Training Session 1

FRIDAY Oct 3rd : 4 - 5.30

First hit of the "pre-season". Haven't played a competitive match since mid April, haven't had a proper hit since then either. Pulled my stick out of the bag it has been hiding in for nearly 6 months and checked the tension : loosey goosey! Can't remember when I last strung it, I am guessing about Feb/March. I string tight and reall struggle for control with anything too loose. Its one of my two PS6.0s this one is in slightly better nick and therefore i string it with big banger x head pps 16. My second one is really feeling its age and i string it with ultra tour x pps 16. Both at 60lbs.

Hitting with new team-mate "CC", he is about 19 i think, tall and strong, seems to look after his fitness ie goes for runs and does warm ups etc. Really seems like a player trying to make the most of his game. HIs game? groundies all day long, pretty big backswing on the FH, gets his strings to the back fence ala Djokovic/Hewitt and hits a pretty compact 2HBH. He has just upgraded his old Hewitt Yonex sticks to the new ones and he is pretty happy with the change.

I have never hit with him before but seen him hitting, hits a nice ball, moves ok and pretty reliable serve. First thing i notice after a little mini tennis and we get back the baseline is the amount of spin he gets, really making good use of his full big banger string job. He is keeping pretty good depth with few errors, perfect hitting partner.

Balls are flying from my end, I can feel the tension being underdone and have to consciously put more spin on my FH. BH feels great, good depth from what is just nice timing, surprisingly comfortable. FH errors are prevalent, long, long and loooooooong. No sign of hitting the net which is surprising for me as I hit fairly flat usually.

We play some points off the ground, too many FH U/E from me and to no surprise he beats me in all but one of our 11's. Felt good to be active and hitting balls, happy to get one session out of the way, one step closer to some form. Did not hit serves as need to warm up shoulder

EVALUATION: happy to be on court, very happy with TS backhand, disappointed with spraying forehand long.

THINGS TO DO LIST :
restring required
consider hitting with prestige to bite the bullet and make the switch
Convince myself to hit my TS backhand more often in matches.

until next time....

timing, there is nothing like it, you take it for granted on good days and you can't buy it when your not on form, appreciate the good more then you are discouraged by the bad