university schedule.

My notes from this hit:
-I feel slow and not in tennis shape
-I am uncomfortable on my backhand wing, which is by far my strongest shot
-I don't get low enough in general or move my weight forward on the backhand side

For my next hit, I'm going to try and capture two or three minutes of isolated drilling so I can gauge where my cross court shots, net game and serve/return game are currently at, and try and figure out a camera setup with that can shoot in 60 fps.

Love hate?? Imagine having my game. That should make you appreciate your tennis that much more....

 

[ReopeningWed]

Wish I was starting at your level to improve from. Any knowledge you can share will be appreciated.
Gopro does 30/60/120/240 fps , probably alot of other options also

Believe me, I daydream often about starting tennis at 5 years old and getting to this level at 13, I might have been really promising otherwise!

The biggest thing I learned from my tennis academy hitting partner experience was how to practice effectively, and how if you're stagnating as a recreational player and being stuck at levels under 4.5 without improving, the way you practice is probably why. Things like analyzing what particular muscles to use and what specific ways to contort my body in or consciously forcing movements, having the perfect equipment and tinkering with rackets to decimals of grams, figuring out your string setup, these are all mental crutches to getting better at tennis.

All you need to do when you get to court is groove your strokes, leave that ego in your tennis bag and hit the same ball every single time. If you are not able to hit 100 balls in a row between you and your partner (200 times total), y'all got issues and that's a fundamental progression you need to figure out how to do to get better. I've coached 8-10 year old future superstars and that is the very first thing they need to understand: The net is a death trap and hit back every ball that goes over the net, even if it's a little long; set up camp on top of the baseline and aim for that T dead center in the middle of the court and set up your partner for success and hope they do the same thing for you, because this is a foundation for all of your future drills and practices.

The benefits to this go beyond consistency, and no you are not practicing a useless pusher style of play. It's a lot harder than you'd imagine, because there's a mental endurance and concentration component in following the ball for that long, as well as testing your physical endurance for the constant micro-movements of adjusting to the ball and positioning yourself just right. When you get tired, and if you're still driven enough to do this drill, you'll very quickly adjust to a more efficient way to get that racket moving, that involves your legs and core if you do not already. You'll learn to relax because your grip will be completely shot if there's the slightest bit of tension in your forearm over 100 balls. You'll learn your point of contact. You'll also learn how to access that state of "flow" where your brain turns off and you become this thought-free animal that only knows to track the ball and play on instinct, and you forget about the existence of your body except for the feeling of touching the ball.

Again, this is the very first thing that you need to be able to do if you're looking to practice efficiently. Add spin and depth and pace in tiny increments whenever you feel like it's getting too easy, and continue to keep these long rallies going, 100+ ball rallies on the same feed because this kind of repetition is the only way you get to that place where you hit on instinct.

I used to hit with one of the Stanford Men's Tennis players and our warm-up would be 20 minutes on the same rally. Down the middle, forehands cross court, backhands cross court, my forehand inside out to his backhand, his inside out forehand to my backhand, my backhand up the line to his forehand, my forehand up the line to his backhand. After that we'd start moving each other around and someone might come into the net and get some volleys, but at the end of this, that ball has ZERO paint left on it and it's pretty much a dead ball.

 

[Hmgraphite1]

there's a mental endurance and concentration component in following the ball for that long, as well as testing your physical endurance for the constant micromovements of adjusting to the ball and positioning yourself just right. When you get tired, and if you're still driven enough to do this drill, you'll very quickly adjust to a more efficient way to hit, that involves your legs and core if you do not already. You'll learn to relax because your grip will be completely shot if there's the slightest bit of tension in your forearm over 100 balls. You'll learn your point of contact.

Just starting to scratch the surface with these, was a real eye opener, reps seem to have initiated the enlightenment.

 

[ReopeningWed]

Just starting to scratch the surface with these, was a real eye opener, reps seem to have initiated the enlightenment.

It takes a LOT of time, you just have to appreciate yourself when you have a great practice and don't let it get to your head. I personally track improvement over months, and hope that all of my efforts bring the moving average up.

 

[Hmgraphite1]

How did your wrist injury occur and the retina issue?

 

[ReopeningWed]

How did your wrist injury occur and the retina issue?

Dumb skateboarding accident when I was going down a hill and a golden BMW ran a red light on a left turn, cutting me off and I chose to bail and hit the ground instead of hitting his car. Retina happened randomly I believe, which is terrifying. I don't know what caused it.

