US National Championships

Events

2700 Doubles
I played the under 2700 doubles with Jeff. We played three matches in single elimination, making the semifinals. The first match was very easy against two older players. They couldn't return our serves and their own serves weren't good enough to compensate. The second match was against two younger players. They were very good with their rallying strokes, but lacked in service and service return. Again we won fairly easily because they couldn't return serve. In the final match we played two older men. The one player was probably around 1600 and the other around 1100. The lower rated player was a defensive long pips player and the higher was a hitter. We lost in five, but ran off seven strait points to win the fourth game after falling behind 10-5. This match was probably lost with missed slams.

Under 1300
I did the best in this event. Partly because of opponents I faced and partly because I was the freshest and most concentrated in this event. I had a relatively easy time in the round robin portion of this event. The top player on the table was rated about 1200. I beat him without too much trouble. After that I played two women. I won those fairly easily too. I did have trouble with one no spin serve that went down the line at my backhand and a side spin serve short in the middle of the table.

In the first playoff match, I played a younger boy. He was close to 1300 in rating. The first two games were close, but I managed to win without too much worry. He gave me trouble with a high toss no spin serve to my backhand. Other than that I didn't lose too many points, other than a few backhand loops. In the last game, he collapsed a bit, missing a couple of serves, and only scoring one point.

In the next match I played an older man, who was rated above 1200. We played to five. In the fourth game I had a match point and missed a loop. I also missed two serves, partly because I was getting tired. The last game was close, but I lost on a couple of ill advised serves and missing loops.

Under 1100
I was the top seed on my table in this event. I played the worst probably in this event. I won my table against weak competition. I did struggle against a low level chopper. My biggest problem was that I was hitting my loops long. In the last game I started to find my range. I won fairly easily against the other players.

In the playoff match I lost. There was a 1266 rated girl using long pips. I didn't have Jeff to coach me in this event. I made the mistake of trying to loop through her pips. She was a very consistent player and a very good blocker. I was well in the first two games, but couldn't pull it out, and was not in the last game as I tried some other strategies. I should have gone to a controlled looping strategy, but didn't think to.

Under 1200
In this event I didn't get off my table. I beat an older man in five, and a really young kid. The older gentleman pushed my to five, however I won the fifth game easily as I bore down and concentrated. I beat the young kid easily. He was too young to present much of a challenge. I lost to another girl however. She was close to my skill level, and we played four games. I lost the second game because I missed two serves. The last game I lost as she adjusted her serving, and did a bit of a number on me with her backhand serve. She stopped serving short and only served topspin, side spin, and no spin.


What I did well:

-coming back, keeping my concentration even when behind

-serving, when I kept it on the table

-beating the people I should beat

-good concentration in most matches

-understanding how to use my forehand pendulum

What I didn't do well:

-too many missed serves, may have lost me two matches

-adjusting strategy in game

-controlled looping to pips

-missed/tried too many backhand loops against serves

-need to set up forehand loop better

-get lower on service returns

-would miss mostly on three serves, fast no spin forehand pendulum, standard forehand topspin serve wide to backhand, and topspin and side spin reverse forehand pendulum

-just generally returning serves with my backhand

-dominating the lower players that played without spin

Things to work on:

-develop serving game with reverse forehand pendulum

-develop strategy to set up loops with pushing and backspin serves

-playing against pips

-forehand pushing

-fliping?

-backhand service return, develop safe returns against topspin and no spin, solidify looping against long no spin and backspin

-apply concentration level at club

-create a backhand loop against topspin

-backhand smashing

Lists on Progress

Thoughts

• Crosscourt forehand loop has really come together recently. This is a combination of concentration and taking more time and letting the ball come to me.
• I've been opening my backhand on returning short wide serves to my backhand, resulting in hitting the return long.
• Need to be more conservative with my forehand loops service returns early in a match, to get a feel for how much spin my opponent puts on the ball. Try for more arc.

Working on

• touch game: my biggest weakness right now is probably my touch game. i.e. pushes and flips. I'm going to try and serve more short backspin to work on this
  
• taking the ball as it's falling on forehand loops: This is probably what improved my forehand loop the most recently. It gives me time to really line the shot up.
• topspin forehand pendulum serves. These have really started to work for me. I rediscovered a fast topspin to the wide backhand that has been working really well for me. I've also been able to do some very spinny short topspins. These aren't completely under control though.
• reverse forehand pendulum serves. Started using a convex service motion to make the topspin and backspin look more similar. Should work pretty well after some practice. I shouldn't forget my concave motion on backhand for heavy spin.

