Last ditch effort

Everyone can play his best when he is fresh and strong, but what should one do when you're tired, out of breath, and can't stay focused? I switched gears recently, literally. I started to play slower pace, more height and better width, saving the hard hitting pace for select passing shots. This all means I'm playing longer rallies and more demands on aerobic stamina. So naturally I reach that point when I'm laboring to keep the ball from straying into the center of the court. I asked myself what should I do? Well, there's what I used to do and what a lot of mid level club players do. You start hitting harder and choosing kill shots. They invariably end in an error into the tin or else the shot lands short and your opponent puts more pressure on you. Instead one should do the opposite; play defensively and run down everything. This is reflexively counterintuitive, but nonetheless the mind can be trained to do it. This is what I did in the last two Monday night round robins. On some rallies, I played 3 or 4 defensive shots before something came back to me I could control. When my chance came up, I simply hit a medium pace deep shot away from my opponent. Those were the good results.

There are also the unsuccessful tries. For 3 games last night I could not keep the ball straight and couldn't see the half court boasts. I could hardly move from where I stood. No amount of telling myself to watch the ball did any good. Despite the fact that I played and won 7 other games, I can only remember the 3 games where I lost my focus and numerous other errors.

I served out 3-4 times

I missed 3 overheads

I missed 2 drop shots

I hit several cross that were short

I did not see 3 times my opponents hitting straight drives from the front corners

I misread the depth of the straight drives and did not get my racquet up in time

I also was over confident in my shot and underestimated the weaker players on their returns

I hope that next time I record into my journal I will have wiped out some of the errors above.