 

[Hmgraphite1]

Dumb skateboarding accident when I was going down a hill and a golden BMW ran a red light on a left turn, cutting me off and I chose to bail and hit the ground instead of hitting his car. Retina happened randomly I believe, which is terrifying. I don't know what caused it.

Glad it wasn't tennis related. Perhaps retina issue was related to a heavy impact also. Sugar Ray had similar problem that appeared due to impact issues.

 

[ReopeningWed]

Glad it wasn't tennis related. Perhaps retina issue was related to a heavy impact also. Sugar Ray had similar problem that appeared due to impact issues.

Mum slapped me around a lot growing up and she's left handed, but that comes with the territory of growing up Asian. It makes sense in hindsight but who can say for sure right?

 

[StringSnapper]

Believe me, I daydream often about starting tennis at 5 years old and getting to this level at 13, I might have been really promising otherwise!

The biggest thing I learned from my tennis academy hitting partner experience was how to practice effectively, and how if you're stagnating as a recreational player and being stuck at levels under 4.5 without improving, the way you practice is probably why. Things like analyzing what particular muscles to use and what specific ways to contort my body in or consciously forcing movements, having the perfect equipment and tinkering with rackets to decimals of grams, figuring out your string setup, these are all mental crutches to getting better at tennis.

All you need to do when you get to court is groove your strokes, leave that ego in your tennis bag and hit the same ball every single time. If you are not able to hit 100 balls in a row between you and your partner (200 times total), y'all got issues and that's a fundamental progression you need to figure out how to do to get better. I've coached 8-10 year old future superstars and that is the very first thing they need to understand: The net is a death trap and hit back every ball that goes over the net, even if it's a little long; set up camp on top of the baseline and aim for that T dead center in the middle of the court and set up your partner for success and hope they do the same thing for you, because this is a foundation for all of your future drills and practices.

The benefits to this go beyond consistency, and no you are not practicing a useless pusher style of play. It's a lot harder than you'd imagine, because there's a mental endurance and concentration component in following the ball for that long, as well as testing your physical endurance for the constant micro-movements of adjusting to the ball and positioning yourself just right. When you get tired, and if you're still driven enough to do this drill, you'll very quickly adjust to a more efficient way to get that racket moving, that involves your legs and core if you do not already. You'll learn to relax because your grip will be completely shot if there's the slightest bit of tension in your forearm over 100 balls. You'll learn your point of contact. You'll also learn how to access that state of "flow" where your brain turns off and you become this thought-free animal that only knows to track the ball and play on instinct, and you forget about the existence of your body except for the feeling of touching the ball.

Again, this is the very first thing that you need to be able to do if you're looking to practice efficiently. Add spin and depth and pace in tiny increments whenever you feel like it's getting too easy, and continue to keep these long rallies going, 100+ ball rallies on the same feed because this kind of repetition is the only way you get to that place where you hit on instinct.

I used to hit with one of the Stanford Men's Tennis players and our warm-up would be 20 minutes on the same rally. Down the middle, forehands cross court, backhands cross court, my forehand inside out to his backhand, his inside out forehand to my backhand, my backhand up the line to his forehand, my forehand up the line to his backhand. After that we'd start moving each other around and someone might come into the net and get some volleys, but at the end of this, that ball basically has ZERO paint left on it and it's pretty much a dead ball.

Epic post

 

[Deleted member 23235]

Mum slapped me around a lot growing up and she's left handed, but that comes with the territory of growing up Asian. It makes sense in hindsight but who can say for sure right?

i got the broom handle or wooden spoon.
did your mum wear rings? that's the worst!

 

[Deleted member 23235]

Believe me, I daydream often about starting tennis at 5 years old and getting to this level at 13, I might have been really promising otherwise!

The biggest thing I learned from my tennis academy hitting partner experience was how to practice effectively, and how if you're stagnating as a recreational player and being stuck at levels under 4.5 without improving, the way you practice is probably why. Things like analyzing what particular muscles to use and what specific ways to contort my body in or consciously forcing movements, having the perfect equipment and tinkering with rackets to decimals of grams, figuring out your string setup, these are all mental crutches to getting better at tennis.

