Some Improvement – Tennis 10/27

I managed to win exactly 8 games – the target I originally set for myself. I had mixed results overall but there is certain upswing in my game and hopefully it will continue.

I started out with Carl. During the warm up I noticed that he has far better game than I thought he did. I won the toss and elected to serve. I quickly fell behind 0-40 but then pulled 2 great serves and a second serve winner to get it to Deuce and a service winner to pull out the game. From then on we went with Serve and I ended up with 4-3. There were some engaging rallies and I played some great defense to put pressure on him.

The toughest assignment for me was with Andy. I played him last year and managed to win 1 game. Well I ended up with the same result this time. Simply put he is a better player in every aspect except serve where we are even. I served very well but couldn’t get enough spin on the ball and this allowed him to bunt back the return. I only managed to win couple of rallies as he is really very good with volleys, overheads, approach shots, backhand, topspin forehand, etc. While I lost badly, I lost to a better player and I also fought very well. More importantly, he realized that he had to attack my backhand to win the points and that gives me further encouragement that my forehand and serve do belong in there with some of the best.

Last match is with Paul. This is when I ran out of steam and didn’t get good serves in. I quickly fell behind 3-0. I then made some strategic adjustments. I basically slowed down. I used my second serve as first serve and then also controlled rallies well with slow paced shots and some decent placement. This was enough to win the rest of the games and the end the night with total 8 game win.

I will stay at 7 pm even though all players showed up as Paul managed to win only 7 and hence he is most likely to drop down. Jack though achieved his target of 6 games in the prime time is going to drop down as that number isn’t enough to keep him up. So next week it will be Carl, Jack, I and some one from 0830 (or a sub). On paper Carl has the best chance to move up next week followed by Jack and then me. However if I play like I did yesterday against Carl, I will have a shot at prime time if I am lucky.

So the serve started kicking in. Forehand is improving. If I can get some more efficiency on them, I am golden.