Recent Events

There has been a dramatic turn of events the last three weeks. My father fell ill and passed away on Christmas Eve after spending two weeks in hospital and now, I'm officially in mourning until the last week of December next year. All my plans to move out of my current place and set up my own little pottery studio and home have had to be drastically changed. Not to mention that my weight training and tennis have been on hold until today.

Hopefully things will start going back to normal now, though I'll have to start looking for a flat nearer to my stepmother's place so that I can help look after the old lady. She took very good care of my father and the least I can do is to make sure that she doesn't feel abandoned by me now that he's gone. I promised my father I'd look after her as best I can so long as either one of us lived. I needn't have done that because I was going to do it anyway but my father went to his grave believing that I'd always be untrustworthy and I didn't want him to worry about too much as he lay dying. It's all old history now so I won't go into a long, convoluted account about how and why my father thought of me as he did.

Starting off December slowly...

I started off November a little depressed and naturally enough, after quite a bit of binge eating. And to my great horror, I realised that I have man boobs when I lose muscle in my chest! Oh the shame. The humiliation...Oh...oh...oh but, having settled some of the things that made me depressed, I've started going back to the gym again.

It's quite hard trying to re-train my tennis strokes again with a new, differently balanced racquet, hitting hundreds of balls against the wall before going off to the gym and hoping that I still have enough energy left to get a proper workout done. Hopefully, come Chinese New Year, I'll be able to fit into the clothes I bought for the occasion and not look like an over-ripe jackfruit! 

I am getting FATTER!!!

Horrors! I might not be putting on weight but I have lost so much muscle over the last five months because I was so lazy to go to the gym that I am getting fat! Well, I started going back and doing light stuff first as much because I had a bad bout of tennis elbow and couldn't go play tennis. And lucky for me, I managed to lose a bit of weight.

It's still a long way to go but hopefully I can keep it up, flu, injuries, impending move to a new place and all. That's why I'm going to include a weight progress chart in my posts from now on. I hope to be able to dip below 185 lbs before Chinese New Year 2014 (it falls on January 31st.)

The First Strike Principle

As promised to my FB friends, here's what I call "The First Strike Principle" of play. It's not something that's new, I'm sure, as it all sounds like common sense attacking play when I think about it, but having a convenient reference name makes it easier for me when I analyse and plan my own training and progress on the tennis court so here goes -

On Serve -
1.Place my serves to elicit a non-attacking return from my opponent. Since I'm not a good server with a big booming delivery and lots of variety (except by accident), I have to focus on being able to hit the two corners of either service court or into my opponent's body instead. The idea is to keep him guessing where I am going to put the ball - and when I do serve, to prevent him from being able to whack the return effectively. Better yet, if I can force him to chip or block or lob or mishit his return of serve and give me a weak shot to follow up without too much guessing or running.

2.Attack the weaker side at least 60% of the time, hit into his body at least 30% of the time and go to his stronger side the rest of the time to prevent him from covering his weaker side too much. Against most people, that means attacking the backhand mostly, I guess.

*Note - In doubles play, I focus on using whichever serve I have most difficulty hitting really well as my first serve, so you'll seldom see my applying this first strike attack on my service games since I'm playing doubles mostly. On second serves, however, I apply the First Strike Principle most of the time.

Against serve -
1.Focus on placing my returns effectively. It doesn't have to be a powerful shot as I think being able to go either down the line deep or angled 45 Degrees short crosscourt is just as effective, but it does have to be consistent.

2.Take the ball as early as possible so that the server has less time to recover and chase the ball. The idea is to pressure his serve so that he'll also make more mistakes trying to hit much harder to prevent me from taking his ball on the rise.

*Note - I am training this step by step -
a.learn to play a return of serve on the rise - never mind if I have to chip or slice the ball now, once I have got the timing, I can worry about getting a fuller swing on it.

b.learn to move in to attack the ball - once I have the timing for the rising ball comfortably, I then stand back a couple of feet so that I can take a bigger swing at it with more rotation. On top of that, since I have learnt to  read the ball better, I can also think about moving to the ball even earlier and crushing it with a bit more power.

c.start mixing up touch shots with deep heavy shots - not a good idea when I am still learning to time the rising ball (sometimes I'll even try to play it as a half-volley, too) that's why I'm making this the third and final stage of development for myself.

