Then throw them out and pick any other fruit because the fuck are you doing with bunch of lemons besides seasoning a salad and the 100th oven roasted chicken breast you are eating for dinner since #realathletesdontputshitintheirbody.
I’m alive and (moderately) well. I blame my blogging hiatus on the facts that a) my workload tripled overnight and b) nothing groundbreaking has happened regarding my tennis in the past month. The latter is actually debatable because I might be one step closer to having a better serve (we have prayed for times like these) and another step closer to fixing my forehand and backhand swing (we also heavily prayed for times like these).
As said, work has been actively kicking my ass in a not fun way which has resulted in less energy and time for tennis although everything tennis related might be the only thing standing between me and insanity. Oh how the tables have turned lmao. Anyways, by unintentionally reducing my sleeping hours, it’s no surprise that most of my practices recently have been subpar at best. I think the latest on Saturday had me mumbling Ed Sheeran’s song lyrics “when your legs don’t work like they used to before”. It’s been long since I have felt my lower body clued that hard to the ground and it’s safe to say that it is incredibly difficult to play decent and fast tennis if you are doing your best impression of an ancient statue on tennis court.
But hey, not everything’s been terrible. A few 8am lessons in August came in handy to try and get rid of the habit of stopping my swing halfway which sent most of my balls far out or into the net. Shoutout to my usual coach’s wife (who’s also a trainer) for putting up with me those 3ish hours. I’m fully aware these were probably a hard watch and contributed to some grey hairs. It did get substantially better though, especially when I took a few regular practices to really focus solely on my swing and despite the old muscle memory kicking in at times, there’s been a considerable improvement in the swinging department. We also focused a lot on getting my hitting more cool, calm and calculated while playing points and although there’s no quick fix to this situation, it seems to get better. I actually played points with her for 30min after my normal 60min lesson last Sunday and it’s safe to say there’s a lot of good simmering there. Am I getting my ass handed to me (cue a 6-1 loss)? Absolutely. Am I at least making her work a bit for it? Absolutely.
In terms of tournaments, last Thursday marked an official end of outdoor season for me. Before that I played one doubles tournament for shits and giggles at my home club at the end of August and lost 6/4-6/1. Honestly didn’t expect much more as I had 0 (zero) hours of doubles practice this summer and one of the opponents was a terminator both at the net and from the baseline. I’m not going to break my wrist by putting my racket between the flight path of his baseline balls thank you very much. Also my serve let me down in the 2nd set which was a bit of a bummer but okay, we live and we learn (to not play doubles without actually practicing it a bit before). In singles, the last tournament saw me win the 1st round 6/3-6/4 and lose QF 6/3 – 7/5. The 1st round was pretty decent tennis, just kept the ball going until the opponent made a mistake (me and patience are like oil and water by the way) or I could get a nice drop shot/slice to finish the point. Side note: the club had their end of season party and since my match was at 21:00, the DJ was blasting bangers all over the courts throughout the entire match which was distracting only because I really wanted to sing along and get on the dance floor. In that sense I think I could manage the atmosphere of Arthur Ashe stadium. The QF match was more of a wake up call in terms of things that need improving during the off season. Now that I’m more consistently hitting inside the lines again, I seriously need to get the speed back in the ball because for some reason the acceleration on contact is just not happening? However, that starts to get me in trouble because if I hit a nice but slow ball to my opponent, she can just attack it back and that’s exactly what happened on Thursday. Genuinely good player with finding the angles and the speed but I could have made her life a bit harder. Surprising comeback on my end though after being 5-2 down in the 2nd set and serving for the match. Normally my serve does an Irish exit in these situations but not that day. I did however double fault on match point (#neverforgetyourroots) when we were playing deuce for 10min which was deciding whether or not we will have a 2nd set tiebreak. Losing in a situation like that stung a bit, not going to lie.
To wrap it all up, it’s been a fun summer. Maybe played a bit less tennis then I would have liked, especially considering that the weather was all sunshine and rainbows but having a busy social and travel calendar after 26 years felt nice as well. Super amped for off-season though and can’t wait to put in the work on and off court, return to playing on hard courts and hopefully come back swinging around new year’s when the tournaments start back up again. Vamosss!!
Hours spent on court between 10/08 and 13/09: 27
~ absolutely not looking forward to this depressing winter weather – S.