All you need to do when you get to court is groove your strokes, leave that ego in your tennis bag and hit the same ball every single time. If you are not able to hit 100 balls in a row between you and your partner (200 times total), y'all got issues and that's a fundamental progression you need to figure out how to do to get better. I've coached 8-10 year old future superstars and that is the very first thing they need to understand: The net is a death trap and hit back every ball that goes over the net, even if it's a little long; set up camp on top of the baseline and aim for that T dead center in the middle of the court and set up your partner for success and hope they do the same thing for you, because this is a foundation for all of your future drills and practices.

The benefits to this go beyond consistency, and no you are not practicing a useless pusher style of play. It's a lot harder than you'd imagine, because there's a mental endurance and concentration component in following the ball for that long, as well as testing your physical endurance for the constant micro-movements of adjusting to the ball and positioning yourself just right. When you get tired, and if you're still driven enough to do this drill, you'll very quickly adjust to a more efficient way to get that racket moving, that involves your legs and core if you do not already. You'll learn to relax because your grip will be completely shot if there's the slightest bit of tension in your forearm over 100 balls. You'll learn your point of contact. You'll also learn how to access that state of "flow" where your brain turns off and you become this thought-free animal that only knows to track the ball and play on instinct, and you forget about the existence of your body except for the feeling of touching the ball.

Again, this is the very first thing that you need to be able to do if you're looking to practice efficiently. Add spin and depth and pace in tiny increments whenever you feel like it's getting too easy, and continue to keep these long rallies going, 100+ ball rallies on the same feed because this kind of repetition is the only way you get to that place where you hit on instinct.

I used to hit with one of the Stanford Men's Tennis players and our warm-up would be 20 minutes on the same rally. Down the middle, forehands cross court, backhands cross court, my forehand inside out to his backhand, his inside out forehand to my backhand, my backhand up the line to his forehand, my forehand up the line to his backhand. After that we'd start moving each other around and someone might come into the net and get some volleys, but at the end of this, that ball basically has ZERO paint left on it and it's pretty much a dead ball.

great post.
most folks <4.5 (and even alot that i know at 4.5), can't sustain a 100 ball coop rally... requires quite alot of conditioning/footwork... most folks (especially in the public parks) relieve the tension by the 3-4th ball (6th shot), by going for a winner.
ive done 100 ball coop rallies (50 each) many times... haven't tried a 200 ball rally yet... will have to try that.

 

[Hmgraphite1]

i got the broom handle or wooden spoon.
did your mum wear rings? that's the worst!

Wooden spoon, must be be a 60's 70's thing, prob read it in homeandgardens. On one incident the spoon shattered, me and my 2 siblings broke out in laughter, might of hit the floor or a chair or something, either way it was a game we were like laughing hyenas chased in various directions by the wild kingdom curator-mom

 

[Deleted member 23235]

Wooden spoon, must be be a 60's 70's thing, prob read it in homeandgardens. On one incident the spoon shattered, me and my 2 siblings broke out in laughter, might of hit the floor or a chair or something, either way it was a game we were like laughing hyenas chased in various directions by the wild kingdom curator-mom

ha! same thing happened to me. it was a broom stick, and i was doing martial arts back then (breaking boards etc...).
i remembering doing some type of block and the stick broke, and started laughing hilariously, which of course pissed my mom off more, then got a real beating from dad later than night.

not sure if you're asian... but OP & I are,... what's up with us asian parent's and corporal punishments. i have never hit my kids because of the beatings i used to get,... and IMO my kids are way more obedient than i ever was.

 

[Hmgraphite1]

ha! same thing happened to me. it was a broom stick, and i was doing martial arts back then (breaking boards etc...).
i remembering doing some type of block and the stick broke, and started laughing hilariously, which of course pissed my mom off more, then got a real beating from dad later than night.

not sure if you're asian... but OP & I are,... what's up with us asian parent's and corporal punishments. i have never hit my kids because of the beatings i used to get,... and IMO my kids are way more obedient than i ever was.

I agree, taught my kids respect is important, beyond that say and do as you want. Honorary asian status, still gotta do a ancestry test

 

[ptuanminh]

great post.
most folks <4.5 (and even alot that i know at 4.5), can't sustain a 100 ball coop rally... requires quite alot of conditioning/footwork... most folks (especially in the public parks) relieve the tension by the 3-4th ball (6th shot), by going for a winner.
ive done 100 ball coop rallies (50 each) many times... haven't tried a 200 ball rally yet... will have to try that.

surprisingly, many 4.0s and below don't even know the purpose of hitting coop rally

 

[Deleted member 746200]

Oh that’s Hearst lol based on the video I can see the over formation is still kinda off for you. Looks like your arm and body still separate apart. If you need hitting partner hit me up. I’m about 4.0-4.5 (haven’t playing USTA recently so not exactly sure)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Deleted member 23235]

surprisingly, many 4.0s and below don't even know the purpose of hitting coop rally

i didn't either when i was a 4.0...

