What does it take to hit like true 4.0 player in a year?

[young92117]

Hi, I am new member to this board.

I just read the thread below about becoming a 4.0 player within a year. It seems like the consensus is that it is possible but very very hard.

Also, Many posters suggested that there are difference between Having 4.0 player stroke/ Winning at 4.0 tournerment match/ Having match expereince & knowledge of 4.0 level etc.

I am interested in "hitting like 4.0 player" aspect and want to know what does it take (such as how much lesson, court time, practice etc.) to achieve that goal within a year.

I think I am a 2.5 player based on NTRP description but not so sure since it is self-rated. (And considering my knowledge and experience, I should not rate anyone , not even myself )

I think my backhand (one hand) is certainly better than 2.5 level since a lot of people who are definitely better than me often compliment my backhand. But, everything else is pretty much like 2.5 player level IMO.

So person like me (2.5 player), what would it take to hit like 4.0 player within a year? BTW, I'm not either very atheltic person or talented in tennis.

Thanks!

 

[Phil Daddario]

Well, I don't think you're making 4.0 in a year. But as you want, it IS possible to hit like a 4.0.

As soon as you know what way the ball is coming, rotate your shoulders (the racquet should move back a little naturally with it), move towards the ball (IMMEDIATE preparation), and try to meet the ball out in front in the forward swing.

Keys to success. THE keys. Other than that, nobody can help you too much if you don't post what problems you're having on all strokes, what grip you have, and what's happening to the ball. Everyone has different problems. This is why talking over the internet without anything visual is hard.

 

[TennsDog]

Look at this thread.
http://www.tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=57511

 

[nViATi]

lots of hitting with people that are 4.0+
dedication
hardwork
(that's what i think. i don't really know i'm not a 4.0 yet )

 

[TwistServe]

Basically hitting almost everyday, concentrating on the form that will get your consistency, depth, and power. It's tough to find people that will play with you regularly.. then you also need match play for experience cause lots of players find themselves hitting well in practice and choking in matches.

Put the time to it.. almost anything is doable.

or..

if you have the $$$, anything can happen also.. you can get private lessons 90 minutes a day 5 times a week for a full year.. with various instructors, etc.. you'll improve faster then a hard kick serve screaming by your opponent.

 

[young92117]

Look at this thread.
http://www.tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=57511

It looks like link is borken. When I click the link, page not found message pops up. Do you mind post the link again. Thanks

 

[young92117]

Well, I don't think you're making 4.0 in a year. But as you want, it IS possible to hit like a 4.0.

As soon as you know what way the ball is coming, rotate your shoulders (the racquet should move back a little naturally with it), move towards the ball (IMMEDIATE preparation), and try to meet the ball out in front in the forward swing.

Keys to success. THE keys. Other than that, nobody can help you too much if you don't post what problems you're having on all strokes, what grip you have, and what's happening to the ball. Everyone has different problems. This is why talking over the internet without anything visual is hard.

English is not my native language so I don't think I made it clear in my posting. I was more interested in how much *time and effort* do I need to put to achieve the goal rather than what to do for my stroke X to hit like 4.0 plater.

Obviously, there are a lot of people who are 4.0+ in this board so I was hoping to get their opnion. Those who are already 4.0+ now, probablly went through this path long before me so I assume they can give me some guidance on my journey to become 4.0.

Having said that, thanks for your tip on stroke! I will try to incorporate this on my stroke. If I was strong 3.5 player and lacking one or two area to become a next level, I probablly asked specific question but I just have too much to work on to become 4.0 caliber player now so I asked more general kind of question. Thanks for your help!

 

[Phil Daddario]

Lots of time and effort. Lots and lots of it. Daily practice.

I do NOT recommend daily private lessons, even if you have the money. Completely worthless. Not worth it at all.

Breakthroughs come from frequent play and working with what your coach told you and doing it on your OWN. Constant private lessons leave you as a guy that can't think or play for himself, as well as making the transition from lesson to match much, much harder.

Once a week lessons are ideal. Other than that, you should be practicing or playing almost everyday.

