The Classic Dilemma

Okay, summer is here - I think we established that factoid in the last post.  And yesterday I am playing with my friend who can't seem to put most of his shots in.  Today he's off by a lot,  maybe 6 feet on most of his shots.  We sit and talk.  I look at his strings.  They are all over the place and of course since I strung it myself in April, I can only blame myself.  But he says both his racquets are strung way too loose and he has no control.  He does use an oversized racquet.  I think it's 27.75 inches and 110+ head size so with a 28mm beam, power is no problem.  He wanted it strung at the low end because to string higher he has arm pain.  The classic dilemma.  We talked for a bit and I mentioned that the better strings, the multifilaments, while costing a lot more, have more power AND better control.  They seem to "pocket" the ball.

There is another solution however.  Switch to a more flexible racquet.  His beam of 28+mm tells me that he has stiffness to spare.  And since the racquet is really big too, that may translate into a lighter than good for your arm sub 11 ounces.

This is a site I have referred many people to.  http://racquetresearch.com/ . It starts off a bit technical but then explains in fairly basic layman terms why a heavy racquet is good and so is a flexible one compared to stiff.  It's worth a read.  If you have a sore arm problem, it may thank you.

Welcome Back Summer!

It's that time of the year again!  Summer!  And while I get to play more now, I also play in hotter weather and I am snapping strings every two weeks now.  Bummer.  Good thing I string my own.  And as I may have said in posts of long ago, strings act differently at 65 degrees than they do at 85.  Therefore, I adjust my strings to about 2 - 4 pounds tighter to make up for the elasticity that seems to go with the hot weather.

What else do I adjust?  I bring a FULL 2 liters now to drink.  Rarely do I finish it all but have about once a week for the last 3 weeks shared some of my Cytomax brew with partners and opponents who did not plan ahead and run dry.

Finally, in addition to lathering on the sunscreen (30, or 50 SPF is my preferred range), I also do the popular if not nerdy thing and bring LAWN CHAIRS so we don't have to sit in full sun at changeovers and wonder why or why are we playing on such a hot day.  A little breeze while sitting in the shade during a changeover is almost pleasant enough to help you forget that sitter you blew at the net a minute earlier.

Enjoy the summer hitting and let's be prepared out there!

Serving in Doubles

I am not the only one. I serve differently in doubles than I do in singles. And I am not so sure this is a good thing.

I serve harder in singles than I do in doubles and I have noticed the same in others. If I miss the first serve in singles, no big deal. If however, I float a safe second serve, at say 70% in for doubles, my partner at the net might lose his neck- literally!

I am willing to suffer the consequences more in singles for a weak 2nd serve but in doubles, I will pull back to 80-85% power on a first serve - not wanting to fear an aggressive second serve return.

There are others however, that DO serve the same in singles as well as doubles. And these people also generally serve the same first and second serve. This explains why some of my friends in doubles who I partner with will have 6 to 8 double faults, in a set! I am not upset with them but feel bad for them as they probably feel lousy for letting me down.

What's the secret? Not sure, I may have to query the Bryan Bros, tandem team extraordinaire! But for me, for now, I will continue to move my serves around the box, mixing flat and spin and work on beefing up my 2nd serve to a 75-80% power.

So what about you? Do you have a different serve based on playing singles or doubles?

Two Handed Monica!

Remember Monica?
She was a terror on the court, hitting big off both sides, with 2 hands both sides! But actually when I googled photos of Seles, I found a variety of pictures of her actually hitting a number of shots with one hand. Though I think she preferred to hit with power the two-handed forehand and backhand, she would pull her hand off the racquet with some frequency when the shot necessitated it.

I recall watching a match recently that Maria Sharapova played and the only time she didn't try and hit a two handed backhand was when someone hit very short to her, like a half volley or a drop shot to draw her in. With hard balls driven to her backhand side deep, she routinely chose not to be able to reach and make the shot- rather than pull one hand off the racquet and give herself the extra inches to make a play on the ball. There is stubborn, and there is shoot yourself in the foot stubborn.

I noticed Agassi later in his career made it a habit of hitting the wide running forehand "chop shot", a desperation (defensive) forehand hack slice to save time when he couldn't get there and make a proper topspin forehand.

I don't know. To me when you are in a defensive posture on the court, I think it's smart to employ an attitude of whatever-it-takes. When I go back to cover a lob over my head, it's sure more stylish to hit a one handed shot, but I take the granny free-throw dorky approach, and grip my racquet with two hands and hit it straight back over my head. Compared to the one-handed shot, this for me is much more successful, looks be damned.