And this is all I am going to say. I've said as much as I can to be helpful but I am not going to give away all my secrets, I am afraid. I am Chinese, after all, and we always believe in keeping at least 10% back (more in my case since I'm such a lousy player!)

Not quite magic on the court...

People always talk about anticipation in racquet sports like it's some kind of magic or inborn talent but I've been taught by my dear friend, Harry Wong, that it's not true. Anticipation isn’t some esoteric art but a question of –

1.Always moving to the centre of possible returns after you’ve hit the ball. I think of it as being about half to two-thirds of the way down the middle of a triangle that has its apex at my opponent’s racquet face.

2.Start moving for the ball before it crosses your opponent’s service line on its way back to you if he’s staying way back, otherwise try to start moving to it before it crosses the net. harry is a very good retired coach in Penang and a dear friend of mine from 35 years back (he’d also coached three state champions who went on to represent Malaysia in Davis Cup and international competitions) told me this and while it’s not easy to implement because it requires that you stay focused and change your response timing if you’re not already doing it, it’s certainly worthwhile to learn. I’m still trying to make this second nature, I admit.

When Harry played regularly, even against guys half his age (he’s having eye problems now), he always seemed to be in the right place at the right time, never seemed to have to run much and always had plenty of time to stroke the ball smoothly. He’s also the one responsible for making me think on court and about what I do there – before, I simply wanted to hit the flashiest winners I could, even if it meant I lost 6-0 6-0 regularly.

3.Understanding the most likely return you ‘re going to get – this involves two things. One is knowing what kind of shot you’ve hit and what kind of shot you should expect to get in return. The other is observing your opponent’s preferences. Some people try for a sharply angled pass when forced to chase down an approach shot to their forehand, for example, while another might go down the line 6 or 7 times out of 10.

4.Understanding and reading your opponent’s visual cues, e.g. even with an open stance, some people start turning their shoulders just that bit earlier to go for a crosscourt pass or delay just that bit longer to go the other way. I watched a video of Chris Evert playing against Goolagong and the commentator observed that she actually started moving to cover the return a split second before Goolagong’s racquet made contact with the ball. The slow-mo playback proved he was right. Evert was obviously reading things like that.

There are probably other things that help you to get to the ball quicker than others expect and make it seem like magic, but this is all I know. Hopefully some day I'll be able to learn to do all this instinctively even when my blood sugar and electrolytes are low... 

Time to think about moving on...

There are times, every so often, when we have to think about letting go and moving on for our own peace of mind. I admit I have always been so attached to my worldly goods and loving creature comforts so much that moving onwards to new and better things hasn't always been a priority for me. Mea culpa. Just going on day in and day out like a vegetable has always been the easier of two choices.


But I've been hearing things like, "So-and-so says if you're not happy, you should move out," and I can only conclude that either So-and-so (who's one of the owners of the flat where I'm living) wants me out or the person saying that (another of the owners) is the one who wants me far and away. It doesn't make a difference which one might be the case when I am living in other people's home. I should take the broad hint and start looking for another place to live immediately.

So I'll be busy looking for a new home - preferably one where I can continue making nice pots, not too far from where I work or play tennis and somewhat within my budget. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the whole thing settled by Christmas, if not then by the Lunar New Year in early February next year. I really don't want to deal with the hassle of moving and settling in somewhere new when I really should be trying to finish my latest books and training for next year's tennis competitions.

Got Bushwhacked Again...

Some days I just feel like crawling under the table and licking my wounds where nobody will notice...especially when I have to hang around the place where I played stupid tennis and got bushwhacked like crazy - 8 games to 1, to be precise - and then pretending it doesn't matter at all. I'm not blaming anyone for that state of affairs, however. I can honestly say I did it to myself.

For starters, I failed to play the way I should have and then, I started rushing to hit winners...BIG mistake. I ended up making more errors than necessary. The only positives I can  take away from the situation are that -

1. Now I know how to serve a good slice serve (too bad I only found out when I was already 1-7 down).

2. I know where and why I always screw up my smash. I don't turn my body and get into position quickly enough after seeing where the ball is going.