And for the link, click on it. Then take out the "www." before the "tt.tennis-warehouse........" part. It'll work then.

 

[x Southpaw x]

or..

if you have the $$$, anything can happen also.. you can get private lessons 90 minutes a day 5 times a week for a full year.. with various instructors, etc.. you'll improve faster then a hard kick serve screaming by your opponent.

Indeed. If you are really serious about your goal, a personal coach several times a week is the easiest and fastest way to reach it. Easier if you're already physically fit of course. If you do 90 min a day 5 times a week like Twistserve said, 4.0 to 5.0 should be achievable within half a year. Beyond 5.0 you get better faster by playing lots of games and tournament to experience all the different styles.

 

[young92117]

Basically hitting almost everyday, concentrating on the form that will get your consistency, depth, and power. It's tough to find people that will play with you regularly.. then you also need match play for experience cause lots of players find themselves hitting well in practice and choking in matches.

Put the time to it.. almost anything is doable.

or..

if you have the $$$, anything can happen also.. you can get private lessons 90 minutes a day 5 times a week for a full year.. with various instructors, etc.. you'll improve faster then a hard kick serve screaming by your opponent.

hah hah.. I don't think I have that much to spend... I wish I could.. :mrgreen:

I am currently taking a class which is offered in local college. It is far from the private lesson from teaching pro.. but should be better than nothing.. also way cheaper, too...

One thing the class helped me most was ( I took one of their advanced beginner class last quarter, too) to find the group of people that I can play tennis with. It's kind of hard to find the right people when you are beginner.

Although I was a bit disppointed that the people that I met on my last class was not really good enough to challenge me, it was certainly better than not playing tennis at all.

I am taking their intermediate class this summer so I hope I can find more people who are in about same level as me.

Once I find the good person to hit some balls, I'll try to play as much as I can.
Thanks for help!

 

[Phil Daddario]

Not necessarily, as I already stated.

You don't make your breakthroughs, you have the coach doing it for you. You'll play like a 5.0 in practice with fed balls, and turn into a 3.0 when the balls aren't fed to you. That's a huge difference.

The kid needs to learn discipline. How to think for himself, play for himself, and be able to be willing to work out problems and things on their own without a coach sitting in the back doing it for them. Seriously, with all of that, how can you even enjoy tennis? And many people, especially juniors, are bound to just lose interest, no matter how much they thought they were "into" tennis before.

The person taking the constant lessons never thinks about what they have to do. The drills, circumstances, whatever, are all set up with clear guidelines. The "tactics" and command of the ball in actual situations go to hell, as the "tactics" they hear about are on fed balls to a certain place, or simply talked about by the coach.

The person has to figure it out for themself.



I'm editing this for the last post. Young, the matches, rallies, and basic "workout" type instruction is great for developing. It teaches you the basics, and you can apply them immediately in all situations. A private lesson is definitely useful for people to see exactly what you're doing and work on that. But it's not as essential as so many people make it out to be. If you have the money, an occasional one is fine. As in once a week even for those with money, or often much less or just whenever you feel you have some extreme error you need to work out.

 

[x Southpaw x]

Hm.
Find a backboard/wall and spend lots of time there rallying against the wall.
Important thing to take note is make sure you use the proper strokes that your coach has taught you and not rubbish shots that I see so often at the wall I play at.
If you coach had taught you all the correct strokes, grip, backswing, down-to-up swing, follow-through, topspin etc... practicing at the wall often should get you to at least a 3.0 or 3.5 in less than a year I think. My estimate. =P

 

[Indiantwist]

Nothing beats Interest, Dedication and Hardwork.

If you believe in urself that you are going to be a 4.0 player you sure can be!.
Honestly you can even achieve it with out a regular coach. Just pick one thing at a time (say forehand for few weeks, BH for few weeks, serve for few weeks etc).
If you can use a Video Camcorder it will help you even further.

Lastly u dont really worry abt coach. This forum has experts in abudance. Just put the video in and u will get so much depth and analysis that even your coach would be surprised.