 

[NuBas]

i didn't either when i was a 4.0...

bs

 

[Deleted member 23235]

bs

lol, BS that i didn't know the purpose of a coop rally?
when i was a 4.0 i thought rallying was hit 2 balls, then go for a winner... so my shot tolerance was like 3-4
when i rallied with better players I thought there was no way they could hit so many balls back so consistently, especially my “big fh” that skipped the net and landed by the service line, so I figured it was because I wasn’t doing enough... so i hit away.

 

[ChaelAZ]

I'm slowly trying to turn around the love hate relationship I have with tennis and am starting to play again after taking an extended break. This is the second time in seven months that I've played, and I hope to use this post as a way to track my own progress (the way I did long ago when I started playing tennis way too late in high school).

I hope to work my way back into men's open form and compete at a 5.0+ level, open myself to the opinions of friends in the talk tennis community, break down my thought process and short term goals in my practices and how that leads to long term improvement, and find hitting new partners along the way.

To everyone in the NorCal Bay Area: if you want to play, please reach out to me and I'll try to figure out something that works mutually and fits with my university schedule. Also please feel free to ask ANY questions at all, and I'll try my best to answer from my personal experience and history with tennis academy training.

My notes from this hit:
-I feel slow and not in tennis shape
-I am uncomfortable on my backhand wing, which is by far my strongest shot
-I don't get low enough in general or move my weight forward on the backhand side

For my next hit, I'm going to try and capture two or three minutes of isolated drilling so I can gauge where my cross court shots, net game and serve/return game are currently at, and try and figure out a camera setup with that can shoot in 60 fps.

Nice strokes. Thanks for posting.

FYI - If you have an iPhone you can shoot 720p at 120fps or even 240fps for serious slow motion. Probably available on Android.

 

[ReopeningWed]

ha! same thing happened to me. it was a broom stick, and i was doing martial arts back then (breaking boards etc...).
i remembering doing some type of block and the stick broke, and started laughing hilariously, which of course pissed my mom off more, then got a real beating from dad later than night.

not sure if you're asian... but OP & I are,... what's up with us asian parent's and corporal punishments. i have never hit my kids because of the beatings i used to get,... and IMO my kids are way more obedient than i ever was.

You earned that asswhooping, do you know how much broomsticks cost??

 

[NuBas]

lol, BS that i didn't know the purpose of a coop rally?
when i was a 4.0 i thought rallying was hit 2 balls, then go for a winner... so my shot tolerance was like 3-4
when i rallied with better players I thought there was no way they could hit so many balls back so consistently, especially my “big fh” that skipped the net and landed by the service line, so I figured it was because I wasn’t doing enough... so i hit away.

I'm not sure if some on here are truthful with their ratings or have low standards of 3.5 to 4.0s. Where I play, even 3.5s can rally all day long with pace and everything else.

 

[mcs1970]

.

Your consistency would separate you out in the 4.0 crowd. How did you move up against other 4.5s? I'd assume just hitting balls back all day into the middle of the court wouldn't cut it. Don't you have to go for your strokes? How did you make that progression from practice to games? Did it just come naturally for you or did you lose a ton of matches initially where you were determined to not compromise in real games, before the strokes started consistently working in real games?

 

[Deleted member 23235]

I'm not sure if some on here are truthful with their ratings or have low standards of 3.5 to 4.0s. Where I play, even 3.5s can rally all day long with pace and everything else.

perhaps i’m only a 3.5 in your area, and that’s ok by me.
3.5s by me cannot rally all day.

or they 2 bounce
or they just bunt their strokes (vs. uh... stroking their shots)
or a couple to the bh, and the rally is over.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ptuanminh]

I'm not sure if some on here are truthful with their ratings or have low standards of 3.5 to 4.0s. Where I play, even 3.5s can rally all day long with pace and everything else.

Maybe the 3.5s in your area are really good. I have lived in big cities in the south where tennis is popular, in the north where tennis is not as strong. I have never seen a 3.5 that can rally ALL day long with pace and everything. Cause they will be in 4.0s and above.

