Why did I lose? (vid of me vs #2 player in club ladder)

[sez]

Maybe you were trying for too much with your fh back then, rather than let your heavy racquet do the work with more controlled swings? I think your strokes look much better then, especially on the bh side. Why not just go back to that and have a consistent forehand even if it is not overpowering? It's not as if your fh currently is such a weapon that it's winning you a ton of points. Some folks might be better suited to playing with a heavier racquet.

It's more than that, my first serve now is touching 100 my seconds in the high 80's. My forehand against most other opponents who give me the time to setup is a reliable weapon. That video from back then is some cuts off the good points most of the cuts are because of forehand shanks. Back then I used to do stupid things like run around my forehand and hit backhand winners, Now I'm slowly adding lead tape and trying to get that nice plowthrough backhand with smooth weight transfer back while retaining the rest of my game.

 

[mcs1970]

It's more than that, my first serve now is touching 100 my seconds in the high 80's. My forehand against most other opponents who give me the time to setup is a reliable weapon. That video from back then is some cuts off the good points most of the cuts are because of forehand shanks. Back then I used to do stupid things like run around my forehand and hit backhand winners, Now I'm slowly adding lead tape and trying to get that nice plowthrough backhand with smooth weight transfer back while retaining the rest of my game.

You know your own game best. However, one thing...you want to see what works against better players, and not just against players who might be below your level. I think you're in the right direction with adding lead tape and seeing if you can get some of your old bh going.

I still think you have a lot more time even against this opponent than you believe you have. Your speed is a weapon. Also your serve is a weapon but you stayed at the baseline even against many poor returns and never seized control of the point. All of us have weaknesses. Focus on your strengths too and try to take advantage of those. All the best.

 

[5263]

Been a long season, tried to take a top ladder spot and lost this match. I uploaded the first set, I had multiple break points, consistently getting into his serve but couldn't convert. He had 1/1 break pt converted for what its worth.

Tell me what I need to change, I've been recently trying an atp forehand and been overhauling my serve so I'm sure there are a bunch of technical problems I have to fix.
Also Its 10 degrees cold windy so I'm at like 80%. I included every single point even his last service game where I just mentally gave up and was thinking ahead to set 2.

Main issue is you don't have a solid mid-court attack....meaning that once you earn a short attackable ball, you really don't have solid weapons to do something with it.

On technical side, what kills your mid-ct fh attack and hurts your rally Fh....is that you don't hit the slot properly. When your hand starts forward aggressively, dragging the stick towards contact, the Rh is still higher than your hand....leaving it to bounce off the bottom during this critical alignment phase instead of having a nice stable ride in towards contact. This affects your trajectory control as the ball leaves the string.
Do more like the shot at 17secs and less like the one at 27 and 33secs...subtle but critical change.

 

[5263]

You start out looking pretty good on the serve with what appears to be a nice out front toss, (hard to see from this angle) but you let the toss drop too far before contact and essentially "drop" into contact after what looked like a promising launch up. Either it's timing or you just don't have the right mental image for the contact phase. Toss up and out, lauch up the ramp into the court for contact on the way up... and try to keep that left arm up a bit longer.

 

[Chas Tennis]

Been a long season, tried to take a top ladder spot and lost this match. I uploaded the first set, I had multiple break points, consistently getting into his serve but couldn't convert. He had 1/1 break pt converted for what its worth.

I'm in the pink.

This is Canada, so don't ask for a NTRP, but we are both top 5 in the ladder and my opponent won the club singles tournament so basically peak 3.0

Tell me what I need to change, I've been recently trying an atp forehand and been overhauling my serve so I'm sure there are a bunch of technical problems I have to fix.
Also Its 10 degrees cold windy so I'm at like 80%. I included every single point even his last service game where I just mentally gave up and was thinking ahead to set 2.

The video frame rate, 30 fps?, is too slow to look at this fastest part of the serve. 30 fps is 33 milliseconds between frames. Internal shoulder rotation begins and impacts the ball in well under that time for a high level serve. Also, not certain, but I believe that ISR should probably rotate the racket more of an angle than is shown between frame #1 & #2. Did the ISR rotate enough before impact? For the slice serve I believe that many lower level servers move toward impact with too little ISR and an angled racket face. I can't tell from this 30 fps video and it can also be hard to see in high speed videos.

Serve at 5:52. From racket motion on ball it was probably a slice serve. Not necessarily representative of your other serves.

Frame #1. Big L Position racket looks edge on to the ball - not a Waiter's Tray serve and at this checkpoint might still be a high level serve. Ball is lost at the tree-sky line and the black shirt lack of contrast makes arm invisible. Elbow is probably still bent. ? Direct sunlight video can be much better.

Frame #2. Just after impact, the ball has moved forward a little. The racket may not have rotated enough from start of ISR to impact. ? A better impression of the racket head rotation angle from ISR may show in the video, by stepping single frame between #1 & #2. Serve at 5:52.

Frame #3. ISR and pronation have continued racket head rotation past impact.

Frame #4. Reaches position of 'fully pronated' (racket face to side fence) an issue that we have discussed in some recent threads. My impression from the video is that there may be too little ISR and pronation before impact and more ISR & pronation after impact. Not all of your serves show 'fully pronated'. I believe that what happens this long after impact in the follow through can vary and that seeing fully pronated does not prove a high level serve. 'Fully pronated' is shown by many high level serves but not all.

This is a very high speed part of the serve that requires high speed video for analysis. If you want to look at strokes set up to look at strokes with bigger images and favorable contrast. ISR can be directly observed in direct sunlight by the shadows at the elbow. The camera must have small motion blur.

Here is a high level slice serve. 240 fps

To do stop action on Vimeo, click Vimeo, full screen, hold down the SHIFT KEY and use the ARROW KEYS.

I looked at one of your opponent's serves. and thought the technique might be better. But then there were some serves that were inconsistent....?? 30 fps is still too slow to see the ISR angle and timing.

 

[NLBwell]

Much of the time you play like you are just rallying. You are hitting looping shots that land just past the service line almost all the time. That's great if he doesn't take advantage of that (and he often didn't - a better player will punish you every time you hit one), but he's just a bit more consistent and a little faster than you, so he can move around and hit more forehands to your backhand. Your backhand is by far your weaker side.
Also, because you hit a loopy ball, if you do get him in trouble, he has time to recover and get back even in the point.
You need to work on varying your game more. Learn to love approach shots and volleying so you can beat guys that you can't out-grind. Work more flat shots and slice into your game.
Of course, you need to keep in mind that the most important shot in tennis is the serve, so practice it and make it better.

You've got to practice all these other parts of tennis, not just rally groundstrokes.