A great person once said "If you can dream it. You can achieve it". Not exactly true but one can achive realistic targets. becoming a 4.0 from 2.0 is not all difficult as it made out to be. Someone learns fast and someone slow.

(sometime in the not so distant past when i was new to tennis,someone refused to play me quoting that its a waste of his time and mine. That player is rated at 4.0. I worked on it myself and to cut the story short..i beat the pulp out of that guy so many times. Also ppl agreed that my strokes are much better than his's)

 

[SocalTennis]

I went from 2.0 to 4.0 over one Summer, I'm a solid 5.5 now. That was way back when I was 15. All you need is a couple of guys that have the same goal--getting better that is--and hit everyday for about 6 to 8 hours a day 5 days a week. Also you should invest in a ball basket that can hold at least 150 balls so you guys can feed to each other. While practicing, you must be conscious of every single shot and catch your own mistakes. They say "practice make perfect", so just hit a lot of balls and you'll get better. Always stick with the basics and you'll be fine.

 

[TennsDog]

Do a search for thread number 57511 or "4.0 one year"

 

[young92117]

How can I use backboard effectively to bring my tennis level?

Hm.
Find a backboard/wall and spend lots of time there rallying against the wall.
Important thing to take note is make sure you use the proper strokes that your coach has taught you and not rubbish shots that I see so often at the wall I play at.
If you coach had taught you all the correct strokes, grip, backswing, down-to-up swing, follow-through, topspin etc... practicing at the wall often should get you to at least a 3.0 or 3.5 in less than a year I think. My estimate. =P

I do use the wall quite often mainly because I had hard time to find the person that I can play with.

Somehow, I have hard time to use the backboard to rally. I need to hit certain way (slow and right amount of power and right directon so that it bounced back to where I am) to continue the rally. Maybe, I'm not used to with the wall but I don't see how I can practice the direction and placement with the wall. For example, how can you hit cross court shot with the backboard? I mean, I can hit it for one time but then..bang!! the ball bounce to other direction and there is no way for me to continue that rally.

I also have hard time to switch between Fh and Bh in time. But, working with the wall doesn't give me too much opportunity to practice this.

For FH rally with the wall, if I hit certain way that I described, I can continue rally for 10-15 hit. Maybe more but I get board around that time so I start to do something else such as hitting hard or adding more spin to the ball... than rapidly lost the control and rally ends..

Do you have any good ideas or drills that I can do with the wall?
Thanks!

 

[young92117]

I went from 2.0 to 4.0 over one Summer, I'm a solid 5.5 now. That was way back when I was 15. All you need is a couple of guys that have the same goal--getting better that is--and hit everyday for about 6 to 8 hours a day 5 days a week. Also you should invest in a ball basket that can hold at least 150 balls so you guys can feed to each other. While practicing, you must be conscious of every single shot and catch your own mistakes. They say "practice make perfect", so just hit a lot of balls and you'll get better. Always stick with the basics and you'll be fine.

Wow.. 5.5 :shock: Lucky you!!! I don't even have too much people that I can play tennis with... No one to work with together.. No one to feed me some balls .. :-|

I guess 5 days a week is the magic formula since so many people in here suggested.. I will definitely set a plan to hit some balls 5 days week for this summer.. I am also thinking about investing for more balls and ball basket. Although I don't have anyone to feed me some balls, but I guess I can work on my serve at least. Thanks for your help!

 

[young92117]

Nothing beats Interest, Dedication and Hardwork.

If you believe in urself that you are going to be a 4.0 player you sure can be!.
Honestly you can even achieve it with out a regular coach. Just pick one thing at a time (say forehand for few weeks, BH for few weeks, serve for few weeks etc).
If you can use a Video Camcorder it will help you even further.

Lastly u dont really worry abt coach. This forum has experts in abudance. Just put the video in and u will get so much depth and analysis that even your coach would be surprised.

A great person once said "If you can dream it. You can achieve it". Not exactly true but one can achive realistic targets. becoming a 4.0 from 2.0 is not all difficult as it made out to be. Someone learns fast and someone slow.