Need to work on

• serves that fade wide to my forehand. I have a lot of trouble returning these strongly, and lost a match recently because of this.
  
• placement on forehand loops
• taking the ball as it's falling on backhand loops

How did I play today?

-forehand looping

Mostly just drilled with Jeff today and last Saturday for about three hours. He's been working on his forehand and I've mostly forehand looped and blocked to his backhand. I found that I need work on looping down the line and looping from the backhand corner. The biggest problem is that getting the corrent sidespin on these balls take too much thought. Looping crosscourt is pretty good now. I'm doing a much better job taking the ball later. I probably still need to take the ball later on looping backspin sometimes.

I've been trying to work on a new motion for a topspin forehand pendulum serve. I'm trying to mimic a similar motion to what Jeff uses. It's pretty messed up right now. I get it in at a very low percentage right now and the spin is not so good. I do need this motion to make my backspin and sidespin pendulums more useful. The advice Jeff gave to use only wrist seemed to help a lot.

I'm still working on the reverse pendulum. It's a bit of a mess right now, because I haven't been emphasizing this serve recently. I probably haven't made much progress in the last couple weeks.

With all this work on my forehand loop, it's really brought together the rest of my game. I played Fred today and won, but I'm not sure how. Mostly I was just more consistent. I didn't really feel like I was hitting many winners. Being able to loop lets me take a little bit more time on my shots. Now I need to work on being ready for my next shot. I'm not expecting the ball to come back on my harder loops and when it does I can't follow up. I think if I can improve my short game on my forehand side my game will really come together. Both flipping and pushing.

How did I play last night?

Working on:
-Reverse Pendulum Forehand
-pushing
-Forehand Service Return
-Backhand Service Return

I played very few singles again last night, only one against Jeff and my league match against Patrick. I lost to Jeff as usual, but we had a pretty good warm up. I was working on warming up my serve and third ball loop. I won fairly easily against Patrick. Against him on my serve I can out-spin him and his service is pretty weak. I played the service return pretty conservatively, mostly pushing, but with placement so that he couldn't forehand loop. My backhand loop was working pretty well in the match, which got me winners most of the time or led to winners.

The reverse pendulum is slowly coming along. The new improved motion I'm trying to use will take many more times before it feels natural. I also can't seem to put the backspin variation long. Sometimes I go back to the old motion and this isn't good. I need to remember to always use the new motion to get good at it.

Pushing is coming along. It's mostly been about remembering what I already know and practicing it. Something new is that I can read the spin better now, when I'm focused, so I need to learn to apply that knowledge to pushing. The forehand is a little trickier as my technique is just not as good as my backhand. I should look into figuring out the ideal forehand push technique.

Forehand service return: I still can't deal with heavy short backspin. My forehand flip needs a lot of work as I'm still starting my swing way too late and it ends up somewhere between a push and a flip with the ball launching past the table. Looping is ok, but I still have trouble doing a strong loop when the ball is curving away from me.

Backhand service return: In doubles this is much better than my forehand. I'm fairly comfortable pushing, flipping, and looping. With looping I found that I could loop the no spin balls by slowing my swing down. The most important part was to remember to read the amount of spin on the ball as it came over the net.

Other things to note: I need to work on smashing/looping the mid height balls that are over the table. I've been trying to loop them at the top of the bounce, which leads to the ball being lifted up and going past the end of the table. I also don't read balls moving away from my forehand very well. I probably need to focus more on these, especially when looping. Maybe I need to get closer to the bounce on these too.

How Did I Play Today?

Lost to Margit in a league match 3-0. It was a bit fustrating because I could tell as soon as a started that I was cold. The biggest problem was that my legs and eyes weren't functioning properly yet. Besides that I wasn't able to do my spinniest serves, since this was the first singles match I played. My basic strategy of serving and looping was working, because my serves were being returned in a weird way. The returns had the opposite side spin that I served with. I couldn't see what she was doing that would cause this. The third game managed to be close with me losing 11-9 as I started to warm up, but it really was a case of too little too late. I wanted to try to attack her lack of ability to reverse spin on her forehand, but found that my pushes were too weak, and my serves to the forehand too unpracticed. I should think about resurrecting my forehand tomahawk from the forehand side against the weaker players in the club. I also found that my backhand loops were being blocked back easily. My suspicion is that Margit was using a rubber on her backhand that is just short of being anti.

