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!