3. I shouldn't ever doubt my backhand again but hit out freely (without trying to bomb the ball) - or play my skidder backhand the way it's meant to be played instead of trying to place the ball with an abbreviated stroke that doesn't produce enough pace.

4. Never attack the net off a crosscourt forehand if I'm not already in the middle of the court.

5. How to deal with my blood sugar problem (NEVER do a Number One in the loo just ten minutes before playing - AND drink plenty of sports drinks to replenish the electrolytes I lose).

6. There is a time, a proper way and a place to hit a topspin drive-volley and chasing the ball on the full stretch is NOT one of them!

Oh well, back to the drawing board and think about next year again, I guess...

The Tender Touch in Tennis

So, okay, I've been having another major re-think about how I play tennis - can't really be avoided I guess, because I keep injuring various different parts of myself with over-ambitious techniques and 'power-play' (yeah, right, like I've got the physical coordination to do that.) The thing is, after quite a bit of research, I'm wondering if I might have been looking at things very wrongly all these years.

So now, I'm going to try something completely different for me. I'm going to try applying the tender touch when I play - I am going to discipline myself to swing at the same controlled speed regardless of which stroke I am employing and focus completely instead on -

1.Getting my weight transfer right, i.e. getting my body moving into the shot, my waist and shoulders rotating properly through it and finishing with my weight 'falling' forward into the court.

2."Caressing" the ball instead of swinging at it. The term "caressing the ball" was actually employed to describe the way Ken Rosewall played and after looking carefully at the few available videos of him playing, I can see why that was so. Rosewall was such a smooth stroke-maker he never tried to get power by swinging a little harder or faster - instead, he got it from timing and technique with a very controlled swing. While I can't claim even a hundredth of his talent and coordination, I can and should try to do the same thing. My reasoning for that is very simple -
a).Like all club players, I lose more points through unforced errors than win them with wild swinging.
b).Staying focused on doing things exactly the same each time means I have to really think about where to hit the ball strategically - it just isn't enough to bang the ball and hope it doesn't come back or go out, any more.

3.Judicious use of spin to add 'weight' and control to my shots. Just adding a little more spin to my fairly flattish strokes will give the ball a less regular bounce and make it feel heavier on my opponent's racquet. I believe that's going to be better for me than trying to hit a very hard, fast ball.

4.Simplifying my volley techniques to get more angles and control instead of trying to swing at the ball - this is going to be really hard for me because it's going to require some major changes to how I approach the ball and finish with it. But I can do it.

More isn't always better!

When I was young and much more foolish than I am now, I got more joy out of hitting flashy winners than actually winning matches. Add the fact that I really didn't know how to play tennis i.e. placing the ball, opening up the court, etc. and I always lost to all too many people I should have beaten. ALWAYS. It didn't help, either, that I made the mistake of believing I needed EVERY kind of shot in the book to win whenever I played.

And seriously, I did everything I could to acquire just about every kind of shot you can name. The only problem was I could never hit any of them reliably or well when I most needed to do that.

Recently, I've had to do some major re-thinking about how I am playing, how I want to play and what I can do realistically to acchieve that, so for my own clarification this is what I concluded -

1.Service
I need a reliable serve with some sting, spin and high percentage more than I need a flat bullet or a wickedly curving slice. I am not tall or well-coordinated enough to hit flat serves consistently - nor have I ever been able to put sufficient sidespin on the ball to make it curve out really wide, except by accident.

So my best option is to hit every serve with topspin, adding as much sidespin as I can when I need to do that. I might not be able to hit many or any aces but aces are a bonus anyway (not even the biggest pro servers can realistically tell when they are going to hit an ace for sure). I should discipline myself to hit a serve that clears the net high, has enough weight to prevent my opponent to whack it and kicks up awkwardly to make it hard for him to adjust to its bounce.

