Before school started my second serve- topspin- consistently went in the correct box although was fairly easy to return. I mostly served to the exact same place each time which became predictable as each additional game went by. However, after not playing much during the summer and starting tennis again in December, my second serve showed increased improvement. I think that I could always place the ball wherever I wanted in my second serve even though I never did. I’ve always loved tennis but have never really tried my best when playing matches. I took it more as a joke which is what placed me on junior varsity last year. Not only do I now place it wherever I see best but now can control the amount of spin used in the stroke so that I can make the ball basically go wherever I want. Before this year, I rarely used my my first serve let alone practiced it when I had the chance. It was not accurate, I maybe got one out of ten in. I only used it when I was up forty-love because I could afford to lose the point if I double faulted. The first day we did serves at the clinic I started in December, I was mainly working on second serves until the instructor asked to see my first serve. I barely even jumped and served in a very lazy manner though it still went in. It was one of the best first serves I’d served in a long time. I was surprised and thought of it as pure luck so I continued to serve the next few balls as my first serve. Most of them went in and were actually pretty powerful. The rest of the day I continued to work on my first serve and it grew stronger and more accurate as the clinic went on. After getting the feel back fully I started to jump and put in the full motion. The first few were about a foot or two out, but then it all came back to me and the serves were going in. All the years before that I tried practicing my first serve were nothing compared to that day, something had changed during the month and a half that I hadn’t played during the summer; whatever it was was good. From then on, I used my first serve first instead of using two second serves. If I use the full motion the serve is actually less accurate probably because I serve it without the full motion more often. Although, moving forward especially before tennis season starts I have more motivation to serve my first serve and use the full motion so that I can show my coach how I’ve improved and hopefully enough to be on varsity this coming season.
Similarly, using slice was always the easy way out for me while playing a match or just rallying. I never really had a purpose for the slices that I made and mostly used them when I was lazy; though I did use them when it was needed and the last resort. Slices are supposed to mostly be used to push one’s opponent back making them hit a weaker shot in return, so the other can hit a powerful topspin shot. Another way slices are used are for drop shots and angle shots. Although I used my slice with angles and when I had no other choice, I never even thought of using it as a way for me to rip a topspin ball on them. Additionally, I can’t remember the last time I hit a purposeful drop shot a few feet or less from the net that was effective. I’ve realized that drop shots aren’t really my thing, but can be because I use the right motion for a perfect drop shot. Even though I don’t use the slice for the reasons that would help me win points that isn’t the main issue. The main issue is I lose much of my point from slicing too easily giving them an easy shot to rip down the court making it impossible for me to return. Don’t get me wrong, my slice is beautiful but when used just as a way to return a shot with no care in the world it turns into a weakness. As games go on, that weakness becomes predictable and then known by my opponent. Another huge issue is that using my backhand slice more than my two-handed backhand makes me rely less on my two-handed and more on my backhand slice. This created problems because I used to use my slice on every backhand making my two-handed less accurate and my strategy more predictable. However, this year I’ve made an increased effort in using my backhand slice only when I see it fits best whether it’s to take advantage of a weak return, angle shots, drop shots, or last resorts. Since I’ve used my two handed topspin backhand more often my confidence level with it has risen more than I ever thought it would. Most people's’ biggest weakness is their backhanded and try not to use it as much as possible, but I have learned to love it and use a perceived weakness as a strength.
Moving my feet during a match or practice has consistently been a concern in terms of not moving quick enough to get to a ball and not being ready for a very fast serve. I used to be a very laid back tennis player and never kept my feet moving while playing. This crippled my ability to reach a drop shot that was very short, an angle shot that was too wide or an overhead that was too high. More importantly, not moving my feet limited my groundstrokes in the amount of topspin and accuracy they would show. I would not really step in to the ball and make sure I wasn’t too close to the ball to avoid my body being in the way of my shots. This also hurt me in the types of shots that were being hit at me, whether high or low my body wasn’t in the right position to scoop or move out of the way of the ball. Another concern was split stepping. Split stepping is splitting your feet apart right before one’s opponent is about to hit their shot or serve. Doing so before a shot makes me even more ready for the ball that is coming towards me. Additionally, returning more powerful and fast serves has always been a big weakness for me in the sense that even with a slice I would barely return the serve. I have finally realized that split stepping before a serve made myself more able to get around the serve and return in with enough topspin to not be some wimpy unimpressive shot. Not only split stepping before serves but if it is a powerful serve it is imperative that I do not take a big swing because it causes me to lose time to hit the ball. Because I move around more in each point I feel more involved in tennis and feel as though it has grown to a bigger part of my life and made me happier to play. This has improved a great deal over the past few months and can really feel tennis meaning more to me now that I am more involved mentally and physically.
My favorite part of tennis is playing at the net because I’m relatively tall meaning I can get most shots hit at me, and I feel the most involved possible in the point and it just gives me the biggest jolt of energy. I try to come to the net as much as possible because it makes the match more exciting for me and is one of my biggest strengths in tennis. While playing at net my favorite shot is a backhand volley because the angle I can get and power makes it extremely hard to return. When playing doubles, even though my forehand groundstroke is more accurate and better than my backhand groundstroke I always choose to be on the backhand side. What better way to practice backhand groundstrokes than to be forced to hit them in a match. Even though it could hurt my doubles partner and I it is worth it in the long run to strengthen my backhand groundstroke. Even though it could hurt us, it can very well help us because of the perfect angles I get on my backhand volleys from being able to be so far over to the left because I have a partner watching the right side. My backhand volley is slightly less accurate than my forehand volley though it is definitely harder to return. One thing that I have been improving on more in terms of volleys, is volleying them passed the service line making my opponent have less time to react and hit an at least adequate return shot. Many people choke up and freak out when fast shots are hit at them when they are at net, but not I; I love the hard shots because when at net that’s the last thing one wants to do. Returning a fast shot at net is all a matter of putting your racquet out and stepping forward to block the shot. People try to intimidate me by trying to pass me and I love just blocking and making them being the ones that have to work.
Many people don’t think of sportsmanship when they think of the factors that come into play when wanting to be a successful tennis player. I for one am very big on sportsmanship and think that it doesn’t do anything to act like an a**hole to the other one s/he is playing after having lost. One can act that way but will it really make them feel better about the way they played, nine times out of ten it won’t. When I think of losing matches I don’t think about how badly I played and how much it sucks that I lost. I focus on what I did wrong and a better strategy I can use next time. Losing is learning for me. I learn from my mistakes. After losing matches I think it over and notice what I did wrong and how I can improve how I played. Some may say that because I don’t get p***ed when I lose I’m not truly in love with the sport. That’s completely inaccurate, I don’t care when I lose because I love the game of tennis so much and don’t want one match or ten matches to get me down and make me unhappy. I have no reason to be unhappy because I am doing exactly what makes me happiest: playing tennis, whether I win or lose. A quote that I heard quite a while ago really stuck with me and pretty much refers to how I approach everything in life: “I never lose, either I win or I learn. That’s the attitude of a champion”. Losing isn’t something that relates to me because losing doesn’t have an effect on me. In my mind I’m not losing, I’m just learning and then everything goes on as it did before.