Completed the trifecta of a full weekend of play (My wife said I was making up for all the lost time with rhr house guests lol). I shudder to think of what would have happened had I not played during the wedding trip.
I got to the club and started hitting with a guy I met there first a couple of months ago. He has really powerful strokes but he is definitely enamored with power over control. My kryptonite is usually good serves and consistent power, which usually means a player has to be willing to chase down and loop my wide blocks or move around and keep the ball in play until I miss. But because he is trying to attack hard, if my defense is on, I just have to get my attacks in and I am good. I managed to beat him 3‐0, I am confident he is using me as a measuring stick for his progress.
To show how good Friday was, I played the guy I beat three times on Friday. This time, he won a tight first game and third game and ran away with the fourth as I went into third ball mode and he managed to bring the ball back. Got a few. ad bounces as well, but these are things you have to accept when you juice up the ball at the extremes, you cant blame yourself or the opponent for the ball coming back weird when you ste playing qt the extremes of your power levels.
So he plays the other guy I had just beaten who was next. I waited for my rematch but then a kid comes up to me and asks to play. My lefty training partner had just beaten the kid 3-0 so I felt obliged to beat the old top lol. The match starts and it becomes clear that when we get into a topspins rally, he is going to run down and attack everything and my blocking will not get the job done. But I have two advantages which are usually stable against such kids. The first is they dont always measure backspin well so they often overshoot the table or put the ball in the net. The second is that when I open with heavy spin, it is something they haven't practiced against enough so they almost always block or counter long unless they are miraculously lucky. The kid managed to win the third game at deuce but the rest was comfortable. But in a few years, these things almost inevitably invert and I can't beat the kids anymore.
So the guy who just beat me finishes his match and seeing I am coming in, says he needs to rest. Which is okay, but then he goes to play my lefty buddy lol. So he definitely hates playing me lol. The guy I beat in the first match has a coaching session so we just hit for a bit. I tell him that he tries to hit every ball hard regardless of his positioning and this will get him into trouble. I think this is what many people get wrong about footwork. The reason why footwork is important is not because it is something that a good player needs. The reason it is important is that the speed of the game requires you to make quick transitions and how you connect those transitions and understand what possibilities come out of those transitions. If you are in position or practice something extensively. you generate new options. If not, just accept the limitations of your movement. If you can't prepare a power shot with movement, just take the shot you have.
I then play a lefty who has long pips on backhand and uses a blade with a funky handle. He has an annoying down the line serve (punch) to the wide backhand. During the warm up, he says "Wow, your ball has a lot of rotation." I immodestly said, "I try. Thank you." He managed to win the 3rd game at 9 or deuce. I popped up his serve and he got his smash in. Defending hard attacks close to the table is something I can going to pay for as well. I thought about going to a coach in Ohio who trains this but unfortunately, recent events in the news have annihilated that possibility. I did win the other games, I attacked the pips ball off my backspin serve really well
Finally, my lefty friend and I were about to play but I waited for him to play the left pips guy first. My friend won 3‐1 and then we got down to business. I think I need to work on serving varieties of low no spin as my most common serve and then focus on rallying. This fits my third ball and rally focus. My lefty friend has a good flat flick game so he attacks them and I have to loop a ball which I struggle with. But I can see myself getting better at this, the main thing is to keep the ball low and short and to bring in spin occasionally but on my own terms. I win the first two games, he wins the next two, and I win the last. Good match with some good rallies. I am working on improving my backhand technique to get more spin my delaying the wrist use to time it better. I might work on something similar with my forehand at some point but I guess I will wait until I get a coach to analyze what I do.
A weekend of TT is good! Time to go watch MLTT...