2.Groundstrokes

It's not how many different ways I can hit the ball but how well I can hit the ball every time that matters. So -

Forehand

I have to change to a slightly more Eastern grip because my natural Continental is weak against high kicking balls and puts too much strain on my forearm when I hit certain balls. Apart from getting and having to hit more often with more topspin, I can still hit my forehand skidder approach shot by picking and choosing when I do that more carefully. I'll have to forego the occasional chip return but I can always focus on dinking the ball at a greater angle with topspin to compensate. 

Backhand

I need to use my flat-topspin more from the baseline for more clearance, use my skidder only when the ball is within that particular hitting zone, and try to finish points more efficiently with greater topspin or my semi-smash flat-slice by placing the ball instead of simply banging it as hard as I can. I should save dropshots for only when I have at least a 2-point cushion and NEVER when all things are equal.

3.Volleys

I never had good touch and trying to hit touch volleys is not the best option for me. To get points when I volley, I should simply focus on driving the volley carefully when the ball is above my waist, placing it even more carefully and very strategically when it's below that and using sharply angled volleys instead of drop volleys. I've got to discipline myself mentally to move to the ball instead of waiting for it to come to me, and taking it as high above the net as I can so that I have more angle to hit down and away.

4.Smash

The worst shot in my repertoire because I don't always get into position to hit it properly. So, instead of trying to hit it as hard as I can, I should focus on getting into position and placing it firmly with a controlled swing. 

5.Lobs

My backhand defensive lob is pretty reliable and for some odd psychological reason, it's harder for me to find myself out of position on that side BUT not on my forehand so I should focus on using an attacking lob as part of my game before my opponent has the opportunity to push me so wide on the forehand side that I have to lob defensively.

When I Play

1.Focus on placing the return of serve strategically and well with a firmly hit, controlled drive. 

2.Focus on placing my serves strategically, hitting up on it always. I hit many, many more balls into the net on my serve than I hit out.

3.Control 3/4 court balls back with my best high-percentage drives and DON'T try to hit outright winners. Think of opening up the court instead.

4.Attack 1/2 court balls with either my skidder shots or topspin but DON'T try to bang outright winners on anything that doesn't bounce IN FRONT of me above elbow height. Any balls below elbow height need to be placed as well as I can with spin and pace - not a wildly swung shot that might produce power but has an unacceptably low percentage. Better to open up the court effectively for the next shot if another shot is needed.

5.Focus on placing my volleys into an open court - NOT on hitting it as hard as I can. Win the point by placing the ball out of my opponent's reach. I'm not going to win the point if I hit the ball directly back to my opponent on the baseline.

6.Use attacking lobs from behind the baseline. Not a moonball, which a good player can handle well, but a really high-kicking topspin lob, especially to the backhand side, to open up the court.

7.Focus on moving TO the ball, especially when I am on the baseline or coming in to volley. I have a bad habit of waiting for the ball and trying to play a half-volley - that is unacceptable. Better to move forward and play an effective drive volley. 

I realise that such disciplined changes aren't going to happen overnight but as long as I try my best to play this way every time I step on court, I truly believe that the day will come when I play this way naturally. I'll worry about how to play even better when that day comes.

An attacking game within my limits

Keeping in mind that I have to attack constantly to stand any chance of winning, I decided that the first thing I needed was a good AND reliable service. And quite simply, a service sequence that I can literally do to get the ball into the court with some sting even if I'm half-asleep. And that is NOT an exaggeration by any means.

When my blood sugar starts to fall, I start to slow down mentally more quickly than I do physically. And if I don't realise that it's happening, then I quickly lose focus and any sense of play or intelligence as well. It's like standing in the court waiting to play with my mind shutting down and out.

So, from now on, I'm going to take a leaf out of Stefan Edberg's book and focus on playing a good topspin serve with enough sting to prevent my opponent from whacking the ball away for a winner but with enough safety margin to go over the net and into the court regularly no matter how tired I might be or how low my blood sugar falls. And that's just the first thing I have to change. I'll also have to think about how to place the ball for best strategic effect AND when I can actually hit a flatter, more aggressive serve and what I need to do after I serve. But this is all just starting and my game is in transition at the moment so here's to a future of better tennis for me...

