I haven’t posted in a while (yet again) as I have been very busy attending family and work responsibilities. The other reason is that I haven’t done anything spectacular in the recent times worth posting.
Despite the busy schedule, I managed to play Tennis last Saturday (5/17) and Badminton last Wednesday (the season was of course over) and managed to cheer World #2 Rafael Nadal to master series victory and Los Angeles Lakers to a lead in Western conference finals.
First on Tennis. Jack and I squared off once again on Saturday evening. Weather was decent with only occasional breeze but enough to provide some advantage from one side of the court. As you all know my knees have been bothering me (for no real reason..yet) and impacted my movement in many of the past matches. For this match, I had some preparation time and I warmed up a bit before heading to the courts. My game relies heavily on my ability to chase down balls and put them back in with topspin at strategic locations on opponent’s court.
I started off the game by breaking jack’s serve and then holding my own. There were some good rallies and one or two long deep rallies. I didn’t go with any particular strategy. I wanted to focus on the “low to high” swing motion of the racquet that generated top spin and that’s what I did most of the match. I took care of the transition game (ability to move back and forth, switch from one kind of shot into another) and picked spots to go aggressive. I won 6-2. In the second set , I was leading 5-0 and 40-30 up when I lost focus (and energy) and Jack seized the opportunity to play some fantastic tennis to make it 5-3. Realistically 5-0 is a steep deficit to overcome (though many people have done it in the past) and I won the set. All in all a good match. My serve is also showing some signs of life and it bodes well for me. I was happy with my backhand. I managed to hit a few aggressive shots and I believe my defense from backhand improved a bit- thanks to ball machine.
On Sunday I watched how Rafael Nadal won against Federer in the master series final. This is a best of 3 sets final and Roger federer had sizeable leads in both sets only for Nadal to fight back and take the match away. Federer led 5-1 in first set, lost 7-5. While lot of analysis can be done (and some already done at Tennis.com) I observed some useful stuff for me. It is no secret that I am big fan of Federer and Nadal with me taking Nadal side when these two great players square off. My game at a very very very vague level resembles that of Nadal while I do show some characteristics of Federer’s game.
In Recreational Tennis, there are some main offensive strategies.
1) Your strengths Vs Opponents weakness
You use your strengths (eg:forehand) to target opponents weakness (eg:backhand)
2) Your strengths Vs Opponents strengths
You match up your best shots (eg: cross court forehand) against opponents (eg: forehand)
3) Hide your weakness
You try to hide your weakness (eg: backhand) and play more on your strengths.
(eg: run around your backhand and hit forehands)
4) Hide opponents strengths
You don’t give your opponent an opportunity to hit his strong shots.
Eg: Keep the ball to in the middle of the court to cut away angles.
Or hit towards backhand corner so that he can’t hit forehands etc.
5) Your Strengths
You don’t care what your opponent does or doesn’t. Instead you focus on your strengths and go along with them.
Eg: Hit a blistering array of forehands and over powers your opponent.
6) You feel innovative
You don’t care what the score/result is. You play what you deem fit and what makes you enjoy the game.
There are several more but mostly variations of the above. Also there isn’t one single strategy you would use whole game. In reality, in a given point, one may use all of the above strategies. The best strategy would be to carefully monitor the game, score and analyze the situation and vary your strategies.
Eg: You are leading 2 sets to love and a break up in 3 rd. If you are in a mood, may be you can use (5 – your strengths) or (6- you feel innovative) or keep doing what you did so far that got you the big lead in first place.
Strengths, Weakness and Innovation are the elements of Tennis Triangle offense. I am working on a developing a structured Offense system in Tennis (for all you know it could be a old wine in new bottle type of scenario). As a vivid follower of Basket ball I have seen several concepts of structured offense in basket ball and I think I can apply some of them for tennis. One specific item that caught my eye was the Triangle offense. What an intriguing offense system. I won’t be able to provide full justice to describe it but it is sufficient to say this. At its peak, this is one of the most spectacular, free flowing offenses that basket ball has ever seen and provide several options to shoot the ball. This shouldn’t come as a surprise- The NBA team that uses this offense: LosAngeles Lakers. NewJersey nets and few other teams do use parts of this system but they generally use picks and screens. More on Tennis Triangle offense later.
The Badminton season was officially over and I missed the last two sessions. There was a different club where they play for few more weeks and couples of friends from work were playing there and invited me over. So I went last Wednesday. I actually played a lot better than I did in the recent times. My transition game and movement are coming back to me and I managed to hit a few back hand winners. I enjoyed the session a lot as I have been on the down trend for quite some time. This club plays for 3 more weeks though I don’t plan on playing there unless there is inclement weather and I am dying to get some sports action.