Your consistency would separate you out in the 4.0 crowd. How did you move up against other 4.5s? I'd assume just hitting balls back all day into the middle of the court wouldn't cut it. Don't you have to go for your strokes? How did you make that progression from practice to games? Did it just come naturally for you or did you lose a ton of matches initially where you were determined to not compromise in real games, before the strokes started consistently working in real games?

You can be in 4.5s with consistent hitting. I think the serve is more important to get to 4.5s.

 

[NuBas]

perhaps i’m only a 3.5 in your area, and that’s ok by me.
3.5s by me cannot rally all day.

or they 2 bounce
or they just bunt their strokes (vs. uh... stroking their shots)
or a couple to the bh, and the rally is over.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Your not 3.5. The ranking may vary from area to area IMO. In a cooperative rally, 4.0s should be able to rally 20+ balls no problem in my opinion. Good 3.5s can do the same.

 

[MarinaHighTennis]

I'm slowly trying to turn around the love hate relationship I have with tennis and am starting to play again after taking an extended break. This is the second time in seven months that I've played, and I hope to use this post as a way to track my own progress (the way I did long ago when I started playing tennis way too late in high school).

I hope to work my way back into men's open form and compete at a 5.0+ level, open myself to the opinions of friends in the talk tennis community, break down my thought process and short term goals in my practices and how that leads to long term improvement, and find hitting new partners along the way.

To everyone in the NorCal Bay Area: if you want to play, please reach out to me and I'll try to figure out something that works mutually and fits with my university schedule. Also please feel free to ask ANY questions at all, and I'll try my best to answer from my personal experience and history with tennis academy training.

My notes from this hit:
-I feel slow and not in tennis shape
-I am uncomfortable on my backhand wing, which is by far my strongest shot
-I don't get low enough in general or move my weight forward on the backhand side

For my next hit, I'm going to try and capture two or three minutes of isolated drilling so I can gauge where my cross court shots, net game and serve/return game are currently at, and try and figure out a camera setup with that can shoot in 60 fps.

Good player, wanna join my spring team in SF?

 

[mcs1970]

You can be in 4.5s with consistent hitting. I think the serve is more important to get to 4.5s.

OP moved from 4.5 to 5.0. Just consistently hitting balls in the middle of the court won't get you to a 5.0 level. So that's why I was asking him what enabled him to take that next step. I'm interested to know how high level players here like OP, nyta, Jolly,..etc. have made that progression from hitting shots in practice to doing the same in games. Not sure if it came naturally to them or they had to accept a lot of errors/losses in real games initially but stuck with it before they broke through.

 

[ptuanminh]

OP moved from 4.5 to 5.0. Just consistently hitting balls in the middle of the court won't get you to a 5.0 level. So that's why I was asking him what enabled him to take that next step. I'm interested to know how high level players here like OP, nyta, Jolly,..etc. have made that progression from hitting shots in practice to doing the same in games. Not sure if it came naturally to them or they had to accept a lot of errors/losses in real games initially but stuck with it before they broke through.

You are right. I have no idea what a player needs to get to 5.0. . Although, one of my previous coach was a 5.0, but he didn't hit the ball all that hard. Just wickedly fast and never miss a ball.

 

[ReopeningWed]

Your consistency would separate you out in the 4.0 crowd. How did you move up against other 4.5s? I'd assume just hitting balls back all day into the middle of the court wouldn't cut it. Don't you have to go for your strokes? How did you make that progression from practice to games? Did it just come naturally for you or did you lose a ton of matches initially where you were determined to not compromise in real games, before the strokes started consistently working in real games?

I've always been able to hit a very heavy ball, but would end rallies in shanks and break down under pressure (hitting on the run, balls that came in hard and deep, etc). Since I had an idea of what I was capable of becoming, my goal wasn't to just hit the ball into the middle of the court. It was to build very fundamentally sound ground strokes that are reliable from every position, can neutralize any tough ball, and can always go to the deep crosscourt corners.

I wasn't worried about short angles or passing shots, banana shots or buggy whips, my only concern was being as consistent as gravity, building my shot tolerance, and making sure that my balls were deep and unattackable, while staying loose and hitting fluidly. I.E. basics, having good technique and good fundamentals. This meant making my ability to track the ball and hit the sweet spot perfect, and cutting out any superfluous motion from my strokes and deconstructing it so that there were only the most necessary elements.