Stressing About The Right Things

It's that time again when I have to look at my own self-doubts and all the other things which keep me from functioning at optimum mentally and emotionally. For starters, I think I've been too hung-up about my weight. I've lost 5 lbs and I'll want to lose another 5-10 lbs but I also want to build strong muscles to play my best tennis, too, and I can't do that if I keep trying to starve myself silly. So what I've decided is quite simply to just work out at the gym, using lighter weights and high repetitions for strength and endurance and to protect myself from injury. If I put on more muscle and pick up some definition doing that, fine. If I don't, I'm not going to stress out about it. My body image (and my vanity) will just have to change. if I'm going to stress myself about anything, it would be better to focus on writing more and playing better!

How Well Do I Play actually?

We tennis players like to know how well we actually play and there are many ways of making such a subjective judgement but there are also ranking systems based on how many things a player can do according to a sort of checklist. There are various systems for doing this but the one on which most Malaysians are based nowadays is the US Tennis Association one, I think (I could be wrong.) And if forced to do so, I would rank myself a 3 or 3.5-pointer at best according to that system. Here's one link for anyone interested USTA Self-Ranking Checklist 

Some friends think I should rank myself a little higher but I hesitate to rank myself at 4-points for many reasons. The first of which is that I can't place my serves all that well. I can hit the forehand and backhand corners and I can also serve into the body at will but I also tend to serve an average of 1-2 double faults per service game, especially when my blood sugar starts to drop. On top of that, I don't like playing against hard hitters. I think I usually handle powerful balls okay and return them with some control when I can get to them but that's the problem...at my age and weight, reaching fast balls is not getting any easier. 

The most important reason, however, is the fact that I can't play long rallies, which seem to be the main criteria for playing tennis nowadays. I know some club players can go on and on and that seems to be their main criteria for a high self-ranking but they often forget that they are actually (a).returning soft to medium paced balls, (b).not having to chase down these balls from side to side or else (c).simply pushing the balls back and not directing their shots at will. I wouldn't consider myself better if I couldn't return a fast or powerful ball exactly where I wanted it 9 times out of 10 continuously. 

And then, there's the really funny bit where being able to reach a good return and making a desperately lucky shot or two counts as being able to "play" the ball back. I admit I'm absolutely anal-retentive about playing each shot with correct technique and often discount some of my best winners as lucky shots simply because I didn't get enough topspin or slice on it but I would, personally, never accept the occasional fortunate stab at the ball as a tennis "stroke" of any kind.

That's one of the main reasons why I don't actually dare to rank myself any higher than 3 or 3.5 points. If other people want to rank me better than I do personally, that's fine and I'm prepared to listen and think carefully about what they say but I wouldn't care to do it for myself. At the end of the day, it isn't how well I THINK I can play but how well I actually do...or as I prefer to put it, "It's only how many bloody carcasses I leave on the court that actually counts!"  

Did I say I have a very competitive streak?

Improving My Game

Technically, I have all the strokes I need to enjoy playing tennis. And I'm not saying this as a matter of ego. There are strokes I cannot hit no matter how hard I try or how badly I want to - BUT - they are not really strokes or techniques that contribute to making me a better player. Let's be honest. How often does any player need to hit a topspin half-volley lob? Not even Roger Federer hits those with any regularity. So what I'm talking about here is the basic strokes that allow me to play the way I want to and those certainly can do with lots of improvement - BUT AGAIN - not because I need or want to hit harder or with more of any kind of spin. I just want to hit better. And that's something many club players don't seem to realise. They get caught up with all sorts of technical stuff that they know or can understand and can even carry out when they practise. BUT NEVER WHEN THEY PLAY! I used to be like that, too.

Until one day, I realised that having a thorough knowledge and understanding of technique is great if I want to coach but that doesn't necessarily make me a better player. So I set out to re-define as simply as I could what would make me a better player by a little bit more and here's what I came up with -

1.The ability to place the ball strategically (NOT simply hit the ball back!)

Many club players seem to think that being able to put the ball back over the net a few times consecutively constitutes being able to play tennis. Sorry but I could never agree with that. I've seen too many players (myself included especially when I was younger or when my blood sugar is low) "play" doubles by staying on the baseline trying to run around their backhands and simply hitting one ball after another back crosscourt to their opponents until eventually (usually around the 3rd or 4th ball) they hit a short ball or a soft one that allows their opponent to make an attacking shot or winner - or even more commonly - they make an unforced error. And then they regret losing the point without once understanding why that happened.

