Topic: Pawan's Tennis Journal

[pawan89]

Got a new frame so my glasses are good and i am back in business. Can I have one point for pure craziness? I am up at 5:15 to go play tennis for two hours because we both have stuff to do from 8am onwards.. And I am as active and excited as I am every time I play tennis.

Yep, that definitely gets you a 'craziness' point, especially as it's Saturday. I dragged myself out of bed at about 9, and I would have loved to stay there for longer.

And you konw what? That was some of the best tennis I have played around this week, and I have played a lot of good tennis lately. 6-2 6-1 6-1 but the sets were really competetive, every game went to Deuce and beyond. I didn't volley as much as I would have liked to but I played very well I thought overall. The way I have been focusing on my backhand and serve lately - now that I look back today, the most silly errors seemed to have come from my forehand.
I'm happy

[kickserve]

Got a new frame so my glasses are good and i am back in business. Can I have one point for pure craziness? I am up at 5:15 to go play tennis for two hours because we both have stuff to do from 8am onwards.. And I am as active and excited as I am every time I play tennis.

Yep, that definitely gets you a 'craziness' point, especially as it's Saturday. I dragged myself out of bed at about 9, and I would have loved to stay there for longer.

And you konw what? That was some of the best tennis I have played around this week, and I have played a lot of good tennis lately. 6-2 6-1 6-1 but the sets were really competetive, every game went to Deuce and beyond. I didn't volley as much as I would have liked to but I played very well I thought overall. The way I have been focusing on my backhand and serve lately - now that I look back today, the most silly errors seemed to have come from my forehand.
I'm happy

Well played there: it's always good when everything clicks.  

[dmastous]

Got a new frame so my glasses are good and i am back in business. Can I have one point for pure craziness? I am up at 5:15 to go play tennis for two hours because we both have stuff to do from 8am onwards.. And I am as active and excited as I am every time I play tennis.

I got up at 5:30 am and drove 45 minutes a couple weeks ago to play doubles with some 3.0/3.5 players.
I don't call it craziness, I call it desperate to get on court.

[OSU Buckeye]

Got a new frame so my glasses are good and i am back in business. Can I have one point for pure craziness? I am up at 5:15 to go play tennis for two hours because we both have stuff to do from 8am onwards.. And I am as active and excited as I am every time I play tennis.

I got up at 5:30 am and drove 45 minutes a couple weeks ago to play doubles with some 3.0/3.5 players.
I don't call it craziness, I call it desperate to get on court.

Either way, you both get points for doing what you have to to get on the court............and nice playing Pawan!  

[pawan89]

Got a new frame so my glasses are good and i am back in business. Can I have one point for pure craziness? I am up at 5:15 to go play tennis for two hours because we both have stuff to do from 8am onwards.. And I am as active and excited as I am every time I play tennis.

I got up at 5:30 am and drove 45 minutes a couple weeks ago to play doubles with some 3.0/3.5 players.
I don't call it craziness, I call it desperate to get on court.

Either way, you both get points for doing what you have to to get on the court............and nice playing Pawan!  

Thank you! I must say, I am the kinda person who looks at something thats 99% correct and analyzes what happened to that missing 1% - I have been brought up that way and thats the way I generally function - happy only with the max. But I am very satisfied with my tennis. I have clearly not reached any superhigh level but I am at the level I expected myself to be at the end of summer - and I still have a good two months left to improve. We played today too, 6-3 6-1 6-1. Basically if he plays anything but his best, this is now the typical scoreline - and playing as close to best as possible every single time is where me and my friend are/were lacking and trying to improve upon. We are also doing drills now, specifically and I am sure its helping. I also am the kind of person who thinks doing and trying while you are doing it in real case situation is the best way to improve hence the reason we mostly play sets and work on stuff during sets - it has its pros and cons. Surely you wont be trying dramatically new stuff when you are trying to win.. so anyway now we are also doing drills every two days or so. Drills were my friend's idea so if it pays off thanks to him.
Today, after the sets, we worked on our baseline consistency depth and placement and power by playing a 20 point tiebreaker except start the point off by just hitting it over isntead of serving it over the net. We stayed on the baseline and I think it helped me realize a lot about my footwork (or lack of it..)

I got to watch the final today - with a crowd - with my cousins (I mentioned them a few weeks ago) who were also here - Sopcast had this channel with clear (very cleary 480kbps or something like that!) English commentary for the match and it was a joy! Reminded me of the days when we used to watch cricket like that, a bunch of people, nervously sitting at the end of our seats, jumping shouting...

I am happy!  

[OSU Buckeye]

Got a new frame so my glasses are good and i am back in business. Can I have one point for pure craziness? I am up at 5:15 to go play tennis for two hours because we both have stuff to do from 8am onwards.. And I am as active and excited as I am every time I play tennis.