(sometime in the not so distant past when i was new to tennis,someone refused to play me quoting that its a waste of his time and mine. That player is rated at 4.0. I worked on it myself and to cut the story short..i beat the pulp out of that guy so many times. Also ppl agreed that my strokes are much better than his's)

Thanks for your encouraging word! Would you mind your sharing your experience of going from 2.0 to 4.0. I don't mind detail. Actually, I prefer detail so you don't have cut story short as long as you don't mind typing long story for me. I am really interested to know how you bring up your level. It seems like you didn't get 5 days a week private lesson, either.

 

[SageOfDeath]

What does it take to be a 4.0 in a year?

Dedication
Time
Patience
Lessons

Taking lessons can help you a lot because you need someone to correct your strokes for you. Private lessons are not necessary but they would help. Also try to remember one thing they teach you and remember it and apply it. Maybe rent a ball machine and try to apply what they taught you.

I hope you reach your goal and I'm sure if you truly want to improve and take the time and effort to do it you will.

 

[Indiantwist]

From what i can read from your posts, you are determined to get to 4.0 asap. That strong determination itself would propel you to the next levels.

This post will be lengthy but feel free to skip. This routine may or may not work for you. Also note that you find lots of ppl at levels 3.0-5.0.Everybody got there a bit different. I also apologise if this is Boring.



The first thing i did was identifying what iam doing some what correctly and what is worse (at 2.0 most of things are incorrect but there will be few positives.).
I realized that i got some serving power (at 2.0 most of my serves are long or hit the net.But i saw that i can serve real easy with smooth motion andthat i took as positive). Ask your opponents and see what they say .

SERVE:
Knowing the importance of serve, i setup a routine. I would take 10 balls with me to tennis court atleast 3 times a week. I would Hit all the serves from Deuce court and then move to the other side of net. From here i would hit serves from AD court. I repeat this routine 2-3 times (I never exceeded 4 reps ever) and go home. While i experimented a lot with placement of my serves, i always made sure that i served my SECOND serves atleast 50% everyday. my second serve even today is a Kick serve with mild Twist. However it kicks very high and i also place it well and that mild twist adds more complexity.

For fast serves i picked 2 spots. Wide and down the T. once i got comfortable placingthe ball in those places it became extremely easy to move it around.

These days depending on opponent, i sometimes have a first serve with little less pace and more spin.

Whenever i played matches, i would use what i practised. I lost many matches which i could hve won by DINKING my second serves and i also WON matches which i would have lost if i DINKED.

Serve is something you can see improvement very easily. if you setup any regular routine for you, i would bet that you can see improvement in few weeks.

In case you havent gotten a decent serve yet, just note Serve is the easiest of strokes to learn (per me ofcourse) cause u need no partner.You can see results yourself (eg: if your serve lands deep in service box and bounces higher than 5 feet or so you know you are improving. once it consistently starts going up beyond that and also spinning in diff direction, you are talking some serious serving acumen here)

Dont forget that you have this forum. Before i began posting, i was reading this forum a lot and we got some great experts and great posts. i tried applying that knowledge and it became much easier.

One great tip i got (which catapulted my serve from a OK serve to a GOOD serve ) is holding the racquet so that the butt is inside the palm. This is like adding an extra inch or two to the racquet and this added pace and control to my serves.


I never had any coaching advise. A coach looked at my serve during a tournament and said that he didnt believe i got this serve with out coaching.



Forehands :

I moved from eastern grip to Semi western and was hitting regularly with whoever i can find. i will play with anyone regardless of the level. If the guy is playing at lower level i would impose a few restrictions myself. (eg: i wouldnt LOB to this guy but try passing him). Against a better opponent, have realistic goals (eg: i will win atleast 2 -3 games this set etc)

It took me a long time to realy understand the Windshield wiper motion to generate TopSpin. Take the one month free subscription to Tennisplayer.net and analyze the videos carefully. Make a video of yourself and see!. thats all you need. If you can afford may be have a membership there (other than being a member like many i am not affiliated with them in anyway).