I was working on my reverse pendulum forehand serve and as it warmed up I found the serve to be much easier. I figured out today that the key to the backspin variation is to serve with my whole body, getting a good shoulder and hip turn. I miss this serve sometimes because I stop watching the ball and sometimes because of a bad toss.

I also played Arsene today and while interesting, I had trouble executing the short backspin serve into anti and then a forehand flip against the weak topspin. I unfortunately kept putting this shot into the net. I either need to get more spin on this serve or to expect less spin. I also couldn't get his heavy backspin serve back onto the table. If the serve came long I could loop it with my forehand, but most of the time it was too short. I tried pushing the serve, but was too passive with my push and it kept ending up in the bottom of the net. This tells me most of all that I need to work of my push and leveling it up at least one level.

To reiterate, I should work on:

-Serves to the forehand side, this should be from all of my three motions, forehand pendulum, reverse pendulum forehand, and forehand tomahark. I should think about using the tomahawk from the forehand corner as well and the backhand corner.

-pushing, both forehand and backhand. My forehand push is better than it was a year ago, but my backhand push has probably regressed. This just means that they are both inadequate for the level all my other strokes are at.

-playing Margit in singles a couple more times. Figure out why I lose to her. i.e. what weakness is she exposing.

Service Receive Theory

"the main thing in returning is to recognize simultaneously type of spin and depth, in the next moment you have to recognize quantity of spin and adjust racket angle, and finally it's execution." - Chetan Baboor

This tidbit from about.com. Breaking this down, there are four parts two receiving serve. They can roughly be broken down into reading the type of spin first, reading the depth and placement of the serve, last moment adjustments for amount of spin and placement, and then execution.

First is reading the type of spin mainly from the service motion. This is the most difficult part. Good servers disguise their serves well enough that this can be a guess at best. For me I'm mainly trying to determine between side, no, top, and back. The type of side spin is almost impossible to disguise. Though I don't make the adjustments for the type of side spin instintively enough and get caught by my oppenent switching between the two types of side. I find that the more familiar I am with doing the service motion myself, the easier it is to read the spin.

From the speed of contact and the depth of the first bounce, one should be able to tell the depth of the serve. Is the serve going to be long or short? If the serve is on the edge, it's probably better to play it as though the ball were short.

From the first bounce to the second, you need to read the amount of spin and if needed the type of spin. If the serve isn't too fast this is still possible. In fact it was nessessary in the days of hidden serves. If you need to read the type then you can't be as aggressive for the final shot compared to a read off of the motion. At this point you should have chosen the type of shot to execute and be moving to adjust for the depth and placement of the ball. If you're returning a short ball don't forget to step in. If the ball is a long ball and not too fast it's possible to read all of this off of the second bounce and after by chasing the ball away from the table and looping the ball below table height. From knowing the amount of spin, you adjust the angle of your racket, open more for more backspin and close more for more topspin.

From this point it's just execution. Hopefully you've moved to the right spot, chosen the right shot, and the execute that shot cleanly.

I know that I don't read enough off the first bounce. I should pay more attention to it for the depth and placement and possibly be able to read the type of spin off of the slower serves. I could also look for tells from the service motion. Most of the time I'm trying to read what type of spin is on the ball from the direction the server's paddle is moving, but I can probably get some information from people's follow through, the height the ball was struck at, and the height of the elbow. I find that reading the second bounce and amount of spin require lots of concentration, but that I can do it decently already. Reading and returning serves is something I expect to be working on for as long as I play table tennis.

How did I play today?

Things I was working on:
-Singles strategy
-Forehand looping
-Reverse pendulum forehand serve

I only played two singles today. One versus Vu, and one against Nathan. The rest were a bunch of doubles. Against Vu, I lost to him in five, but I came back from two down. My biggest problem when playing him was service return. If I would have just returned a couple more serves in the last game I probably would have won. My two main strategies against him were to serve backspin and then loop the return push. My other stragegy was to let him try and attack backspin or no spin and most of the time he'd miss. Unfortunately that when he hits it's so wild that I have no chance of getting it back. Next time I play him I should try to attack him forehand more with backspin.

I lost to Nathan in three, but it was more competitive than before. I was able to get some easy points from getting pushes and chops back on my serve. On his serve I did ok, but could still get better at it. Sometimes my concentration would lapse and I wouldn't watch the service motion.