I understood that pace comes with time but only after I'm intimately familiar with my contact point and I can consistently and loosely hit with a ton of racket head speed.

I lost a TON of practice sets, 11 pointers off the ground, tiebreakers, and important matches in this time. Tennis is unforgiving and everyone who plays has to have their self-belief destroyed and piece it back together in order improve.

I remember there was one distinct point where I was the deciding match for my college, and in a third set tiebreaker at 8-all, when I decided that I was going swing loosely and believe in my efforts and the work that I'd put in.

For me, this means I try to watch the ball more intensely than I ever have before, move my feet like my life depends on it and forget about conserving energy, and just unwind on that ball and really let it rip (with lots of spin and margin for error of course). I hit a short angle cross court forehand winner after a 20 ball rally, and then hit another winner off of his huge serve which had given me trouble all of that match.

On Slumps
After that, I played the worst two weeks of tennis of my life, lost to literally everyone on my men's team (including the international student that played recreationally and bought a Federer racket because it was cool despite not being athletic or strong) and at one point just started laughing in exasperation everytime I missed a ball.

It felt like there was no access to spin, the faster I swing and the more net clearance I got, just resulted in the ball flying out, I had a hard time getting low enough to get under the ball and get in position at the same time, so balls would get dumped into the net, I'd get both jammed, not position close enough to the ball, and misjudge how much farther I'd have to run to cover the the extra steps to get to outside cross court shots. The worst thing about that is that I felt like I was hitting exactly the same way as I always did.

BUT I was confident that if I could do that thing where I watch the **** out of ball and be loose from my hips and my core once during a pressure situation, I can eventually do it again. So I kept practicing and after the slump my game picked up.

So I'd say practice consciously, don't worry about losing matches short term because your goal is long term improvement. A lot of players struggle with this, trying to execute the things they need for improvement in matches and ending up reverting to their old-style of hitting in tight situations. This is where you worry about the moving average of quality of your hitting, and thinking about your progress over months helps with the process.

 

[mcs1970]

@ReopeningWed Thanks for the extremely detailed reply that touches on many things needed. Much appreciated.

 

[ReopeningWed]

You are right. I have no idea what a player needs to get to 5.0. . Although, one of my previous coach was a 5.0, but he didn't hit the ball all that hard. Just wickedly fast and never miss a ball.

The friend of mine from Stanford played like this as a junior, and was a blue chip player. You get a bunch of guys who were bigger, stronger, faster sprinters, had flashier EVERYTHINGs not be able to beat him and call him a pusher.

In reality, he played smart tennis and never took low percentage shots. He positioned super well and had phenomenal split step timing. No matter how big people were hitting, he rarely looked at balls he couldn't reach in juniors or return, because he never had to run outrageously far from his positioning. He could neutralize everything he got a racket on and knew that if you hit big and flat, you don't have much room to pull the ball off the court, and short heavy angles could be cut off and attacked. He was also tremendously fit from growing up inland, where he played in the heat everyday.

The most important thing was that he was mentally unbreakable and would play every single point with the same intensity, even if it is was the first one. Sometimes he'd intimidate higher ranked players because he'd make sure that the very first point went on forever until his opponent missed or was out of gas.

He definitely had weapons (could slap his forehand and serve big and has a world class backhand that does everything) and could come into the net comfortably, but he knew that there was a breaking point for every player he faced and would quickly pick up where that point is. The strategy was that overall, he'd play less points and it was a more direct way to win.

 

[ReopeningWed]

Good player, wanna join my spring team in SF?

I'm a free spirit that can't be tied down by no man.

Realistically school comes first for me, and while I wouldn't be opposed, it's difficult for me to pay club/team/USTA dues and commit to any regular playing schedule. I'd be interested in joining you for practice sometime, but I'm still rusty.

 

[ReopeningWed]

@mcs1970 I just want to add that my current rally ball has decent pace, I can kind of flatten my forehand out but not comfortably (so no delpo slaps), and enjoy hitting short angles as well as deep balls and flattening it up the line on my backhand. I do hit winners, and my ground game is pretty good, but the controlled aggression rally ball is always going to be the most comfortable thing for me to hit.

It's baby steps and constant progress, and weathering frustration.

 

[MarinaHighTennis]

I'm a free spirit that can't be tied down by no man.

