Back after 10 years...

[mrzz]

Wow! For one reason or another I was out of a court for about ten years. In fact, since I stopped playing, as a teenager, I really never got going again. Just wanted to comment on two completely opposite things:

You hit the ball like you have never stopped.. it is amazing. But, on the other hand, you loose the timing like you have never played, it is a torture. If you´re out playing, just one out of twenty balls you end up hitting properly.

I wonder if someone around here had a similar experience...

 

[Billie]

Are you sore yet? Is it clay court you play on? How is it going now after a few days?

 

[mrzz]

Ugh! I was sore for two days... and, yes, it is clay. Most of the courts here are clay. Only twice in my life I have played on surfaces other than clay. I would love to try grass one day, but it probably won´t happen. But in fact I really like clay, anyway.

I will give another try later today. I played for more than three hours in the first day... the bad thing about tennis is that it is so time consuming. You need a parallel life in order to spend the time in court that you want.

 

[Billie]

I don't think there are too many regular grass courts unless you live in GB or Australia. I am pretty sure there isn't a proper grass court here in SW Ontario. They are mostly cement, hard court and indoors. They do have some indoor clay (green) but that is also rare.

 

[mrzz]

My second day in court was very very strange. But at least I could identify exactly what is troubling my game, which is the obvious answer: timing. But my cursing is as good as ever!

 

[mrzz]

Ha! I am playing better and better! It kills me that I hit the forehand with the same end movement of Nadal, i.e., I finish it over my head as I were roping a bull. Ugh!

Timing is a bit better now, it is strange that my top spin is way better than my slice, and I used to have a nice bh slice. I really thought it would take much more time to get the top spin right, specially in the bh side (one handed).

 

[mrzz]

Tennis has so many details, it is too fun to approach your own game with an "analytical" view. In the last ten years, in which I have not played, I followed more tennis on TV and in forums such as these, so I learned a lot about the game. I am using all the tricks to improve my playing.

I noticed I often forget to change grip. I noticed that I should bend my knees more. I noticed I need to turn more my body to the right to hit a forehand. I noticed I should use more "small steps" to correct my positioning prior to the shot. The list goes on... It is real fun to see the improvement after you make the right correction.

But I wanted to tell about a small detail. I had noticed that when I play a match I hit the ball earlier than when I am just hitting (and it makes me go wide frequently). I guess it was just anxiety to hit the ball, and I was having a bit of a hard time to correct this. But the thing is that it was hiding another error, which I found by accident.

I was hitting with someone who was kind of a beginner (I even hit a bit with my "wrong" hand with him, something I like to practice), when it started to rain. We kept on playing until it was possible, and my side of the court got wet first, specially the back court. So I started to play three or four steps inside. Guess what, with that I found out that I was playing too far back -- it is natural, since I came back after a long break, I had lost timing -- so you give yourself more space to make up the time. The price I payed was to hit the ball to far away from my body, when the racquet is well on its way up (in a top spin shot), so more often than I would like my shots would end up wide. Once I realized the positioning was wrong, I solved another problem. This "problem solving" side of tennis is just fantastic.