In doubles I was ok, but it was doubles. I almost exclusively used the reserve pendulum today and was able to get heavy backspin short by the end. Hopefully I'll remember the adjustment to my motion I made next time I play. My placement and amount of spin was pretty erratic, but I wasn't missing too many.

In my warmup I tried the darker single ply, but with the rubbers I thought the racket was too slow. Maybe with faster rubbers I could use that blade, but I also felt like it was missing feeling.

Next time I'll try to rediscover the feeling on the reverse forehand pendulum backspin, keep working on my forehand loop with emphasis on adjusting for looping a falling backspin ball and looping inside out, trying serves from different angles, and probing my oppenents forehand with serves in singles.

Forehand Pendulum Serve

Before I evaluate my strategy, I should figure out where I start each point. This is serves and service returns. I'll be breaking down my serves by motion and my service returns by spin and placement. First up is my most used serve, the forehand pendulum.

I use this serve for the reasons everybody states. It leaves me ready to hit a forehand and the side-spin brings the ball back towards me, which gives the opportunity to play my stronger forehand against my opponents backhand. Besides this there probably isn't much advantage over other serves. It is the only one of the four most used service motions that has the correct side-spin. (Those four would be the forehand pendulum, forehand reverse pendulum, forehand tomahawk, and backhand pendulum.) If one could develop a serve that has the correct side-spin and still have decent spin and disguise, it could be a big advantage. Possible candidates are the backhand tomahawk, Jeff's reaching forehand serve, hitting the other side of the ball on the forehand tomahawk, and left handed serving then switching hands.

Back to the FHP, I basically use two motions with this serve. One motion for side-spin serves, that emphasizes the side-backspin and the other that's close to pure topspin. I also have a slightly different motion for pure side spin. This motion needs to add a topspin and/or a backspin variation to be truely effective. I'll analyze each serve by depth, placement, and amount of spin.

Motion 1 (Open Faced):
This serve is done with an open face. I have three spin variations from this serve, back-side, top-side, and no spin. Overall I'd say my deception between the three is OK.

Back Spin: Probably the most developed of these spin variations. I can out spin most players at the club with this at least once. When I'm going for the full amount of spin I lose control of the placement, so that it can go half long or triple bounce. I can serve this serve long with good speed and spin, but this probably needs more practice to perfect consistency and placement.

When I serve this short and wide to the backhand I should expect a push towards the middle of the table or a flip cross court to backhand side. Against the push return I can loop cross court or down the line. If it's flipped, I'd probably lose the point, probably try to block to forehand side. There's a third possibility of a loop, but I haven't played anyone, who can do this consistently.

Serving a double bounce, I can expect the same returns. This time the push comes to the backhand side. I can loop backhand, or step around my forehand. The preferred return is a forehand cross court to the backhand side. If needed I can push and reset for a fifth ball attack. It's possible against some opponents to serve this half long to invite a weak backhand loop, that I can smash or do a controlled block.

In the long variations, I can attack a player who doesn't have a strong loop or a looper who likes to step around the backhand.

Things to work on for this serve: On the double bounce, serve the first bounce closer to the line. Serve this with less side spin to invite a weak forehand flip. Learn to serve fast to forehand side to attack a weak forehand loop against backspin.

Topspin: This variation lacks a bit of spin. Mostly I play this serve to the wide backhand. At the level it is at right now, I can only use it as variation to try and get my opponent to push it. Then I can do an easy put away loop. If it's read correctly, the spin it too weak to prevent an attack. I need to improve the spin, before this can be a staple serve.

No Spin: I've just begun developing this serve. Haven't used it enough to really know this serve. I have been getting people with this serve.

Motion 2 (Neutral face):
This serve is only a long serve. It is done by hitting the ball close to the table around net height with around a neutral face. I only have a topspin and a no spin variation. My wrist movement exists, but is muted compared to the first motion. The keys to this serve are speed, height, and placement. I feel this serve is about as developed as it'll get. I'm mostly looking for outright winners with this serve. I get three different returns against this serve.

Any type of backspin return is popped up and usually is an outright winner.

Attacks against the no spin variation almost always hit the top of the net. These are blocked back with speed to good effect sometimes. Attacks against the topspin usually fall long, as the attacks are outspun. If the attack actually falls it's usually a winner from the speed of my serve. Using placement wide to the forehand, wide to the backhand, or at the elbow prevents most players from attacking this serve with any consistency.