I got up at 5:30 am and drove 45 minutes a couple weeks ago to play doubles with some 3.0/3.5 players.
I don't call it craziness, I call it desperate to get on court.

Either way, you both get points for doing what you have to to get on the court............and nice playing Pawan!  

Thank you! I must say, I am the kinda person who looks at something thats 99% correct and analyzes what happened to that missing 1% - I have been brought up that way and thats the way I generally function - happy only with the max. But I am very satisfied with my tennis. I have clearly not reached any superhigh level but I am at the level I expected myself to be at the end of summer - and I still have a good two months left to improve. We played today too, 6-3 6-1 6-1. Basically if he plays anything but his best, this is now the typical scoreline - and playing as close to best as possible every single time is where me and my friend are/were lacking and trying to improve upon. We are also doing drills now, specifically and I am sure its helping. I also am the kind of person who thinks doing and trying while you are doing it in real case situation is the best way to improve hence the reason we mostly play sets and work on stuff during sets - it has its pros and cons. Surely you wont be trying dramatically new stuff when you are trying to win.. so anyway now we are also doing drills every two days or so. Drills were my friend's idea so if it pays off thanks to him.
Today, after the sets, we worked on our baseline consistency depth and placement and power by playing a 20 point tiebreaker except start the point off by just hitting it over isntead of serving it over the net. We stayed on the baseline and I think it helped me realize a lot about my footwork (or lack of it..)

I got to watch the final today - with a crowd - with my cousins (I mentioned them a few weeks ago) who were also here - Sopcast had this channel with clear (very cleary 480kbps or something like that!) English commentary for the match and it was a joy! Reminded me of the days when we used to watch cricket like that, a bunch of people, nervously sitting at the end of our seats, jumping shouting...

I am happy!  

Thats good to hear!  If the goal for tennis is set too high then it is very hard to attain and can be a let-down in the end.  Enjoying tennis should be the goal anyway!

[pawan89]

Thats good to hear!  If the goal for tennis is set too high then it is very hard to attain and can be a let-down in the end.  Enjoying tennis should be the goal anyway!

That's the only reason I play, and probably true for most people who haven't made a single penny from playing tennis. Its just I enjoy playing superb tennis more than playing munchkin tennis  

Today, two sets 6-1 6-3, one hopper serves and 20 point 'tiebreaker' with mostly baseline rallies in order to improve groundstrokes.
The hopper that I served I only served topspin second serves out wide on deuce court and down the line on the ad court because apparently its become too much of a habbit to keep serving to his backhand (and topspin makes it easier to go there) so he knows its coming and I am sorta losing confidence in being able to serve second serves to his forehand side. Now that I regained some confidence I can mix up my second serves a lot more.

[OSU Buckeye]

Thats good to hear!  If the goal for tennis is set too high then it is very hard to attain and can be a let-down in the end.  Enjoying tennis should be the goal anyway!

That's the only reason I play, and probably true for most people who haven't made a single penny from playing tennis. Its just I enjoy playing superb tennis more than playing munchkin tennis  

Today, two sets 6-1 6-3, one hopper serves and 20 point 'tiebreaker' with mostly baseline rallies in order to improve groundstrokes.
The hopper that I served I only served topspin second serves out wide on deuce court and down the line on the ad court because apparently its become too much of a habbit to keep serving to his backhand (and topspin makes it easier to go there) so he knows its coming and I am sorta losing confidence in being able to serve second serves to his forehand side. Now that I regained some confidence I can mix up my second serves a lot more.

I agree on that one!  Good to see results so often!  

[pawan89]

My forehand was not so great today for the first set and a half but got better towards the latter half. Still hit way too many errors. 6-4 6-3 6-1.

[OSU Buckeye]

My forehand was not so great today for the first set and a half but got better towards the latter half. Still hit way too many errors. 6-4 6-3 6-1.

You won all of those sets right?  Was this against the same person you have spoken of recently?

[pawan89]

My forehand was not so great today for the first set and a half but got better towards the latter half. Still hit way too many errors. 6-4 6-3 6-1.

You won all of those sets right?  Was this against the same person you have spoken of recently?

Yeah. I haven't played anyone else in a long time. I didn't continue with signing up for USTA seeing how I am really busy most of the time and the only time I can really play is in the morning. This whole week I am working or have classes from 3-10 in the evening and I have other stuff to do in the morning.

[OSU Buckeye]

My forehand was not so great today for the first set and a half but got better towards the latter half. Still hit way too many errors. 6-4 6-3 6-1.

You won all of those sets right?  Was this against the same person you have spoken of recently?