Though it is long weekend for most, for our family it is business as usual as my wife will be working Saturday and Sunday. I will try to squeeze out some time for Ball machine and may be a tennis match or two. On Monday, French open begins and that should take care of next two weeks as I will be busy watching DVR’s of matches.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Tennis and Basket Ball
I have been a bit busy and didn’t get chance to update my Blog.
I last played on 26 April (really seems like a long while ago) with Jack. The score was 4-6 and 6-1. I lost the first set but came back strong to win the second.
There isn’t much to really point out from the match. My knees have been bothering me for sometime. My wife thinks it is because of all the antibiotics I am taking for the cold and throat infections. It greatly impacted my movement and ability to hit the ball cleanly. I often guessed on opponent and I paid for it. The score board for first set shows that I lost 4-6 but it should really be 2-6. Wind helped me on couple of points and I blindly attacked on some points that came up my way. Jack moved me very well and played smart tennis. Towards second set I felt much better. Knees are still hurting (I felt pain as late as Monday) but I was warm enough to move a little better. I also found my range on some of the shots. Jack’s form dipped (he later indicated that he rushed into his shots as a whole battalion of people were waiting for us to finish the match so that they can take the court). I didn’t really have much trouble in second set and towards later part of the set; I was in full control never seriously under pressure. I served a lot better than I did in earlier matches.
Here is the summary of my season so far. I have only included matches after 01 Apr 08.
Opponent Venue Date To Against
JC Charter Oak 3-Apr-08 6 2
JC EHRC 11-Apr-08 5 7
JC Glastonbury 18-Apr-08 6 3
JC Glastonbury 18-Apr-08 6 2
JC Glastonbury 20-Apr-08 6 4
JC Glastonbury 20-Apr-08 6 2
JC Aspen Woods 25-Apr-08 4 6
JC Aspen Woods 25-Apr-08 6 1
Summary 45 27
So in summary I won 45 games and lost 27 of them. I won 6 sets and lost 2 sets.
Last week the weather was real bad and I didn’t get any tennis action. Finally I got the ball machine out on Sunday and me and my wife had a great session with it. I practiced Backhands and cross court forehands. I am hitting backhands very cleanly and the more topspin and bounce on the ball, the better my shot was. I got the hang of good technique and I can go cross court as well as down the line. Very happy with the progress.
In that process I also discovered another flaw. I am generally late on my backhand shots because I don’t treat it as an offensive option. Now that I played around with ball machine, I can see that and I tried to over run the ball. The result—I have more time to setup for the shot and more options (eg: cross court, down the line etc).
I also drilled some cross court forehands and rediscovered a lost art of mine—change of grips. In the past seasons, I used to change my grip (I regularly use mild semi western) based on the opponents shot. On high bouncing balls, I used to go western and take a big cut at the ball. This results in more topspin, high clearance at the net and more angles. Off late I have been real lazy and try to over hit with one grip. Have to change that bad habit and get back into using multiple grips.
Needless to say, the ball machine workout is great and allowing me to really work on my game. If I can have another 5-10 such sessions, my game will be greatly improved. One thing I couldn’t do yet was to practice serve- the single most important shot of the game. I plan on working on it very soon.
Btw my wife has a great double handed backhand. I was very impressed with the way she was hitting the backhands. If I can spend some more time with her and probably some training, she can become a good player and enjoy tennis.
In NBA , my team Lakers swept Nuggets and moved to Western conference semi finals and played Utah Jazz yesterday. However I am a little sad that Dallas maverics and Phoenix suns both lost in first round of Play offs. These two teams play an offensive brand of basket ball that is very entertaining and fun to watch. Their Run and gun style of play allows them to score lots of points in the game. But their lack of defense hurt them most. Teams like SanAntonio Spurs, Detroit Pistons (and Lakers to an extent) play suffocating defense and tie down opponent’s offense. Once the wheels come of the Offense, these teams struggle a lot.
As they say “Offense fills up stands. Defense wins championships”.
Same deal in tennis. One can’t rely too much on offense with out playing proper defense. Players like Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic play great defense all along and can switch into offense effortlessly once the moment presents itself. That’s why they are Grand slam champions. By the way I followed the Monte Carlo Clay court tournament final between Nadal and Federer. It is a great lesson for recreational tennis players like me. Federer played very smart and used lot of angles and wizardry to dominate Nadal in patches. Nadal relied on old tested and proven ‘Heavy topspin into Federer’s backhand ‘ tactic. In the end Nadal’s forehand is too much to handle for Federer’s backhand as Federer couldn’t sustain his level of play across two sets. Not sure how he can handle that in a best of five sets in the French Open Grand slam. In any case I don’t have strong enough tennis resume to advise Roger Federer on what he needs to do.
This week is looking much better in terms of weather. However my schedule is such that, I can only play on evenings and that too on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I have Badminton on Wednesday. There are only two more Badminton sessions left and for all practical purposes this will be the last meaningful session. The last day of badminton is usually Pizza party followed by badminton and usually very less of badminton. Depending on how crazy I feel about tennis, I may skip badminton this week.