As far as I am concerned, I try never to hit the same kind of ball back to my opponent twice in a row. Once I know how my opponent likes to play, my goal is to give him the kind of ball he will hate. I might try a dropshot, a deep low ball or an angled crosscourt drive off my service return and then run in to take the volley AND make a few unforced errors in the process, but I will never stay back and keep returning balls n the hope that my opponent is going to make an error before me.

2.The ability to get into position to play my best shot.

All too often I see club players try to stay in the same place to play all kinds of returns, until they get caught by either a low soft shot (not necessarily a dropshot) or a deep one, when they either end up having to run like crazy to get to the ball in time or play a half-volley off their toes from the baseline. And that's just for starters. Most players don't even know, let alone apply, the idea of getting to a centre of possible returns to return serve or after they've hit their serve. And nearly as many players know it theoretically but simply cannot apply the theory when they play - usually because they don't understand what they can or cannot do. So, they just stand on the baseline and hope for a mid or 3/4 court return that they can hit back (hopefully!)

It took me 30 years to realise that after I serve or return serve, I have to move my derriere to a place where I can reach whatever shot my opponent hits back to me - and 35 years to understand that would change according to my own game style/plan/whatever. 

As an attack oriented player, that means after I serve I want to move in a little to one side and either take the ball on the rise or attack a short return. The same holds true for when I return serve. If I were a defence oriented player, I'd try to move a few feet back (and to one side) behind the baseline BUT be prepared to move forward in case my opponent gives me a short return or tries to drop shot. I DO NOT serve or return serve and then stand on the baseline and wait to see what happens any more, thank goodness.

3.Understand my game and try to play my best shots as often as I can - AND - try to make my opponent hit to my best shot at every opportunity.

All players (pros included) have a better side and and a best shot on which they base their strategy on being able to hit from there as often as they can. The pros have developed strategies for when their opponent hits to their weaker side and most club players play like that to some extent, too. The biggest difference is that the pros don't have any illusions about what they can or cannot do on that weaker side. They understand that the occasional lucky winner off that weaker side is a bonus and not something they can take for granted. Most club players don't understand that and think, "My backhand can also hit winners ," for example.

My forehand and serve are my weakest shots and I would never try to hit outright winners of either shot. I can serve with a bit of pace and my basic strategy is to try to place the ball well enough to force my opponent to give me a weaker or softer shot that I can place strategically. If I did hit an outright winner, I would consider a lucky accident either because my opponent was unprepared for it or I accidentally managed to get everything right on that ONE occasion. I don't even pat myself on the back when that happens any more - a sigh of relief is more likely to be my reaction. 

Nor, after finally understanding what I can and cannot do well, would I try to bang every ball for an outright winner off my backhand even though it is my stronger side. Not even the pros do that. Watch Serena or Nadal, who are famous for playing brutally powerful drives. They pick and choose, understanding exactly which shots they can hammer and which ones need to be returned safely and strategically. Tennis coaches call that "pulling the trigger" and it was one of the hardest things for me to learn, along with resisting the temptation not to murder every backhand I got.

So nowadays, I try to play with just a limited repertoire but using footwork and brains to make the best of what I have - flat-topspin serve, topspin crosscourt forehands, flat slice down the line forehands, flat-slice backhands, topspin backhands and backhand volleys. I don't imagine that I can play a backhand half-volley winner every time BUT what I do is -

1.Try to hit every ball cleanly, confidently and firmly to where my opponent least likes it. If it is a winner, that's a bonus.

2.Try to analyse and understand my opponent's game as quickly as I can so that I can also make him hit to my better side as often as possible.

3.Move in to cover the net as soon as I can. I might not always hit a volley winner or a winning smash but that's okay because I'm still improving and the number of winners will increase as I get better.

4.I acknowledge and understand the limits imposes by age, physical condition, lack of talent and a host of other physical problems and I try to play the best I can. 

Playing according to one's limits.

