Match with Matt Dorsey

1/7/09 Wednesday 3:00pm.

Chico State courts

Today I played with Matt Dorsey.  I would say Matt is a 4.0 level player, although Eldon has mentioned to me that at one time Matt was probably played at a 4.5 NTRP rating.  He has 1^st and 2^nd serves that have considerable pace and movement.  His forehand has a lot of top and can really jump. He can hit fairly hard and penetrating shots and he comes forward to the net easily when given the chance.  Matt is very modest and claims he’s not any better than me.  But he is.  The 1-6, 2-6 score of today proves that.

It was an interesting match for me, though.  I enjoyed playing Matt.  His 1^st serve was a big challenge for me, but it gave me the opportunity to work on certain things.  I spent the 1^st set adjusting to his serves.  At first I wasn’t getting it back at all or I would pop it up.  The pop up was okay if it went deep, but not short. The short ones he smacked hard.  I decided to move back from the baseline a few feet to allow myself more time to time my swing.  I remembered to move forward as his toss went up into the air so I had some forward momentum when making contact.  By the second set I was adjusting and making some very decent returns of serve.  Some returns were merely blocked back, but they kept the ball in play.  Others, surprisingly, I placed down-the-line or even once I had a crosscourt winner.

So the second set became a lot more interesting once I was returning serve.  We had some good points and several games that had multiple deuces.  The final score probably does not reflect how well I really did in the 2^nd set.

In this match I was very conscious of certain strategies and my shot selection.  (Eldon and I had just worked out on the court earlier in the morning on those very same things.)  I moved forward fairly well throughout the match when I had the chance.  I felt comfortable doing it.  I only got caught once with the ball at my feet.  I tried hitting some short balls to see what Matt would do.  He did win most of those, but not all of them.  Once we were both at the net and I lobbed him so well he ended up with a very awkward return that went out.  Another time I was up in the service court and Matt tried to lob me going to my backhand side and I returned short to the ad court which was where he had delivered his lob from and was still standing.  He put my ball away.  At that point I said to myself that was what Eldon was talking about this morning.  As I made that mistake I clearly saw how I had lost the opportunity to win that point by not hitting short to the open court forcing my opponent to run.  The only slack I can cut myself here is the fact that his ball was high, an attempted lob to my backhand side, and that shot can be difficult to return at all.  I felt I could have put it into the open court, though, if I had been thinking more clearly.

In terms of my stroke mechanics in this match there were several netted balls, both forehand and backhand, where I realized I failed because I stood up instead of keeping my knees bent and driving through the ball.  Actually with each failed occurrence I was smiling to myself and saying that’s it.  I know what I did wrong.  I was happy to identify that. Earlier in the morning Eldon had helped me to identify that mechanical problem.  Also, there were two or three balls that I messed up on that I realized I should have moved up on. They didn’t have anything on them in terms of pace and I was waiting for them to arrive instead of moving forward to strike them and take advantage of them as shorter weaker balls.

One last comment about my serving. I was using three serves:  flat 1^st , kick 2^nd and spin 2^nd.  I did fairly well at mixing them up.  I did double-fault more than I wanted, but I got better as we went along.  I have to think about keeping my toss high enough.  (When I don’t toss high enough, I net it.)  My knee bend was fairly good on my 1^st serve, but not deep enough on the kick.  I felt like I hadn’t practiced my serves enough in the last few days.  Overall, though, the serves were fairly effective. I won some points with them.

Anyways, that’s it for now.  All and all I enjoyed my encounter with Matt.  I felt quite relaxed throughout the match.  That may have been due to Matt.  He is a very easy going and pleasant guy, very unassuming and modest.