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?