Long break

I have little to report because I haven't played or practiced much lately. I started up last week playing games with a couple of people. I played pretty badly. Therefore I conclude I must do solo drills and ghosting to refresh the muscle memory.

I'm still looking for that warmup routine that gets me ready for match play. 2 minutes on the stationary bike is a good start. It definitely soothes those achy knee joints. When I did some footwork drills I could feel the weakness in the knees. I ghosted for took several minutes before the knees felt stable. I probably need to include a couple of minutes of around the court ghosting to my warmup routine.

I was talking to some of the players about the 2 important things in my game. I thought I should actually write them down so I'll remember them.

1) Serve well - that means serve the ball so it hits the side wall near the sideline and at least 1 foot behind the service box.

2) Return straight - returning a serve straight and deep. Lately I returned a lot of balls to the side wall and out into the middle. I looked at my stance closely yesterday and noticed I wasn't truly squared off. So I started to look at my shoulder and foot placement each time I step up to return a serve. I did pretty well last night with this ritual. It helps a lot and I was better prepared to bend down for those serves that hit the side wall behind the service box too. Because my neck is stiff, I cannot turn my head far enough to see the server without turning my shoulder. I need to check my stance and my head turn each time I return. Along with the stance, I also concentrated on holding my racquet higher up to my left shoulder for the backhand return. Holding my racquet farther out from my body is a good preparation for the forehand return.

If I can keep these two parts of the game together I think that will be a good start.