Blocks are the only shot that have effect, but I can take away from the effectiveness of this shot with good placement.

So basically if any of the elements I metioned before are off, this serve is easily attacked for a winner. It works well against players below 2000. Past that the lack of side spin it too much of a weakness. I also have no plans after I do these serves as I'm expecting out right winners either way. From a miss hit serve being killed or the serve overpowering the oppenent. Further study of the uses of this serve is needed to develop a third ball attack off of this serve.

Other motions:
I use a slightly different motion than these two for my pure side spin variation. If I can develop a topspin variation to use with the side spin, this could become a third motion that I use. I'm also trying to develop another topspin serve that I swing up from below the ball, more like Jeff uses for his topspin variation.

There are many possible avenues to explore here for improving the service. The first thing I should work on is understanding the third ball attack for motion 2. I also need to develop the other spin variations for motion 1. My current topspin variation from motion 1 is almost a different motion, since I follow though upwards instead of downwards. I should revist this serve after I've developed all these motions and variations more completely.

To recap on new motions. We have a forehand open faced with a downward follow through, an open faced with an upwards follow through, the neutral faced (motion 2), the side spin variation that is also done with a neutral face, but the edge of the blade is facing the receiver. This could help obscure the contanct point. So really three service motions to develop.

Weaknesses

-pushing
-Off table Defense
-Counter Looping/Off table Offense
-slamming
-shot selection
-mental focus
-strategy

Pushing: I will miss this shot more than other players at my level. When I get in a pushing fight I feel uncomfortable and that I'll lose these points. My backhand is better than my forehand. If I get a heavy spin ball on my forehand that I want to push, I'll miss it more than I'll hit it. This weakness is partially covered up by my ability to loop backspin, but there are times where the ball is too short or I'm not ready to hit a forehand, so it'd be better to push and reset.

Off Table Defense: This is probably my biggest weakness in technique. I can lob in this situation, but is not a reliable shot. Chopping is even more unreliable. This is just something that I haven't practiced much. When I do get pushed off the table I try to spin my lobs back, and it works against players at my level, but can't control my placement well enough to rely on this.

Counter Looping/Off Table Offense: Not sure how much of a weakness this is. If I get pushed off the table by more than a step and a half, I can't generate much offense. Been trying to learn to loop at this distance, but is a work in progress. I can counter hit medium spin fast balls at this distance, but is a skill that needs much practice.

Slamming: I have a tendancy to miss too many slams against high balls. I know that I need to make sure to take lots of small adjustment steps when slamming, but I forget/get lazy a lot of times. I need to remember that on the first slam that I don't need to win the point, but use placement to get another weak return. Only when I am ready to slam and get a return that I really like should I go for a put away shot.

Shot Selection: Much of the time I don't choose to take the highest percentage shot in each situation, but instead get locked into looping and end up hitting this shot off balance. Also on return of service sometimes I should focus more on getting the serves back on the table any way possible rather than try for strong returns.

Mental Focus: I don't shut out the distractions of everything going on outside of the game I'm playing well. The difference between my peak concentration and average is huge. When I'm completely focused almost all the loops I attempt land. Also when I'm not focusing sometimes I'll take my forehands too far in front of my body.

Strategy: I don't adjust my game inside of matches very well. I get stuck in ruts sometimes trying to figure out why something isn't working by trying it over and over again. Also I don't think enough about how my opponent is going to return my shots, and have a response ready. Need to develop standard serve, third ball attacks I can depend on.

Strengths

-serving
-forehand loop against backspin
-backhand block

My biggest strength is probably my serve. It's strong enough that even against players above my level, I can get them to do what I want against my serve or outright miss it. A problem with this is that when I face an opponent that I can't get some free points against I struggle.

Forehand loop against backspin is another one of my strengths. I can take this shot down the line or crosscourt and if the spin is heavy I can really drive this shot.

Backhand block. I can take control away from an attacker with this shot. Using placement and keeping the pace on the ball, I can win points with this, if the attacker doesn't completely overwelm me with speed. If I get a flat slam, depending on how hard it is, I can still get this shot back with pace.

I probably win most of my points with these three shots. How do I use these shots more in a game to win more points?

Can I push to set up my loop? Serve backspin to set up my loop? Use better footwork to step around more?

Can I encourage spinny attacks to my backhand side? Tempt my oppenents to step around and loop shots.

