yesterdays tennis adventures

Hm. i have nothing to write about so i will write about what i learned yesterday. I arrived at the tennis court after i took the bus home and biked to washington tennis court. I saw the regulars that go there nearly everyday, Ron and Erwin. Fortunately court 3 was open and we went there to practice. Erwin is wayy more experienced that me and ron so he was going to coach us for free. First we volleyed around and rallied a bit along the baseline, i was the one that usually hit the ball out.

The first thing that i learned that i was hitting the ball wrong, the position of the wrist. I was hitting it with my wrist and arm straight, but my wrist and arm should be at a 90 degree arc. This helps you become more consistent because when you hit the ball at a 90 degree arc, there is less chance that your racket will wobble out of it hard and firm. There is also a larger margin of error from your strike zone if you stroke the ball in this manner.

The second thing that i relearned was how to volley. I was never good at volley since the two years that i played. It was like footwork, they never listened to me when i wanted them to do a movement. I was instructed to tuck in my elbow and make the 90 degree arc with my wrist and arm again, and then punch! In my opinion, this form felt and bit rigid when i was trying to practice this volley. My wrist kept turning back straight and that annoyed me , not listening ...

The last thing that i was able to practice/ get advice on was the second serve. The idea of the second serve is to spin the ball in so that it gets in the diagonal service box. If the first serve, with speed and power, fails then you rely on your reliable second serve to spin. zzz. So second serve is a lot different than the first. You are supposed to stand parallel to the baseline, toss the ball so that it would land on your head, try to pronate and hit the ball at 6 - 12 oclock. haha , now to simplify these terms in more than one sentence. When you bend your knees, your non hitting arm is directly straight and telling you when to hit the ball. With the serving arm, you want to have your elbow pointing the sky for a full swing for full spin. One problem i had was that i hit the ball downward too much when i should had been adding spin. The result of hitting downward too much makes the ball land in the net. sooo when trying to spin the serve, just spin only ...

After practicing all these skills that i coached on, i went to hit with Ron. After this one attempt at a flat serve, my elbow suddenly hurt. i was scared of getting tennis elbow, so i left as soon as i could, after playing with Ron.