Backhand:
I have the worst back hand ever. All i can do is slice and i can do this all day. I dont even know how i developed this. However my slices stick deep into the opponents court and also have a decent placement. Hence i could withstand 4.0's.


phewwwwwwwwwww......too lenghty.

I apologise if some of it sounded like a Rave. My intention is not that and i dont think i am federer yet (He still is scared to play me though!)

I forgot to add, The biggest difference maker is your racquet. As some of members know i used to use a 9.2OZ head heavy racquet. Now i use a Babolat PD+.
What it changed was my game style. Earlier i was a pusher/counter puncher or whatever. I used to force opponents to make errors by keeping more balls in play, by using lobs, drops, spins, strategy etc.
Now i RIP the ball for winners. i get my own points.
I can always go back to being a Pusher/counter puncher if needed in a game.

 

[x Southpaw x]

I do use the wall quite often mainly because I had hard time to find the person that I can play with.

Somehow, I have hard time to use the backboard to rally. I need to hit certain way (slow and right amount of power and right directon so that it bounced back to where I am) to continue the rally. Maybe, I'm not used to with the wall but I don't see how I can practice the direction and placement with the wall. For example, how can you hit cross court shot with the backboard? I mean, I can hit it for one time but then..bang!! the ball bounce to other direction and there is no way for me to continue that rally.

I also have hard time to switch between Fh and Bh in time. But, working with the wall doesn't give me too much opportunity to practice this.

For FH rally with the wall, if I hit certain way that I described, I can continue rally for 10-15 hit. Maybe more but I get board around that time so I start to do something else such as hitting hard or adding more spin to the ball... than rapidly lost the control and rally ends..

Do you have any good ideas or drills that I can do with the wall?
Thanks!

10-15 hits is not enough =P Use topspin full swing FH to rally straight against the wall. Topspin against the wall will cause the ball to bounce further away from the wall and closer to you. Just do nothing but keep hitting straight. Personally I can do FH only straight shots on the wall for seemingly forever until my forearm muscles gain fatigue. If you can do that, you've gotten really good at FH direction. On the real court, if you want to hit crosscourt, just face crosscourt and hit straight crosscourt.

FH is a lot easier, personally for me my BH direction is decent but my 1 hand BH has a bit of sidespin on it, so doing pure BH straight shots on the wall is more difficult for me. But just keep practicing the same thing with BH anyway. I can do 2 hand BH on the wall till forearm fatigue too but I prefer 1BH in gameplay =P

Groundstrokes on wall is good for practicing direction and motion only. No good for depth and power.

For serves, use the wall only to practice your service motion. Don't ever care about the results of your serve on the wall, it'll screw with the results of your serve on actual court.

Volley are tough to practice on wall because you can't practice your footwork much with the wall, ball bounces back too fast, and 90% of volleys are footwork.

For overheads, stand in no man's land, smash into service court such that ball bounces onto the wall and up into the air. If you can do 6 overheads in a row, that's quite decent.

EDIT: Wall is no good for drop shots. If you want to get funk and try the tweener, practice tweener only for motion, not results, same reason as serve.

 

[young92117]

Thanks!

Thanks!
This IS exactly what I wanted to read. Thanks again!

Serve is your best shot? It is my weakest area. I envy you!
BH is the best stroke for me. I mean my FH is still better than my BH but a lot of people say very good thing about my BH mechanics. On very good day, my BH looks like 3.5's BH.... But, I can't hit slice with my BH for some reason

Anyway, thanks for your help and all of "tried and true" pointers!

From what i can read from your posts, you are determined to get to 4.0 asap. That strong determination itself would propel you to the next levels.

This post will be lengthy but feel free to skip. This routine may or may not work for you. Also note that you find lots of ppl at levels 3.0-5.0.Everybody got there a bit different. I also apologise if this is Boring.



The first thing i did was identifying what iam doing some what correctly and what is worse (at 2.0 most of things are incorrect but there will be few positives.).
I realized that i got some serving power (at 2.0 most of my serves are long or hit the net.But i saw that i can serve real easy with smooth motion andthat i took as positive). Ask your opponents and see what they say .

