Skip to main content

First Singles Win!!!

Finally I won my first singles match, and the best part was coming back from behind.

I signed up for my club's ladder and issued my first challenge to a player that is about my level, knowing from the clinics we both attend.  However, the match was much tougher than I thought it would be. 

This is ladder played based on Super 10 Pro Sets. We started with my serve as I knew I would serve better with the initial energy I have, and when my energy drops my first serves suffer quite a bit. As expected I was serving well, but my opponent wasn't phased by my flat or kick serves, and lost on my serve. Then I broke his serve, then he broke mine again and that's how it continued until 2-2. After that he kept breaking on my serves, but held his, shortly thereafter it was 2-5.

Part of the problem was even when my first serves were good, I stayed passive at the baseline and not take advantage of the weak return of my opponent. This is partly due to trying to conserve my energy and lack of experience playing singles I think. 

As I went over the level at which I feel my energy is drained and suddenly my energy just doubles and takes me to another level, I started focusing on minimizing my unforced errors, hit few winners and made sure I was going to the net few more times than I was previously. Suddenly it was 4-5, but my opponent also made sure to reduce his unforced errors, but his two-handed backhand being weaker, I kept playing to it as deep as possible using both top spins and slices.  Regardless, he kept the lead until 7-9. I started adding few drop shots to the game and hitting much more freely for several winners with my backhands, and the momentum changed. Eventually, I held the next four games for an 11-9 win.  It was so very satisfactory, I really enjoyed the feeling.

Hopefully more to come...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Practice, Practice, Practice! There is no substitute for it, you know it. There needs to be a driver behind it though and an objective. The weakest attribute in game has been my serve since I started. As I explained in my previous postings, I have three different types of serves, but regardless of which I use, I had many double faults that resulted in too many games, sets and matches lost. Has to be fixed. I have been practicing off-matches, throwing 75-100 serves each time I get the chance; however, most of my practices have been during the round robin doubles matches. Believe me I had my share of nasty looks from my partners in abundance and I cannot blame them. At the same time I refused to back off from figuring it out, dropping my pace, or just putting my second serves in with a loopy. I keep trying and trying, hoping something will click. I think something did click this month. I cannot tell exactly what it is, I cannot pin point to a single mechanics, but I think few thing...
The Highs and Lows It has been an amazing four weeks since my last post. I have had many highs and few really lows. The ups and downs bring up new questions for me, and the main one is what is it that I am looking to achieve while enjoy tennis as a fun hobby. It is a competitive sport at the end, and without movement forward, staying stagnant is not for me. Although I keep my competitiveness in check for the most extent - otherwise it get impractical and unhealthy - I still want to be competitive on court both in singles and doubles, and continue to improve. Let me get back to this later on. For the highs: I was invited into my club's 4.0+ singles group to play regularly for practice matches, my serves have gotten very good with nearly excellent placement and pace, my volleys are improving, my movement on court has also improved noticeably specifically in singles matches, I am cutting down on my unforced errors and playing matches more intelligently with strategy. All of this m...