The Re-Match

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon when Cory and I decided to finally take to the court again to see if I could do the impossible and take a set off of him.

Standard rules applied with a best two out of three sets. The first player to win six games in a set wins the set.

I began the set serving and was broken at love (without winning a point to those of you who are not familiar with tennis lingo). 0-1

Cory then double faulted an entire game as his serving troubles have continued. 1-1

Some botched drop shots, and a few misplaced back hands cost me another service game. 1-2

Cory double faults four more points in a row and I win another game without having to put the ball in play. Cory then proceeds to scream at the top of his lungs, and chucks his racquet against the fence surrounding the court. Luckily the stick survived without cracking.  2-2

Player Profile: Tim Henman

In my last post I talked about what serve-and-volley tennis is, and how to implement that strategy into your individual tennis game.

I then got to thinking about how the best way to show exactly what serve and volley tennis was. This thought brought me to doing a player profile on one of my favorite tennis players of all time, the pride of England, Mr. Tim Henman

It is obvious that he is my favorite tennis player from his rugged good looks which can be seen to the right of the screen on the wikipedia page. However, despite his boyish charm I always loved watching him play tennis. His serve and volley style was a throwback to the 60's and 70's era of tennis. Also, watching him try and compete with the baseliners of the modern day game always gave his matches a little more excitement.

Even though he retired at the end of the 2007 season without a major championship to his credit he never tried to change his style of play, and was close to the top of the rankings for many years. If it wasn't for the fact that he played during the Agassi/Sampras era he probably would have had a few more titles to his credit.

I have included a few videos just to show what a true serve-and-volley game looks like (aside from Sampras of course), and I believe Henman was the best example of this because he did indeed follow the serve and volley fomat to a T and throughout his career hit amazing shot after amazing shot at the net.

Video: Tiger Tim Henman Benzer: tiger, tim, henman, tennis, sport

As you can see from these videos Tim is not always up at the net, but he does spend alot of time up there, and his volleys are always extremely crisp. This is what I hope to accomplish to some extent when I play my next match.

Talkin' Tennis Strategy: Serve-and-Volley

Serve and Volley tennis is a style of play in which the player rushes to the net as often as possible to hit more volleys and fewer ground strokes. Below are a couple videos from the best serve-and-volley player of all time, Pete Sampras.






I chose to use this style because it's less tiring to serve-and-volley. Hitting a serve and coming into net repeatedly it drastically shortens the points. After a player hits the serve and comes up to the net he can either A. a shot out of the air as a volley which gives the player a good shot at putting the point away right there, or B. get passed by the returner.

If a player hits a bad serve or something that the person on the other side of the net is anticipating he/she can hit a good shot off the server and give that player a tough shot from closer to the net or get the ball hit passed them on either side of the court. In either instance, the points will be shorter than grinding out a match from the baseline. If both players hit shots from the baseline the whole time you can get into long rallies and become more susceptible to fatigue.

Which was the problem in my last match with Cory.

I also wanted to implement the serve-and-volley technique because I played doubles for a good portion of my high school tennis career. Through all this doubles playing experience I was stuck at net alot and had to learn how to volley properly to win matches. So, having the experience volleying I think that this technique might work for me considering that volleying is one of the strongest aspects of my game.

While I think this technique could work for me, I also think it has its disadvantages for me. I am not confident enough in my serve right now in this stage of my epic comeback to think that i can set myself up for a good ball to volley consistently. I am hoping that I don't just keep serving winners that Cory can smack by me at any given time.

I am also shorter and have a greater risk of having the ball lobbed over my head. If I am consistently at net Cory will realize to just pop the ball over my head so I cannot reach it and thus lose the point. The lob is also one of Cory's best shots, which hurts me even more when coming into net.

Ultimately, this technique can win me some more points and hopefully games because of the strength of my net game.

By keeping the points shorter as well I hope to be able to keep a higher level of energy throughout the match and not be completely fatigued so early.