When I decided to start playing singles again, I had to sit down and give a lot of thought to how exactly I wanted to play, considering my personality and physical limits. For example, I am simply not patient enough to keep retrieving ball after ball and I am not fit enough to do either that, or keep attacking the net point after point. Nor do I have the talent to improvise or play a flowing all-court game.

So I had no choice but to figure out a way to play singles without either killing myself with exhaustion or giving games away with unforced errors. On top of everything else, I also have low blood sugar.

The first thing I did was to think of how I could minimise my running. The answer was obvious - stay in an area of court where I could cover most balls, play those strokes which would allow me to attack the ball, and learn to read my opponent from his body language. So now, I try to -

1.Play the first points from inside the 3/4 court position. It's risky because I often have to play half-volleys but it allows me to move forward to attack the ball and force my opponent to run. Of course, I had to develop a fairly reliable half-volley AND a drive-volley to play from this position but it was worth the extra hours banging against the wall learning and developing those two options.

2.Attack from the first point, including when I am returning serve. Developing a reliable service return was crucial - I try to learn my opponent's body language for tell-tale clues as quickly as I can during a game, position myself properly and then step into the court and place the return in such a way that he has to run for the ball. Of course, I also had to learn to move forward to the centre of possible returns immediately after that, watch his body language and then try to get into position for the ball before it crosses his service line so that I can cut it off with a volley or an overhead.

3.Develop a serve which allows me to place the ball with a bit of sting. I don't have the talent or timing to hit big booming serves but with first and second serves, I can put the ball either to my opponent's forehand, backhand or into his body. It took months to learn to do that in both courts since it involves being able to hit any one of six possible target areas and it was worth it because it prevents my opponent from getting into a return rhythm when I am serving. And I make it difficult for my opponent to attack my serve.

I still have a major problem with my low blood sugar which I cannot deal with easily, however. As long as my sugar is fine, I can focus and play according to my game plan but once my blood sugar falls, it becomes very hard to even remember some basics let alone maintain the kind of focus and reactions I need to play well, so one sign of my blood sugar falling is when I start double-faulting. My service was never a natural stroke and it had to be developed over many years hitting basket after basket of balls and it is the first stroke to go when my sugar starts dropping. So that is one of the limits to how well I can play in any one game - but I'm doing everything I can to find an effective way of dealing with that.

PS
I'm not giving away all my secrets here, of course. I still want to beat younger men who already have the advantages of speed, strength, stamina and age on their side!

Learning to play as opposed to simply hitting the ball

Probably because I had such a hard time learning to put my racquet on the ball, all through my junior playing days, all I ever learned to do was to try to hit the ball as well as I could. So I never learned what to do with either myself or the ball after I'd hit it. It wasn't until I started playing again - and losing to 70-year-old guys at the club - that I realised there was more to playing tennis than simply hitting the ball as hard as I could. And I was lucky to meet Mr. Harry Wong, an old friend who'd coached a couple of local champions during my years away from the courts. It was Harry that tipped me off to the three basic stages of progressing as a tennis player -

1.Place the ball.

No matter how well or how hard you hit the ball, it's not going to do you much good if you keep hitting back to the same place all the time. You have to make your opponent move for the ball - and preferably in a direction or manner that he hates. Against most people, a deep ball to the backhand is usually good enough to draw a weak return. But then, if you hit back to that same area again, he's going to be waiting for it there and will play a better return because he's already in position.

So the first thing I had to learn was to hit away from my opponent. And then, when I could do that consistently, I had to learn to hit behind him or occasionally, down the middle to keep him uncertain.

2.How or where might my opponent return the ball and what I can do about it?

If you hit deep to his backhand, for example, where might his returns go? There are only so many places he can reasonably hit to if you've placed the ball well and forced him to run for it - all within a certain angle of returns.

To save my stamina and be ready for most balls, I had to learn to move to the centre of those possible returns so that I would have a good chance of getting to the ball with the minimum of effort.

Of course, as I got a little bit better, I also learned to identify my opponent's best or favourite method of returning the ball. This meant that I had to shift myself slightly more to one side of the angle of possible returns if he had a very good backhand down the line, for example.

3.When the ball comes back, what are my best options if I'm in position?

