Mid-season pulse check

It is mid February.  The season for me began September in earnest.  Since the start of the season I have played three tournaments, and three league matches and one box league match.  This has been by far the most matches I have ever played within a season.  The first two tournaments were played back to back two weeks apart.  My body has not played so many matches in consecutive days.  This past weekend, I played 5 matches in 5 days with two of them played in one day.  I am very pleased with the way my body held together this weekend to play these matches without breaking down and without injury.  It did not fair so well in October when I played my first two tournaments within two weeks of each other.  That time, my knees developed fluids and caused complications.  That took realistically a couple of months to heal.  After the knees healed, my back began to feel too much pounding and has since slowly recovered.  So it is with great relief that I was able to slowly ramp up to playing this last tournament.

During this season I began taking regular lessons from Frank.  In the past month I have begun to take a lesson each week with the assistance of the new analysis tool PlaySight.  Playsight records your session and provides instant replay.  Frank's been showing me how to correct my foot position, space to the ball, and other timings with  the instant replay. I have been reviewing each one of my lessons at home too.  What I see have been enlightening and a bit disheartening as well.

I see problems with alertness which I knew more or less.  But I also see a lack of power and acceleration in my movements.  I see a lack of spring in my steps.  I see someone who tires quickly and never peaks in his performance.  I still see something is not quite right with my forehand take-back.  While I have taken lessons, I have not played against anyone above a 3.5 in practice.  As I look at myself and compare my performance with 4.0 and above players, I come to the realization that I don't stack up athletically. I have placed greater emphasis on inproving my cardio condition, I see now I must also develop more power and acceleration in my movements both footwork and upper body and arms.  For now, I shall begin with ghosting that emphasize speed drills and solo racquet drills that also emphasize power and speed.