So Maria, (Venus Williams) and others out there glued to the two handed backhand-- (which I personally hit 70% of the time in singles, and 95% of the time in doubles), free up the racquet and block the ball back with one hand when you can just barely get to it. Sure it won't be an offensive shot, but rather give yourself a chance, rather than lunging at the ball with two hands unsuccessfully, time after time.

Oh Maria...

Apparently Maria Shriek-a-pova isn't a big reader of my blog. If she had looked over this post from February-- http://paul-ihearttennis.blogspot.com/2011/02/whats-worse-than-double-fault.html

-- about double faulting, maybe she wouldn't be back to making wedding plans with her LA Laker Lover instead of playing in the Roland Garros finals.

Of the 10 double faults she had in two sets, 2 were particularly troubling. One was on a break point against her at 4-3 in the second set and the other was on match point. That's right, Maria lost her Roland Garros semi-final match by double faulting on MATCH POINT. Here is what she had to say after the match: “At times, I didn’t serve well, and was rushing more than maybe I had to, and maybe—considering the conditions—maybe I was just trying to go for too big of second serves, especially.” Really Maria, ya think?

Granted, Li Na is an excellent returner, most of the women on the pro tour are. And look at Maria's serving speed average, 158 and 154Km per hr. For those of you who can't do the math in your head-- including me-- that's 2.54 MPH slower on her second serve. What are you thinking Maria? On a windy day when you have already been broken on a double fault, after 9 double faults, you go for too much on your serve on MATCH POINT?

But she's young, only 24. She'll have lots more time for weddings, and shrieks of delight and... frustration in her future.

And to you Li Na, you go girl!
(are people still saying that?=)

Using Our Tennis Brain

I am playing EPIC doubles yesterday with the guys. I double faulted - which is not my usual M.O. but you know, it happens. Then before my next serve I remembered my rule: GET THE NEXT SERVE IN. I did, but I watch lots of other players who after a double fault put a third serve OUT... then it's like a 50-50 with lots of players, half the time it's ANOTHER double fault or they get it in.

What tennis rules do you have for yourself? Don't overswing when trying to pass someone at the net? A well placed lob can be as good as a pass?

Our tennis brain can STORE this information but we need to retrieve it when needed and apply it. Make rules for yourself regarding your warm-up, second serve returns, or whatever has worked for you in the past that you think is important.

God gave us a brain not just so we can enjoy old Everybody Loves Raymond reruns, but also so we can learn from our mistakes and our successes. That's a good blue-print for tennis as well as life.

In Praise of Smallness: The Humble Dampener

OMG! I cannot believe I am writing about this topic. But before I go further, there have been one (or more) of my previous posts about not sweating the racquets so much, and here I am sweating the REALLY small stuff! Having said that, I owe my tennis amigo Ian a thank you for the inspiration for this. He is all about finding the smallest-lightest dampener and for me, it's more about the size or length that matters (uh, we are still talking about DAMPENERS aren't we?!?). I find that if using a poly hybrid (poly in mains, nylon in crosses), I can get by with as little as a rubber band and it feels/sounds fine. With full nylon as most of my racquet set-ups are, I need something the size of a dime to a quarter to do the trick, which impacts maybe two to three main strings and the bottom cross.

And then there's my latest racquet condundrum- a Yonex RDIs 200. I strung it around midpoint in tension and it was hard for me to hit... too tight. Then I went 3 lbs lighter and with warmer weather upon us, I was launching balls from Griffith Park to just shy of my Burbank home! And then I found the right dampener. It had been maybe 5 years since I had used a "worm" style dampener that weaves in and out of the mains strings, contacting generally between 4 and 6 strings. And you know what? It helped control the power considerably and changed the sound from a very annoying metallic ping, back to the dull "thud" that I am use to.

A scientist friend of mine remarked recently at Indian Wells how quiet the balls sounded when coming off the racquets of the players. He then went on to say that sound is energy, implying that there wasn't a lot of wasted energy. If sound is indeed a form of energy or represents energy, then changing the sound (and feel) with a dampener does indeed change the power of a racquet - even though there are posts galore on message boards swearing that the use of a dampener is "all in ones head". And even if that were to be true, the mental edge or added confidence of playing with a dampener is still significant. So racquet techies, while I am not a fan of tricking out a racquet with lead tape to change it's playing characteristics, I am in favor of experimenting and finding the right dampener. While not as significant for ones tennis as losing 5 to 10 pounds or learning better technique, it does have its place in the tennis kingdom - albeit a very small niche.