On serve, are there serves that I can depend on even if I don't get free points. Serves that give me predictable returns that I can create a winner with?

Look to answer these questions in my strategy post.

Skills to evaluate

-Strategies: what combinations of shots do I use?

-Strengths: What are my best shots?

-Weaknesses: What are my worst shots?

Progress since last July

Reverse Pendulum Back-Side Spin: I haven't been trying this serve as much recently. My form has stabilized a good bit, but I'm still missing this serve too much. My biggest problem though is to get good spin. It still doesn't have even half the spin as my normal pendulum version. Maybe I should try to hit the ball with the trailing edge of my paddle again.

Forehand loops: Really starting to come together. I'm able to use them in matches. Pretty comfortable looping against topspin. Started to recently loop inside-out, but is still a work in progress. Mostly am able to do this only against mid-height balls. When I'm focused I probably have one of the better loops against backspin in the club, but too often I'm attempting this shot off balance or without the proper concentration and form. I'm able to loop moderately fast balls now and sometimes even fast shots, both backspin and topspin. Though that could use work.

Forehand pushes: I'm feeling more comfortable with this shot, but I never practice it so it becomes a bit rusty at times. I've relented on trying this shot with side-spin. May be something to try again, if I bring this back as a focus. I usually do this shot to the backhand side. Maybe should think about putting this more to the forehand, since most people at my level can't loop against backspin consistently.

No Spin Serves: Probably the part of my game that has made the most progress, after forehand loops. One of my best serves now. I still miss these occasionally because my concentration falters. My form is still fluctuating a bit on this. Should develop these with better disguise and add a couple more to my other motions.

Reading Serves: Not sure if I've made a lot of progress here. On my forehand side taking the serves a little later goes a long way to improving this though. On the backhand side it's a still hard against servers that I don't play very often. Doing better against JH though.

Returning No spin serves: I can do this now, but mostly I'm just lifting these back. I should try to start looping these.

Backhand loops: I'd say I'm at about the same place as in July. I think my progress was set back a decent amount by experimenting with rubbers. Now I'm back to the ol' trusty Desto F3 and I'm a lot happier. After I feel good about looping falling balls with my forehand, we'll see about refocusing on my backhand.

How did I play yesterday?

Focuses:
-Forehand looping
-Smashing
-Strategy/shot selection

Mostly practiced against J today. Played three matches against him and I actually won one today. That's the first time I beat him in a long time and probably only the second time when he was playing seriously. Mostly I practiced my forehand against his backhand and as he said good forehand beats good backhand. The thing I tried to do most on my forehand is to hit it a little later letting the ball fall and to not swing too hard, to swing lightly enough that I was consistently getting the ball back.

My strategy when returning serves was when possible to give back dead balls. This kept J from attacking the ball. He would spin these back. This allowed me to do a controlled block back. The other thing I changed was whenever I was off balance to just hit a weak shot that would make it back onto the table and be prepared to play defense. This worked against him, but I wonder if it's a sound strategy against stronger hitters.

My serve in the last two games was working really well. I was getting the return I was expecting on nearly every serve. My one gripe would be that I need to figure out how to get more spin on my side-top forehand pendulum serve. On this serve there wasn't one instance of out spinning the opponent.

I did try to focus again on slamming. I tried to make sure to get my feet into the right position and not to try and hit the ball too hard. It seemed to work most of the time. There were still instances of me trying to hit a ball with a running backhand. I missed all of these. So I guess the moral is don't hit running backhands. Though I think it would be doable if I was just moving strait forward.

Also played a couple doubles matches, lost both. Been working on my forehand service return and I had some trouble. The ball was hitting the top of the net on a handful of my forehand loops. I think it might have been that my rubber may have been too dirty.


Next time I should continue to work on my forehand loop. Make more of my initial warm up. Try to find the right focus faster. Work on shutting out distractions, while playing matches. Work on my pushes.

What I'm working on

I've been trying to take the ball later on my forehand loops. Especially looping the ball as it's falling against both backspin and topspin. I had been finding myself moving forward to take the ball at the top of the bounce all the time for backspin, which put me too off balance sometimes to get a good shot.

Other things I've been working on:
-reverse forehand pendulum serve
-learning the backhand loop against topspin
-shot selection and strategy

Things I need to work on, but haven't been concentrating on:
-smashing high balls
-pushing forehand and backhand