Hitting it deep into an open court seems like the most obvious thing to do - and very frequently, it is if I've managed to keep my opponent pinned down defending his weaker shot. But against a good, fast baseliner that wasn't always a good option because the ball could come back to me in a way I didn't like or expect.

So I had to learn to hit not only angles and dropshots, but also to thnk about how to prevent my opponent from using his stronger shot, a running topspin forehand down the line, for example.  

I think learning and thinking about things like this was the beginning for me. Of course, as time went on, I had to think about other things like my own playing style, using my own best shots (not an instinctive thing for me, I am afraid), what else could I learn or do that could keep my opponent on the run, and the hardest thing of all for me, tracking the ball and moving to attack it before it bounces in my court. Too many years of simply reacting to my opponent's shots had given me poor reactions and reflexes so that I had to unlearn a lot of bad habits and re-learn a lot of things that would help me play better. I still can't do it all well enough to consider myself any higher than a 2.75 pointer most of the time because it requires such a tremendous focus that I can't keep it up for long, but I'm getting there.

And then, some day, I'll also learn to incorporate higher skills into my game like -

1.identifying when and where would be best to hit a topspin or a slice backhand or forehand.

2.how to make my opponent hit to my  stronger side more often.

3.how not to try to keep blasting the ball all the time but knowing when to play a safety shot, a neutralising shot and a finishing shot effectively from the different areas of the court.

Next post, I might talk about how I had to learn about the three different hitting areas on a court and how I had to learn which strokes worked best for me in each of those areas...or I might decide to discuss how limiting my options worked better for me than having too many different shots to use. I know some people feel that a complete armoury of shots is the ultimate goal for tennis players, but using so many shots well depends so much on real talent and the ability to make split-second decisions (I have no talent and I'm lousy at making such decisions when I play) that in my experience, limiting myself to just two or three of my best shots works better for me.

I guess my tennis is very much like the way I approach anything artistic I do. Take my pottery, for example, instead of learning to make just a few basic shapes well to learn the skills properly, I prefered to learn to make as many different shapes as I could for the same purpose. And now that I'm also thinking about how to decorate my pottery, I can't just stick to one particular way but must experiment with two or three all at the same time (see pictures below). Luckily for me, I'm not competing against anyone at the pottery classes...except me!

Now that I know...

After all the bad stuff that happened last year, I feel like I finally know where I'm heading again after a very, very long time.

 

Where my development in playing tennis is concerned, I truly feel like I'm beginning to understand what I do best, how I should be playing and what I can do about being able to play the way I see it in my head. That's one thing about me that's always stayed constant, at least - being able to understand and see in my head what I should be doing and how to do it, whether it's my pottery, tennis or whatever.

 

I might not be in top condition because I've been missing out on the gym workouts but at least I've kept my weight constant and below 200 lbs. I don't think I'll rush back to the gym just yet, however. I've booked my vacation for next month, the Penang Closed Tennis Tournament has been postponed until July, and last but not least, I still need a little more time to get my playing techniques set both mentally as well as physiologically.

I'll concentrate on trying to play tennis the way I believe I can and should be playing as well as building up my stamina. And my pottery. I'd like to do more sculptural forms like this bird cup. I'll donate a quarter of everything I earned from my pottery to charity, so I need a lot of good pieces that will sell.

 

I can do nice wheel thrown stuff, too, and that's where I'm experimenting with new decoration techniques like slip trailing. The problem with experimenting is that what comes out of the kiln isn't always as I thought it should look like when it went in. Of course, when it does turn out nice, it's always a real joy. I didn't think this mistletoe inspired cup would look particularly pretty, but I'm happy with what I got.

 

 

A New Beginning

Mea culpa. I accidentally deleted all my photographs from my Picassa album and when I came here to write a new post, found that all my photographs had disappeared - including my blog banner and my profile picture. No worries, though. I've decided to start this blog afresh because I was a bit fed up with the way things were going in most of the old posts anyway. I think I was moaning a bit too much about my weight and how difficult it was for me to play tennis well, among other things, instead of trying to think about how to do it all better. So that's what I'm going to try to do on this blog now - post my thoughts on how to do things better than before!