Yeah. I haven't played anyone else in a long time. I didn't continue with signing up for USTA seeing how I am really busy most of the time and the only time I can really play is in the morning. This whole week I am working or have classes from 3-10 in the evening and I have other stuff to do in the morning.

Well, at least you are getting out often.  

[FreeBird]

My forehand was not so great today for the first set and a half but got better towards the latter half. Still hit way too many errors. 6-4 6-3 6-1.

You won all of those sets right?  Was this against the same person you have spoken of recently?

Yeah. I haven't played anyone else in a long time. I didn't continue with signing up for USTA seeing how I am really busy most of the time and the only time I can really play is in the morning. This whole week I am working or have classes from 3-10 in the evening and I have other stuff to do in the morning.

Given your schedule restrictions, this is probably the right choice, as no league I know of has matches in the morning.  Though many leagues have matches on weekends - it might be worth checking into for fall or something.

[pawan89]

My forehand was not so great today for the first set and a half but got better towards the latter half. Still hit way too many errors. 6-4 6-3 6-1.

You won all of those sets right?  Was this against the same person you have spoken of recently?

Yeah. I haven't played anyone else in a long time. I didn't continue with signing up for USTA seeing how I am really busy most of the time and the only time I can really play is in the morning. This whole week I am working or have classes from 3-10 in the evening and I have other stuff to do in the morning.

Given your schedule restrictions, this is probably the right choice, as no league I know of has matches in the morning.  Though many leagues have matches on weekends - it might be worth checking into for fall or something.

I was considering doing it during college semester and maybe try to get a few others to join with me to motivate.

[pawan89]

So if there was ever a day to record my tennis, today would have been it. 4 Superb sets. Scoreline: 5-7 6-2 6-1 6-3.
I was up 5-2 in all the sets (excpet the third) and my friend played some superb tennis to come back and win the set the first set. He sustained his level but I picked it up and raced on.
Everything was there today in terms of completeness. To begin with my friend was playing very well and so the quality of the match was not one way and a lot of real tennis played (i.e, a lot more rallies and sweet shots). I had my share of amazing forehands and backhands as well as a bunch of silly forehand and backhand errors. My serve I am really happy about - it was consistent and good right from the start and by the end it was amazing. He had brilliant volleys and I had my share of volleys, not as great as his but again I got to do what I can do and got to see what I am not doing right. I wish he'd play like this everyday,  I hope he does. I am sure if he had a little more stamina and energy left the last three sets' scoreline woud be closer too.

[OSU Buckeye]

So if there was ever a day to record my tennis, today would have been it. 4 Superb sets. Scoreline: 5-7 6-2 6-1 6-3.
I was up 5-2 in all the sets (excpet the third) and my friend played some superb tennis to come back and win the set the first set. He sustained his level but I picked it up and raced on.
Everything was there today in terms of completeness. To begin with my friend was playing very well and so the quality of the match was not one way and a lot of real tennis played (i.e, a lot more rallies and sweet shots). I had my share of amazing forehands and backhands as well as a bunch of silly forehand and backhand errors. My serve I am really happy about - it was consistent and good right from the start and by the end it was amazing. He had brilliant volleys and I had my share of volleys, not as great as his but again I got to do what I can do and got to see what I am not doing right. I wish he'd play like this everyday,  I hope he does. I am sure if he had a little more stamina and energy left the last three sets' scoreline woud be closer too.

Sweet, sounds like it went really well this one!

[pawan89]

Bad news.
I got injured - only hoping its not too serious.
I am guessing its my ankle (maybe not, my anatomy knowledge is poor at best). But I was running back to return a ball and my left leg - well the shoe part turns almost 90degree inwards. Of course if it was 90degree I might have heard something crack right? so its probably not 90degrees.. is it? So basically I land once on the 'out'side of my left foot and I fell. I took a break and tried to massage and turn and things with my foot, I don't know if it helped or not. I haven't really looked at my foot so I don't know if its swollen or whatnot. I can't walk properly or put any weight on the leg but since that's common for any injury to the ankle I really don't know how bad it is. I hope its not bad. I am currently icing it - I never ice anything usually, I prefer heat but my friend said if its swollen ice would be better. I hope I can be back on court in two three days max, i really want to play even tommorrow. I was up 6-2 6-4 and I think 1-0 in third set.

[dmastous]

You should see a doctor on that. I did a pretty bad ankle turn playing basketball. I basically landed on it sideways. It did swell up pretty badly. Turned out it wasn't broken, but I did pull some ligaments on the outside of the ankle, which kept me out of tennis for a few months.

[boatsign]

Sounds like a sprained ankle.  The sports medicine people who look at it can give you a type of plastic splint that stabilizes the ankle and lets you continue playing.  You might have to do muscle-strengthening exercises.

[Murrayfan11]

Sounds pretty painful, hope it gets better for you man!!!