The Demo Dilemma

In Praise of Balance and Swingweight

About every 15-18 months I like to demo some new tennis racquets. The four that I just returned to Tennis Warehouse (TW) were two from Prince and two from Yonex.

The thing that irks me a bit is that when I first started demoing racquets perhaps 7-8 years ago from TW, they were all strung with a quality multifilament (high end nylon) like Tecnifibre NRG2 and they were strung at mid-point + 2 lbs. Today you get them and you are lucky if you can even identify 2 of the 4 strings. Forget about tension, there is no way of knowing because a lot of tennis-techies will cut out the existing strings and restring them with their favorite string at a tension they generally like to play.

And as most of us already know, string composition, from gut to nylon to polyester, varies the feel greatly. Coupled with that, increasing or decreasing string tension can result in power and control for your style if strung correctly.

So about the only thing you can demo when trying out a new racquet is the FEEL while swinging, volleying and serving. For instance, I found I could hit groundstrokes fine with the Prince XO3 but the swingweight and balance prevented me from serving well, especially when it came to a kickserve. Furthermore, demoing a racquet when you are fresh at the start of a hitting session often feels different when you are tired after 90+ minutes. The swingweight is more obvious to you when you are tired than when you are fresh.

The size of the sweetspot and the power/control ratio can always be tweaked later when stringing for your preferences but if it it doesn't feel good-- balance and weightwise-- then no amounts of stringing and restringing are going to make it feel better. Of course there are those among us who use lead tape at various places to alter the playing characteristics, and I was one of those briefly 7 or so years ago, but that is a slippery slope-- always tweaking it, never satisfied.

To summarize, don't flip out and say that one racquet has too much or too little power when trying out a new stick. The stringing can greatly influence power level and control but you can correctly evaluate the balance and swingweight even before you hit a ball, just by going through the various strokes you will be playing in a match. That should be your primary guide in selecting a new racquet.

Playing Relaxed or Playing Tense...

More on the MENTAL Side of Tennis

Here an excerpt from a PGA Tour article about actor Bill Murray and his playing partner D.A. Points who had just won the Pebble Beach golf tournament yesterday. This is Bill Murray speaking:

I think most people playing in a tournament, or in any enterprise, they just get too nervous, but staying loose, I mean, the best people in any profession, the whole thing is about being as relaxed as you can. Michael Jordon is all about being relaxed. He's the greatest there was and couldn't be more relaxed and great actors are the same way. There's almost no tension in them.

About 3 years ago I was playing in a tennis league and I recall feeling nervous as I played this guy in singles that I had never met before. Between the first two sets I recall trying to talk to him someone energetically about stringing as I sensed he (and I) were both a bit nervous, but he more so because it looked like he was playing poorly compared to his ability and this conversation would help break the tension. He said "listen, I will talk to you about whatever after we are done but not right now, sorry."

I continued to play fairly well and he continued to play poorly. Instead of relaxing and playing with a guy he was starting to get to know better, he played worse, against a stranger, a nameless opponent.

When coaching, I would ask my players who were they more relaxed playing against: a teammate or a stranger? A teammate of course. So I put this suggestion out there: during changeovers, talk to the other guy - ask him about his school, how long he's been playing, what other sports he plays - get to know him a bit. This way you begin to develop a relationship and you will be more at ease, more relaxed. And that can lead to better tennis. It doesn't mean that you can't think and concentrate when thinking about a service return, but now it's will be returning a ball from a person you know, not from some scary stranger.

What's Worse Than a Double Fault?

In tennis, there aren't too many things than a double fault. But I can think of one (or two) and that is TWO DOUBLE FAULTS (DF) BACK TO BACK, or just one DF on break-point, set-point or the biggest nightmare, a DF on match-point.

When I coached I would always remind guys that after a DF try EXTRA HARD to get the next serve in. If not, you have just served 3 balls out, what are the odds that the next one is going to go in? The psyche is a fragile thing and confidence in yourself needs to remain high. Don't put yourself in that uncomfortable position. It even happens in the pro game. It's called a meltdown, and it's ugly when it happens to them and ugly if it ever happens to you.

So remember, if you double fault, the next serve, throw in a 75% hard serve, with some extra spin to safely make it over the net (like a second serve) and play the point. Keep your confidence high and don't put extra pressure on yourself. That's your opponents job, just as your job is to put pressure on them.