Realistically school comes first for me, and while I wouldn't be opposed, it's difficult for me to pay club/team/USTA dues and commit to any regular playing schedule. I'd be interested in joining you for practice sometime, but I'm still rusty.

its on your schedule just play 2 matches. Where are you located and what school?

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

great post.
most folks <4.5 (and even alot that i know at 4.5), can't sustain a 100 ball coop rally... requires quite alot of conditioning/footwork...

Guilty as charged. Long before the conditioning threshold is reached, I'll simply miss. Lack of foc...hey, what's that shiny object over there?

most folks (especially in the public parks) relieve the tension by the 3-4th ball (6th shot), by going for a winner.

I have math students that will do a problem quickly and obviously incorrectly just to get it over with...at which point I make them start over and do it slowly and correctly. I'm sure I fail to reach at least some of them. Same concept, though.

 

[mad dog1]

I'm not sure if some on here are truthful with their ratings or have low standards of 3.5 to 4.0s. Where I play, even 3.5s can rally all day long with pace and everything else.

You must play on Mars then.

3.5s on earth can not rally all day with pace. Every 3.5 - 4.0s I have seen has a weak side that will break down after 3 consecutive strokes and can be attacked - usually the backhand side. 3.5s can not handle heavy penetrating topspin. When they are faced with heavy penetrating topspin, watch the ball spray begin. Strong 4.0 level is where the ball spray begins to stop against heavy topspin.

 

[mad dog1]

OP moved from 4.5 to 5.0. Just consistently hitting balls in the middle of the court won't get you to a 5.0 level. So that's why I was asking him what enabled him to take that next step. I'm interested to know how high level players here like OP, nyta, Jolly,..etc. have made that progression from hitting shots in practice to doing the same in games. Not sure if it came naturally to them or they had to accept a lot of errors/losses in real games initially but stuck with it before they broke through.

Along the path to tennis improvement, there will always be many errors and losses regardless of level. Because regardless of how good you do think you are, there are many, many players who are better and stronger than you unless your name is listed on the ATP top 50 rankings.

 

[Deleted member 23235]

OP moved from 4.5 to 5.0. Just consistently hitting balls in the middle of the court won't get you to a 5.0 level. So that's why I was asking him what enabled him to take that next step. I'm interested to know how high level players here like OP, nyta, Jolly,..etc. have made that progression from hitting shots in practice to doing the same in games. Not sure if it came naturally to them or they had to accept a lot of errors/losses in real games initially but stuck with it before they broke through.

deliberate practice.

every shot must have a purpose/target.
nothing came naturally to me. just a lot of hours practicing the shots I suck at, that I tend to miss In matches (but my opponents tend to make)
yes, a lot of losses trying those new shots, before they became automatic,... what shots are you thinking about?

I mean the worst possible thing ive done (from a win loss perspective) was to change grips... took a year of losing before I could regain with interest what I lost switching to a new grip.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[NuBas]

You must play on Mars then.

3.5s on earth can not rally all day with pace. Every 3.5 - 4.0s I have seen has a weak side that will break down after 3 consecutive strokes and can be attacked - usually the backhand side. 3.5s can not handle heavy penetrating topspin. When they are faced with heavy penetrating topspin, watch the ball spray begin. Strong 4.0 level is where the ball spray begins to stop against heavy topspin.

Still I disagree with you. Even solid-strong 3.0's can rally cooperatively however they probably don't produce much spin or pace, they simply bunt the ball back or whatever means they can to get it back. I don't believe for a second a true, real 4.0 cannot sustain a rally with pace. Where I play, strong 3.5 to entry 4.0 can rally well but that's not how we grade them, we grade them based on game play. I guess standard here is higher.

BTW is this you? I've always thought this was you. Anyway I don't usually engage in usta ranking arguements but i guess its just varies from place to place.

 

[mad dog1]

Still I disagree with you. Even solid-strong 3.0's can rally cooperatively however they probably don't produce much spin or pace, they simply bunt the ball back or whatever means they can to get it back. I don't believe for a second a true, real 4.0 cannot sustain a rally with pace. Where I play, strong 3.5 to entry 4.0 can rally well but that's not how we grade them, we grade them based on game play. I guess standard here is higher.

BTW is this you? I've always thought this was you. Anyway I don't usually engage in usta ranking arguements but i guess its just varies from place to place.

No, that’s not me. The young guy is my friend, Matt Lin.

Where are you located?

