Training Session 2

TUESDAY Oct 6th : 6.30 - 8.30pm

After not hitting any serves last week I figured I better loosen the shoulder up, grabbed a basket of balls and 3 targets comprising of 2 buckets and a can of balls.

roll my arm over a few times and start to get in to a bit of target practice, now I serve with a pinpoint stance normally but for now just concentrating on my arm and shoulder I just hit my serves from platform stance. Timing is ok, shoulder is a little tender but my whole arm feels like its getting a workout which means I am overly arming the ball. On a secondary note I brought two racquets out on court; PS6.0 #2 gets a birth so I can compare it to #1 from the other day and MGPP which I only just strung up about an hour before.

Can definitely feel the weight distribution difference in the sticks, the PS is so much more head light and feels so comfortable having used it for so long. The PP feels crisper and my serves seem to be coming off slightly better, I can feel the deterioration to my PS as off centre hits can jar a little. I don't feel I can get the spin off the PP on my kick serve but this might be due to the fact im not really throwing the whole body at it yet.

Anyway the serve comes out pretty good overall, pumped the targets a few times and generally felt pretty sweet, for the 564th time told myself that good timing rather then force produces my hardest serves.

CC rocked up at about 7pm and had his warm up, very dilligent of him, I know I never did at his age, still don't at mine. Once we get to the baseline I chop and change between my racquets and decide that the PP is going to get the run tonight, despite not feeling as comfortable the fresh string job provides the control required.

Start out hitting beautifully off the FH, bit short on the BH and definitely didn't feel as good as last week. We had some great rallies and started to build up a good sweat, got some volley practice in and definitely don't like the mavouverability of the PP compared to the PS but the results really arent too different.

Got into some matchplay, tiebreaks to be more accurate. Didn't try to serve properly for the first few, wanted to play some points not get no returns. Felt like I controlled points well even in baseline rallies against a baseliner, as per usual I blew the rallies with overhitting. Lost the first couple of TBs. Very happy with return of serve which is usually my weakness, CC's serve is firm but not spectacular and I felt I could react in time.

Decided to step things up a bit and start serving properly and doing some S&V, played out as expected and had greater success, feels so natural and can do it in cruise mode. Started missing FH's all over the shop, getting good reward for strong serves and solid returns and just butchering FH put aways and approaches. Got embarrassing but I just laughed it off as one of those nights. Can be damaging to play well for the point but not finish it, but at this stage of the pre-season I was happy to be playing such good points to create these opportunities

EVALUATION : Great work out, felt tired but enthused. Really worked much harder then last week and hit lots of balls. Exercise induced happiness. PP was ok, really I might just be looking for excuses not to change, the FEELING isnt the same but I think the RESULTS aren't much different. Can the mind overide itself? Forehand needs some steadiness and backhand needed more depth today. Satisfied with serve and volleys, especially live point volleys were well controlled

THINGS TO DO LIST:
1. Restring PS's
2. Find groove in FH
3. Hit some more 2nd serves, test out spin capability of PP
4. Find some inner calm & execution on point finishing strokes.

until next time...

practice your second serve so you can consistantly hit to the backhand to lessen the attack from your opponent