5^th Match with Sydney Riggle

1/9/09  Friday  1:00 pm.

Chico Racquet Club

Lost 2-6, 6-7 (3)

 

 

Today Sydney and I went out to play in the wind.  Twenty-five mph wind gusts.  Definitely a large factor!  The wind was blowing from the north, but also somewhat towards the east.  So in other words it was blowing diagonally across the court much of the time.  The wind is always such a definite challenge.  It affects your strategy. I quickly abandoned my flat serve in the first set because of the unpredictable wind gusts moving my toss around.   I was mainly using my spin serve until at one point in the match I noticed I was having quite a bit of success with my kick serve due to the wind giving it additional and unpredictable movement.  Unfortunately, as I decided to take advantage of this tactic I suddenly hit 3 double-faults in a row and promptly lost my serve. (I netted all 3 of those serves because I wasn’t swinging through the ball hard enough.) 

 

I started serving in the 1^st set and was executing everything perfectly.  I won four points in a row.  I was moving into the court taking short balls and winning points easily sometimes finishing at the net.  I was thinking this is what Eldon was trying to teach me. I won my serve in the third game and I was up 2-1.  But that was the end of my winning games in that 1^st set.  I’m not exactly sure what happened.

 

I do know that any ball in the donut hole Sydney will take advantage of.  He will come up to those balls and place them down a line or cross them with an angle.  I tried bringing him to the net at times.  Some times I netted my ball in trying to land it short.  Other times I placed the ball short, Sydney would race forward and pass me as I was also coming to the net.

 

We had some great points and I had to applaud Syd a couple of times when I had hit very good balls that I thought he would not reach but did.  One time in particular I had been up at the net and placed a volley with a wicked angle cross the court close to the net, but Syd raced up and put it back across the court with another wicked angle as I stood watching.  I guess I haven’t learned yet that no shot I hit against an opponent like Sydney Hughes is great enough to stand and watch and not keep moving just in case he gets it back.

 

I had trouble keeping balls in the court with the wind behind me.  I knew I needed to hit with a little more topspin to keep them in, but any number of balls got away from me.  (This is something I am definitely going to work on in practice—-hitting with top versus a more penetrating flatter stroke.  I need to work on this with the ball machine so I can feel the difference in these strokes.

 

I also netted some balls on the backhand side due to standing up during the shot.  I realize now that I have been doing this for quite a long time in matches.  I’m not sure that I know what this is from except to say that it feels like I get too excited and get herky-jerky instead of being more relaxed and staying down with my shot longer.  I do remember one time, though, where I remembered to stay down and hit through the ball longer and guess what?  It was a nice ball down-the-line, but it went three feet long.  I think I was inside the baseline some.  I probably had too big a backswing.  I think in general my backswing gets to big on my strokes in match play.  I have to find a way to change this.

 

I was pleased in general with my play in the 2^nd set.  I had good court movement.  I hit a lot of deep balls and was moving in.  A number of my shots were quite penetrating, to a point where I believe Syd was having some trouble with them.  I focused on hitting to Syd’s backhand in this set. I think it helped although he still can hit some decent shots with his backhand.  He has some slice that works fairly well on his backhand side.  He likes to direct with his forehand, though.

 

We were going back and forth in score in the 2^nd set when he was ahead 5-4 and had set point, but lost the game.  I went on to go ahead when he was serving at 5-6, but I couldn’t close him out.  I felt like I needed to focus more and use my will power to stay in that game and win it.  In other words, I felt like I could have and should have won, if I had pumped up my energy more.  Oh well, maybe this will come with more experience. The tie-break wasn’t close.  He won easily, 7-3.

 

I feel like I’m getting to know Syd’s game and can predict where he is going to go.  I was starting to relax a lot more in that 2^nd set.  I think it’s a matter of time before I start to beat him regularly.  The key for me is being able to hit penetrating shots when I need to so I can move into the court to take shorter balls and finish points or move into a more aggressive position at the net to be able to finish points.