The 3.5s i know can sustain a rally at average 3.5 pace and spin. Weak 4.0s can sustain a rally at weak 4.0 pace and spin. 3.5s can not sustain rallies against strong 4.0 and higher pace and spin.

I play regularly with a USTA 4.0. He played 3.5 last season and got bumped up to 4.0 this season. He has a lot of trouble handling my topspin on both wings. Will shank after 3 balls to the backhand side when I crank up the spin and pace.

3.5s will start to spray uncontrollably against heavy spin. They can’t cover the ball to keep it from flying long.

 

[NuBas]

No, that’s not me. The young guy is my friend, Matt Lin.

Where are you located?

The 3.5s i know can sustain a rally at average 3.5 pace and spin. Weak 4.0s can sustain a rally at weak 4.0 pace and spin. 3.5s can not sustain rallies against strong 4.0 and higher pace and spin.

I play regularly with a USTA 4.0. He played 3.5 last season and got bumped up to 4.0 this season. He has a lot of trouble handling my topspin on both wings. Will shank after 3 balls to the backhand side when I crank up the spin and pace.

3.5s will start to spray uncontrollably against heavy spin. They can’t cover the ball to keep it from flying long.

You are saying Matt Lin is only a 4.0, I thought I heard from posters on this forum he is 5.0. Though in the video he looks about 4.0 but could not tell since his opponent is low 3.5.

I was replying to another posters comment saying at 4.0, he couldn't hit cooperatively more than 5 balls straight so I called BS. The key word is cooperative rally if it wasn't then of course if I hit out and really make a 3.5 scurry then probably wouldn't go 10 balls straight but I still think 3.5 can get the ball at least back if we hitting in the middle.

I also play regularly with official USTA 4.0 people and I can win against them. I'm one of those "rec" people who could possibly be in USTA but don't want to cause I can play people for free at public places.

But you know even up to 5.0, I have never really faced flat out overwhelming spin or pace on ground strokes, serves yes but ground strokes not really unless its a put-away ball. I think once you reach a level (4.0) where you can handle pace and spin, it won't be much of a surprise the higher you go unless you reach serious 5.0s. After people learn to deal with spin and all types of balls, the game turns into a consistency battle and most of that comes from experience.

 

[mad dog1]

You are saying Matt Lin is only a 4.0, I thought I heard from posters on this forum he is 5.0. Though in the video he looks about 4.0 but could not tell since his opponent is low 3.5.

I was replying to another posters comment saying at 4.0, he couldn't hit cooperatively more than 5 balls straight so I called BS. The key word is cooperative rally if it wasn't then of course if I hit out and really make a 3.5 scurry then probably wouldn't go 10 balls straight but I still think 3.5 can get the ball at least back if we hitting in the middle.

I also play regularly with official USTA 4.0 people and I can win against them. I'd say I'm a very technically sound and powerful "rec" player, I guess I could compete but I don't really feel like dishing out money when I play for free against 4.0s-4.5s.

But you know even up to 5.0, I have never really faced flat out overwhelming spin or pace on ground strokes, serves yes but ground strokes not really unless its a put-away ball. I think once you reach a level (4.0) where you can handle pace and spin, it won't be much of a surprise the higher you go unless you reach serious 5.0s. After people learn to deal with spin and all types of balls, the game turns into a consistency battle and most of that comes from experience.

Where are you located? Are you in the witness protection program?

Matt Lin is 5.0. I’m nowhere in that video.

3.5s and weaker 4.0s can’t handle 4.5 pace and spin even when it is hit directly back to them. I hit with a lot of 3.5s and I have to back off the pace and spin quite a bit otherwise they start falling behind and hitting later and later. Hitting late results in ball spray.

 

[NuBas]

Where are you located? Are you in the witness protection program?

Matt Lin is 5.0. I’m nowhere in that video.

3.5s and weaker 4.0s can’t handle 4.5 pace and spin even when it is hit directly back to them. I hit with a lot of 3.5s and I have to back off the pace and spin quite a bit otherwise they start falling behind and hitting later and later. Hitting late results in ball spray.

I play in the US. Who were you referring to when you said bump up to 4.0.

 

[mad dog1]

I play in the US. Who were you referring to when you said bump up to 4.0.

Someone who hits with me regularly. Not Matt or any of the people in that video you posted.

Good to know you are indeed in the witness protection program!

 

[NuBas]

Someone who hits with me regularly. Not Matt or any of the people in that video you posted.

Good to know you are indeed in the witness protection program!