- What proportion of flat instead of spun first serves?
- When to attack full on, or shorten the backswing returning serve, and when to chip it back to keep it in play.
- How flat/top spin to hit when trading?
- Tactically how frequently to the net, chipping and charging on second serve?
Two factors come to mind. 1. Playing to my strengths 2. Handling the opponent's challenge and making demands of them.
Playing to my strengths means a high level of consistency, lots of topspin on serve and ground shots, getting to the net fairly frequently. The challenge comes when an opponent simply has a bigger, safer game that they can execute with little risk to themselves. In the past I've found I sometimes over-react to this challenge and push the envelope too far, too aggressively and make far too many unforced errors. Playing Chazz in the Postal final is a case in point. On the other side I've been too cautious, for example playing Alan in last year's semi.
My club champs 2nd round match yesterday was at the edge of my envelope in terms of physical demands, and containing an aggressive opponent. One spectator said afterwards, "every time I looked at your game he was hitting massive winners, and then you came off the court winning in straight sets". Thankfully his massive winners only counted for one point at a time. And I could get into his backhand, get to the net sometimes, and stay in the rallies with him, forcing and waiting for errors. A big plus for me was putting down some flat 1st serves to win some important points. This is a growing capability....learning that to push this envelope and actually make the serve that is 15 mph faster than normal, I need to hit it pretty easy.
I'm pleased I've had such a tough match (7-6,6-4) in my first round, (105 mins in the heat of the day). I'm going to need to play as well to overcome the succession of young big hitters that the draw has provided me with this year.
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