1 Game of Mine against college opponent

UpSideDownCarl said:

Also, worthwhile stats for you if you are looking to improve:

In the first set your opponent opened up successfully 12 times. If I add the times he tried and failed, the number is higher. But the successful open ups were 12. Those were all the topspin rallies in the first set. You did not try once to open in the first set. You played passively and let him start.

In the second set you attempted 1 FH open up where you missed the ball. And then, on the last serve of the game, you punched a high dead ball serve. So, you actually opened successfully ONCE.

In the second set your opponent was successful at opening the topsin rally 11 times.

Through the first 2 sets, all but one of your opponent's open ups was on the BH side. Your opponent opened once with his FH. So, 22 BH open ups and 1 FH open up, in the first 2 sets; and of 24 offensive rallies, he opened on 23 of them; 23 of 24 is 96%.

In the 3rd set, he opens up 8 times, You open up with a FH Loop once and you punch another high dead ball once. So in this set, of 10 offensive rallies, you initiated 2.

In the 4th set you were a little more active. You opened on 1 FH and 1 BH and you tried on 1 more FH and 2 more BHs, but you tried, you became more offensive-minded and you succeeded 2x. This is important.

Your opponent opened successfully 8 times. So, of 10 topspin rallies in this set, he was responsible for 8 and you successfully opened on 2.

In the last set, you were even more active. You opened successfully 3 times with FH and 3 times with BH. 2 of the BHs were pretty nice loops. Your opponent opened 6 times successfully so, the last game was the first time where you each initiated 50% of the offensive rallies.

You may be winning, but he is working on the more valuable skill for improving in the sport for most of the match. Even if you can handle his topspin, he is doing the more active work a large percentage of the time.

But, when you do successfully initiate the topspin, it seems you do usually win. And your topspin open ups are good enough for you to work on opening much more frequently than you do.

Hopefully this is useful information for you.

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Thanks really appreciate these stats. Im impressed that you can identify a dead ball from so far away.

I am trying to open up more, but i feel rushed when he is playing so fast.

Actually were not trying to beat each other. After each set, we are coaching each other on where we think the other guy is losing. I told him he is playing too fast and trying to loop too early in the rally, resulting in misses. I also said he seems to be losing the bh to bh rallies because he isnt building the point enough. As you said, not thinking.

He said that he feels afraid to hit to my forehand, because he seems to not be able to return my fh loop.

PingBirdPong said:

Excuse me if I’m wrong, but you shouldn’t be “coaching” him in forehand or backhand if you never played actively with either. From the looks of it, he serves better, and more willingly tries to attack. If he simply sharpens his loops a little, he would be winning most of the points.

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Im not coaching his technique, just his game strategy.

Ill play him again this week and try to play more offensive.

Well after playing several days together, he started to get better feeling for his loop attack. After a while he started to directly loop my serve and his % went up a lot. I started losing many more games and also lost several sets. So I had to make an adjustment to take the advantage back.

A few changes I did:
- I started to loop and opening up directly on his long serve
- When he pushes to me, I started to opening loop his push more often and earlier in the rally (especially with the backhand)
- I varied my push length more, pushing short and pushing long.
- And finally I started to press down more when blocking his loop so my ball doesn't fly long

Carl and some others gave some advice along these lines. I think I am finding a lot more consistency now blocking his loop and also doing my own backhand loop. My BH loop is usually not very penetrating, and it usually doesn't win the point outright. But it seems to throw off the opponent's rhythm and takes away their chance to attack.

One other thing is that i have a really bad habit of trying to hit the ball in the middle of the blade, rather than the middle of the head. So often times the ball hits my finger or hand.

Im still trying to mentally force myself to move my racket head slightly to the right so the ball lands in the center of the head. Its hard because my instinct is to aim at the center of the racket