SERVE:
Knowing the importance of serve, i setup a routine. I would take 10 balls with me to tennis court atleast 3 times a week. I would Hit all the serves from Deuce court and then move to the other side of net. From here i would hit serves from AD court. I repeat this routine 2-3 times (I never exceeded 4 reps ever) and go home. While i experimented a lot with placement of my serves, i always made sure that i served my SECOND serves atleast 50% everyday. my second serve even today is a Kick serve with mild Twist. However it kicks very high and i also place it well and that mild twist adds more complexity.

For fast serves i picked 2 spots. Wide and down the T. once i got comfortable placingthe ball in those places it became extremely easy to move it around.

These days depending on opponent, i sometimes have a first serve with little less pace and more spin.

Whenever i played matches, i would use what i practised. I lost many matches which i could hve won by DINKING my second serves and i also WON matches which i would have lost if i DINKED.

Serve is something you can see improvement very easily. if you setup any regular routine for you, i would bet that you can see improvement in few weeks.

In case you havent gotten a decent serve yet, just note Serve is the easiest of strokes to learn (per me ofcourse) cause u need no partner.You can see results yourself (eg: if your serve lands deep in service box and bounces higher than 5 feet or so you know you are improving. once it consistently starts going up beyond that and also spinning in diff direction, you are talking some serious serving acumen here)

Dont forget that you have this forum. Before i began posting, i was reading this forum a lot and we got some great experts and great posts. i tried applying that knowledge and it became much easier.

One great tip i got (which catapulted my serve from a OK serve to a GOOD serve ) is holding the racquet so that the butt is inside the palm. This is like adding an extra inch or two to the racquet and this added pace and control to my serves.


I never had any coaching advise. A coach looked at my serve during a tournament and said that he didnt believe i got this serve with out coaching.



Forehands :

I moved from eastern grip to Semi western and was hitting regularly with whoever i can find. i will play with anyone regardless of the level. If the guy is playing at lower level i would impose a few restrictions myself. (eg: i wouldnt LOB to this guy but try passing him). Against a better opponent, have realistic goals (eg: i will win atleast 2 -3 games this set etc)

It took me a long time to realy understand the Windshield wiper motion to generate TopSpin. Take the one month free subscription to Tennisplayer.net and analyze the videos carefully. Make a video of yourself and see!. thats all you need. If you can afford may be have a membership there (other than being a member like many i am not affiliated with them in anyway).

Backhand:
I have the worst back hand ever. All i can do is slice and i can do this all day. I dont even know how i developed this. However my slices stick deep into the opponents court and also have a decent placement. Hence i could withstand 4.0's.


phewwwwwwwwwww......too lenghty.

I apologise if some of it sounded like a Rave. My intention is not that and i dont think i am federer yet (He still is scared to play me though!)

I forgot to add, The biggest difference maker is your racquet. As some of members know i used to use a 9.2OZ head heavy racquet. Now i use a Babolat PD+.
What it changed was my game style. Earlier i was a pusher/counter puncher or whatever. I used to force opponents to make errors by keeping more balls in play, by using lobs, drops, spins, strategy etc.
Now i RIP the ball for winners. i get my own points.
I can always go back to being a Pusher/counter puncher if needed in a game.

 

[young92117]

Thanks for a lot of good ideas!

A lot of good stuffs... I'll try these next time..

I mostly hit with the flat shot maybe that's why I had hard time with the ball..
Anyway I'll work on that part and try to hit more rally with the topspin..

Thanks for all the good ideas! BTW, a very cool avata! Are you fan of the prince of tennis? I wish I can hit twist serve like ryoma... :mrgreen:

10-15 hits is not enough =P Use topspin full swing FH to rally straight against the wall. Topspin against the wall will cause the ball to bounce further away from the wall and closer to you. Just do nothing but keep hitting straight. Personally I can do FH only straight shots on the wall for seemingly forever until my forearm muscles gain fatigue. If you can do that, you've gotten really good at FH direction. On the real court, if you want to hit crosscourt, just face crosscourt and hit straight crosscourt.

