a busy one. like really busy but also super rewarding.
Monday – 1.5h – easy going hitting session
I would like to start by saying that I now understand what people mean by ‘flow state‘. Jesus Christ. I think I have never ever in my life hit a tennis ball this clean and with so much consistency. I honestly felt gobsmacked.
One of my regular practice partners was luckily free for tennis and I took a full advantage of it since there’s another tournament coming up this week. The last one indoors so we stuck to our trusted hard courts (you will be missed over the summer <3) before switching outdoors next week and attempting to befriend clay again. Started with a 5min mini tennis which was already almost alarmingly good and then moved to baseline to rally for 25min. The body finally recovered from last week and my joints didn’t hurt the same way as when you are nearing retirement age. For the rest, everything seemed to fall into place the way I have been hoping for. Clean topspin heavy hits, feet were moving, prep of the racket was on time and I tried to actively push for direction changes which was the main goal for the day. Everything around the net is still slightly dodgy: sometimes it works out beautifully and sometimes the touch comes a little too early/late/ high/low. At least I was making myself try something different and the better part of mistakes made could be categorized as ‘good’ ones. Next we played points for 35ish minutes and that wasn’t too bad either. I finally seem to start and find my footing there and understand that there’s time and place for certain shots. Serves are always a bit of so-so but in general great today. I just need to be a bit more strict with my toss and not be afraid to catch it when it’s obviously so wonky that I will never get a good serve out of it. We wrapped it up again with some more rallying which felt a bit weird at first after the whole ‘serve+return’ section but the last two rallies were long and good quality so definitely a decent way to finish. This hitting session alone might have restored my faith in my tennis. Genuinely happy with the level today and it felt good to be back on court.
Pre-practice soundtrack: Confident by Justin Bieber (that Coachella set has a deathgrip on me)
Tuesday – 1h – hitting session
Asked one of my other ‘regulars’ for a quick hitting session since my spidey senses told me that my tournament match might be scheduled for Thursday and I didn’t want to play exactly the day before (Susanna from the future: my match was in fact scheduled for Thursday). Since the tournament is still indoors I was forced to postpone that start of my tanning season, otherwise known as playing on clay which is truly a shame since the weather has been so nice. Indoor felt like a sauna which was not fun but hard court will never stop being my #1 surface.
Overall another great session in the bag with both rallies and playing points. Coming off whatever was going on with me yesterday, I was slightly concerned if that was some sort of one-time wonder or did I finally figure something out. Verdict: I might have figured something out. Of course there were mistakes but my practice partner from today hits way faster and harder which leaves less margin of error for me and pushes me to adapt faster. However, overall feeling was great and the basics were still there. Lots of practice for defensive shots since I was made to run from one end of the court to the other but legs were pleasantly awake. Serve is as much mental as it is physical since I have to be so locked in for the right timing but general picture is good. It would be equally as good if someone would figure out how to make indoor hard courts feel less like greenhouses and more like well ventilated spaces. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Pre-practice soundtrack: Justin Bieber’s Coachella setlist (14yo me had such an exquisite taste in music, Bieber fever never dies)
Thursday & Friday – tournament matches (D5, QF + SF)
For the sake of this current post’s length, read more here.
Saturday – 20min – Interclub meeting + serve practice
I was planning to take a full advantage of my easy day before final until I remembered that it was the last general interclub meeting as the season starts on 25th April. For those who are like “wtf is interclub?” – find a group of people in your tennis club that fit in a certain points range based on their ranking, agree that you are a team for an outdoor season, play bunch of matches every weekend (home or away), eat, drink and hopefully celebrate. This year is the first time I’m part of it, zero clue what to expect besides the fact that for a few Saturdays in May, I’m guaranteed a singles match. Since it’s always a mix of singles and doubles, everyone who showed up tonight got a presentation on doubles tactics. Nothing in recent history has made me feel like a school kid again but this might have done it. It’s crazy how much strategy one needs to have to effectively play doubles which meant that after said presentation I promptly named myself ’emergency backup’ for the doubles. Unless my participation is a matter of life or death, I would rather observe this from the distance thank you very much. For the context: I have about 5(ish) hours of doubles experience in my entire life. I have tried this for vibes only and for anyone thinking to rely on me for good doubles performance is either drunk, blind or both. As everyone were getting their final pre-season doubles practice on clay courts and my tournament final was indoors, I politely observed all of it from a distance. However, after getting antsy to do something I just took some balls and served on clay under the assumption that this will not really mess with my prep for the final. I don’t know if anyone else has that but tossing the ball outside feels like going half blind at first. For the first 10 serves I couldn’t judge the toss height at all and nothing made sense. Then I remembered that I in fact nowadays can serve quite okay for my level so what is my issue. After that I started hitting normal again. I’m praying that the transition to clay is not going to be too hard, especially if we take into account that I have not played on clay not once since October and I have my first match outside next Saturday which gives me exactly… 5 days to get up to speed
Sunday – tournament match (D5, final)
Winner winner chicken dinner (I actually went to McDonalds that evening to celebrate).
Sunday – 45min – easy practice session
May the clay season commence. Am I excited to separate from my precious hard courts? Not really but I’m a bit excited to start working on my tan. After bagging the tournament win around 16:45, I decided that while my legs already played an hour of tennis, they can take a bit more. Especially since the turnaround time is so short between two surfaces and there’s only 6 days until next match, I got one of my practice buddies to come out and hit some balls. It was mostly about getting used to the surface and oh boy, it felt weird. For the first 10min I was completely convinced that I cannot play for shit anymore and the wind was not really helping my case. The court also felt so small compared to indoors which visually plays so big. Eventually we got into the groove of things and it started to look more like tennis and less like randomly swatting my racket around. Goal for this outdoor season is to learn how to slide on clay. I really feel like I’m missing out by not doing this. Added bonus is that it looks super cool. Managed to squeeze in some volley and drop shot practice as well and then wrapped it up. I cannot recall the last time I played tennis nearly every day of the week so I didn’t really want to go down the path of overdoing right at the start of outdoor season.
~ may all your socks turn orange, S.