Lesson Nine

Couple notes from the last night's lesson: when Dan and I played the baseline game (baseline rally to 11 points), I was missing a lot of first balls--easy balls he fed me from the baseline down the middle of the court. He commented that I was late with my preparation. The next couple games I tried to do what I do when I hit with the ball machine: start preparing as soon as the ball leaves the opponent's racquet, and did better. He also fed me balls from the hand while standing just several feet away from me, and had me generate my own pace. I missed almost all forehands. Surprisingly, I made almost all backhand shots. Dan's analysis was that because I think my forehand is strong, I'm trying to do too much with it, whereas with the backhand I'm not expecting to hit winners, so I'm hitting with less pace but more consistently. Basically, I need more humility on my forehand to get my consistency up, before I think about beating the fuzz off the ball.