FH is a lot easier, personally for me my BH direction is decent but my 1 hand BH has a bit of sidespin on it, so doing pure BH straight shots on the wall is more difficult for me. But just keep practicing the same thing with BH anyway. I can do 2 hand BH on the wall till forearm fatigue too but I prefer 1BH in gameplay =P

Groundstrokes on wall is good for practicing direction and motion only. No good for depth and power.

For serves, use the wall only to practice your service motion. Don't ever care about the results of your serve on the wall, it'll screw with the results of your serve on actual court.

Volley are tough to practice on wall because you can't practice your footwork much with the wall, ball bounces back too fast, and 90% of volleys are footwork.

For overheads, stand in no man's land, smash into service court such that ball bounces onto the wall and up into the air. If you can do 6 overheads in a row, that's quite decent.

EDIT: Wall is no good for drop shots. If you want to get funk and try the tweener, practice tweener only for motion, not results, same reason as serve.

 

[x Southpaw x]

A lot of good stuffs... I'll try these next time..

I mostly hit with the flat shot maybe that's why I had hard time with the ball..
Anyway I'll work on that part and try to hit more rally with the topspin..

Thanks for all the good ideas! BTW, a very cool avata! Are you fan of the prince of tennis? I wish I can hit twist serve like ryoma... :mrgreen:

Haha yeah. I'm sort of a Ryoma-wannabe. I'm a lefty, can play with my right hand and do so against much weaker players, and I wear a cap often too while playing tennis. My twist serve is with my left hand though, and my swing volley is too inconsistent. Cyclone smash is freak impossible. My volleys aren't good enough for Drive A and its evil anyway. Oh and I'm sure right-handed pros can hit Ryoma's Twist Serve into-the-body consistently, except they can't get it to kick at head-level at command.

 

[kevhen]

What is a cyclone smash? I think I hit a couple of those last night playing doubles. I hit a very hard smash with tons of slice spin included and the thing curved 4-5 feet and made for an impossible volley for the netman as I hit it maybe 5 feet from him but it curved in on him and was still curving and moving very fast when he tried to play it. It's difficult to hit since you are slicing and smashing the ball at the same time and if you hit the ball too softly the netman will eat it up so I just let it rip and tried to keep it hard and low so it wouldn't sail long. I use an eastern forehand grip (maybe for more power) so it's different from my slice serve where I use an eastern backhand grip. Had it bounced it would have been moving at a 90 degree angle from the direction it was originally struck at. Pretty cool shot, I forgot I had that in my trick bag, the Cyclone Smash.

 

[x Southpaw x]

What is a cyclone smash? I think I hit a couple of those last night playing doubles. I hit a very hard smash with tons of slice spin included and the thing curved 4-5 feet and made for an impossible volley for the netman as I hit it maybe 5 feet from him but it curved in on him and was still curving and moving very fast when he tried to play it. It's difficult to hit since you are slicing and smashing the ball at the same time and if you hit the ball too softly the netman will eat it up so I just let it rip and tried to keep it hard and low so it wouldn't sail long. I use an eastern forehand grip (maybe for more power) so it's different from my slice serve where I use an eastern backhand grip. Had it bounced it would have been moving at a 90 degree angle from the direction it was originally struck at. Pretty cool shot, I forgot I had that in my trick bag, the Cyclone Smash.

NO NO NO. Ryoma's Cyclone Smash is Impossible. He jumps up impossibly high into the air, spiraling up, uses the momentum from turning 360 degrees, and smashes an overhead winner. No one in the anime could even touch his cyclone smash. Rikkaidai School's vice captain(the best school, second only to Ryoma's school) Sanada could only touch the cyclone smash when Ryoma had gotten much more tired and weaker. Later in the set, he could return the cyclone smash because Ryoma was more than half-dead.

 

[kevhen]

Oh, I thought the ball spun and moved like a cyclone. I guess the cyclone smash is more like a Pete Sampras flying high kind of smash.