I last played on 26 April (really seems like a long while ago) with Jack. The score was 4-6 and 6-1. I lost the first set but came back strong to win the second.
There isn’t much to really point out from the match. My knees have been bothering me for sometime. My wife thinks it is because of all the antibiotics I am taking for the cold and throat infections. It greatly impacted my movement and ability to hit the ball cleanly. I often guessed on opponent and I paid for it. The score board for first set shows that I lost 4-6 but it should really be 2-6. Wind helped me on couple of points and I blindly attacked on some points that came up my way. Jack moved me very well and played smart tennis. Towards second set I felt much better. Knees are still hurting (I felt pain as late as Monday) but I was warm enough to move a little better. I also found my range on some of the shots. Jack’s form dipped (he later indicated that he rushed into his shots as a whole battalion of people were waiting for us to finish the match so that they can take the court). I didn’t really have much trouble in second set and towards later part of the set; I was in full control never seriously under pressure. I served a lot better than I did in earlier matches.
Here is the summary of my season so far. I have only included matches after 01 Apr 08.
Opponent Venue Date To Against
JC Charter Oak 3-Apr-08 6 2
JC EHRC 11-Apr-08 5 7
JC Glastonbury 18-Apr-08 6 3
JC Glastonbury 18-Apr-08 6 2
JC Glastonbury 20-Apr-08 6 4
JC Glastonbury 20-Apr-08 6 2
JC Aspen Woods 25-Apr-08 4 6
JC Aspen Woods 25-Apr-08 6 1
Summary 45 27
So in summary I won 45 games and lost 27 of them. I won 6 sets and lost 2 sets.
Last week the weather was real bad and I didn’t get any tennis action. Finally I got the ball machine out on Sunday and me and my wife had a great session with it. I practiced Backhands and cross court forehands. I am hitting backhands very cleanly and the more topspin and bounce on the ball, the better my shot was. I got the hang of good technique and I can go cross court as well as down the line. Very happy with the progress.
In that process I also discovered another flaw. I am generally late on my backhand shots because I don’t treat it as an offensive option. Now that I played around with ball machine, I can see that and I tried to over run the ball. The result—I have more time to setup for the shot and more options (eg: cross court, down the line etc).
I also drilled some cross court forehands and rediscovered a lost art of mine—change of grips. In the past seasons, I used to change my grip (I regularly use mild semi western) based on the opponents shot. On high bouncing balls, I used to go western and take a big cut at the ball. This results in more topspin, high clearance at the net and more angles. Off late I have been real lazy and try to over hit with one grip. Have to change that bad habit and get back into using multiple grips.
Needless to say, the ball machine workout is great and allowing me to really work on my game. If I can have another 5-10 such sessions, my game will be greatly improved. One thing I couldn’t do yet was to practice serve- the single most important shot of the game. I plan on working on it very soon.
Btw my wife has a great double handed backhand. I was very impressed with the way she was hitting the backhands. If I can spend some more time with her and probably some training, she can become a good player and enjoy tennis.
In NBA , my team Lakers swept Nuggets and moved to Western conference semi finals and played Utah Jazz yesterday. However I am a little sad that Dallas maverics and Phoenix suns both lost in first round of Play offs. These two teams play an offensive brand of basket ball that is very entertaining and fun to watch. Their Run and gun style of play allows them to score lots of points in the game. But their lack of defense hurt them most. Teams like SanAntonio Spurs, Detroit Pistons (and Lakers to an extent) play suffocating defense and tie down opponent’s offense. Once the wheels come of the Offense, these teams struggle a lot.
As they say “Offense fills up stands. Defense wins championships”.
Same deal in tennis. One can’t rely too much on offense with out playing proper defense. Players like Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic play great defense all along and can switch into offense effortlessly once the moment presents itself. That’s why they are Grand slam champions. By the way I followed the Monte Carlo Clay court tournament final between Nadal and Federer. It is a great lesson for recreational tennis players like me. Federer played very smart and used lot of angles and wizardry to dominate Nadal in patches. Nadal relied on old tested and proven ‘Heavy topspin into Federer’s backhand ‘ tactic. In the end Nadal’s forehand is too much to handle for Federer’s backhand as Federer couldn’t sustain his level of play across two sets. Not sure how he can handle that in a best of five sets in the French Open Grand slam. In any case I don’t have strong enough tennis resume to advise Roger Federer on what he needs to do.
This week is looking much better in terms of weather. However my schedule is such that, I can only play on evenings and that too on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I have Badminton on Wednesday. There are only two more Badminton sessions left and for all practical purposes this will be the last meaningful session. The last day of badminton is usually Pizza party followed by badminton and usually very less of badminton. Depending on how crazy I feel about tennis, I may skip badminton this week.
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