Power Pong September

Went 3-3. I'll probably lose 30 or so points. I played three lefties and struggled against all of them. The first one I played I beat, but struggled more than I should have for his level. The second I beat in the finals of the 1250 before, but this time lost in 4. I lost one game I was up 9-5, 10-8, which was really bad and a sign of things to come all day. I struggled to finish out games I was leading near the end. I also fell too in love with my long serves in this match. I should have served shorter more. The third lefty I played was also someone I played before. I partly lost because of a ton of nets and edges, but also I had trouble as before of reading what spin was coming from him. This kept me from using my strongest shots. He would pseudo chop the ball, which would come back randomly as topspin, backspin, or no spin, depending on how well he struck the ball. I should have used the drop shot a ton. He would back off the table very quickly, and when I tried this in the last game I had good success.

I beat a 1200 ish level penholder in five games. This was the first match of the night I really felt comfortable. I was able to use my forehand loop like I like to. My last match of the day was against a 1400+ player. I played him before, when I was completely exhausted and did horribly. This time I played much better, but was still unable to win. I felt that I had a chance if I played near my best, but ended up making too many backhand errors.

There were four things I took away from today. One, I really need to shore up my backhand. I know I'm capable of playing much better on my backhand, but I end up over hitting especially on backhand openers. Two, I've lost my edge for finishing matches. There were way too many games today where I was up 8-6, 8-8, 10-8, 9-9, ect, that I lost. I should be able to finish out these games, especially when it's my serve. Three, I should learn to loop forehands from lower. I was watching some of the better players and they were covering the wide forehand by looping the ball at knee height. Four, I suck at playing lefties. I need to find some lefties near my level to play. I just don't understand the angles a lefty can find and left spin, especially on serve.

At the club

Switched to a new blade, the Bazelart. It's a lot like the Timo Boll Spark, same thickness, number of plies, and thickness of plies, but has at least a different top ply. The main difference is that it is faster, bringing the blade into the OFF- speed category. Switching to this blade has helped my pushing the most. I also have a bit better control on my drives/slams. This blade has a lower throw than the DE-1, so I've been putting a lot of shots into the net. I think I need to go to a faster rubber on my backhand as I'm having to put too much effort to just get the ball back over the net.

Lost to Y.Lee for a second time in the league. I have a lot of trouble against his style. When he pushes down the line to my forehand I have trouble reading how much spin is on the ball. I was looping ball long thinking there was heavy backspin sometimes and looping balls into the net because there was more spin than I was expecting. I did better later on by not giving him the push down the line, but was unable to win a game. In the end my errors when slamming caused me to lose the match. I kept dumping put away shots into the net. I also had some trouble against his topspin short serve down the line to my backhand. I couldn't get my brain to hit the left side of the ball. By the last game I was able to at least get the serve on the table. The last game was a 18-16.

Also played Nathan and lost the first game fairly badly. No spin and backspin serves to the middle of the table are a big no no against him. He would put it short and wide to my forehand and I'd be dead in the water. After avoiding those serves, I did ok against him. Missed some serves and some easy loops.

Things to Work on

Been making good progress the last couple weeks after not making much for awhile. This isn't a complete list of what I'm working on or need to work on. I'm fairly satisfied with my technique for forehand and backhand looping at the moment. They of course could be better, but I think my focus now is going to be on how to put together my game and win matches. Shot selection and making good adjustments in game are the primary focuses behind this. There is still a decent amount of technique that I need to work on.

Ready Position

• Leaning forward and getting my butt lower. This will help with keeping my balance.
• Better ready position. Part of this is as above, also need to keep my elbow in front of me instead of out to the side.
• Return to ready position after every shot. Not sure how good or bad I am at this. Should work with the robot on this.

Pushing

• Following through. I noticed recently that I have a tendancy of not following through the ball on my pushes and sometimes even stopping short of the ball. I should have a smooth stroke under the ball at a 45 degree angle.

Looping

• Placement
• Spin Variation

Flipping

• Consistency. I'm getting pretty comfortable with flipping no spin and light spin balls. The biggestest mistake I still make is to open my raquet too much. I wonder if there's a problem with how I'm stepping in when this happens.

Serving

• Use all different motions for forehand pendulum. Especially the three for top side spin. (1) Fake backspin and pull hand up. (2) Fake backspin, but rotate all the way around, so wrist is moving upwards. (3) Come down like a backspin pendulum, but flip hand over into windshield wiper serve.
• Forehand pendulum without sidespin. Especially down the line backspin, making too many mistakes with this serve still.
• A short no spin serve like Margit's that can't be killed, but could be flipped. This requires cushioning the ball a little.
  
• Get more backspin on Tomahawk
• Use reverse pendulum more and understand how to use it

Service Receive

• Clear the brain and just react.
• Good ready position

Thoughts about weaknesses

Played S tonight and lost in a league match. I had trouble returning his serve so that he couldn't open the attack. I also should have served my backspin forehand pendulum as much as possible as he was having trouble returning it.

Two things to work on in particular. Adding spin with my pushes to make it harder for people without a good loop to open the attack. I also found that I was thinking too much before receiving service. I did much better when I cleared my head and relaxed my body right before the service.

Forehand Tomahawk Backspin

The trick is to follow through away from the body. I have a tendancy to pull my hand back into my body. To do this make sure I don't throw the ball too far away from my body.

Thing to work on

Besides bringing a certain level of intensity to playing all the time. I need to work on predicting where the ball is going to land, particularly the depth of pushing. I should know where as soon as I see the ball leave my opponents racket. As of now I'm being surprised by where the ball lands sometimes. I would say I'm too often surprised. I should work on this not just for inm rallies, but also on serves.

San Diego Open

Played in the 1400 and 1550 and went 3-3. I felt that I had the ability to advance in both groups, but didn't execute well enough. My biggest problem was just my concentration level. I need to practice wanting to win every single point again. I've been a bit too lax at the club and can't find the correct level of arousal in the tournaments I've played recently. Besides this the people I lost to gave me a lot of problems in service return.

The one guy was making me return the ball to the middle of the table and then slamming the ball. He also had a really good down the line serve. I think if I worked to place my service return more I would have increased my chances of winning by a lot.

One of the other people I lost to had a very spinny forehand tomahawk serve. I should have just assumed the serve was back side spin, but didn't commit to it enough. Lost the last game in duece and had a couple game points that I squandered with bad serves.

The last guy I lost to was unrated. I felt like I had his number for the most part, but gave away a few too many points with pushing and looping errors.

All in all I played fairly well. The people I beat, I beat easily, spinning them off the table with my serves. Even the people I lost to I felt like I controlled my serve reasonably well. Unfortunately I had a big fail in service return. I seem to have trouble with serves that come nearly strait down the line at my elbow. My forehand pushing weakness probably contributes to this problem. If I can shore up this problem, I feel I'll go up a level.