Achievements

Well, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher once said “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey” or in German we say “der Weg ist das Ziel” to mean that the discovery process is what matters the most, not the objective itself. However, one wants to see some progress. Given the amount of time and money spend in the process, some achievements make sense, no?

In my case, the overall objective of the last winter tournament season was to reach a weak R7 level (equivalent US level 3.0) with the purpose to join a good Interclub team by spring 2024. I lost 24 matches out of 24 played, improving steadily my playing level. I consider myself to be physically less gifted than average due to an undetected coeliac disease during my childhood. It prevented me from playing sports. Aged 18, I was 1m87 tall (6’1″) with a weight of 57 kgs (125 pounds).

In short, I have reached my goals, despite the losses. My playing level reached weak R7, but as almost all opponents are playing a level higher (good R7 or weak-strong R6) my ranking did not progress.

Without an informal combination of local and online tennis coaches, that would not have been possible. At my age, 61, one should already be satisfied to stay at the current playing level, not expect further improvements. As I played the tennis game for 20 years without really having reached the weak R7 level, this was considered as hopeless. Now for the next season, my goal is to reach a good R7 level.

Here the list of changes and achievements of the past tournament season.

Shift from a one-handed backhand to a two-handed backhand

My one-handed backhand was good in a training session with predictable ball feed, but breaking down in a match. Alex, my young coach at the TAD, proposed to shift to a two-handed backhand. My first thought was, geee…., I played one-handed for 20 years, that will end up in a disaster. So I decided to give it a try and let Alex show me during a one hour session. I was not convinced, but Alex was, so we went on.

Three weeks later, I played again a tournament. I lost the match, but asked my opponent if he did notice anything on my backhand side. No…! Of course it was not yet a solid stroke, but not obvious. Next tournament, same question, same answer. Go for it!

My online coaches helped me to be comfortable with the decision of the shift by encouraging me on this path, although most of them were themselves playing one-handed. Exchanging views by e-mail helped me to discover that my feet position had to be slightly modified to avoid hitting the ball in front like for the one-handed backhand. I also dropped the idea to play one-handed topspin in situations where I would not be ideally positioned. I started to work on the slice.

A few months later, my two-handed backhand was so much better that I now better understand why the pros are playing two-handed. Keep in mind that I am living in Roger Federer’s and Stan’s Wawrinka’s home country where this beautiful stroke is as sacred as the cows in India.

A two-handed backhand is also better for the return of fast serves.

Get rid of the palm up serve

My serve has always been my best stroke. So I was not too shy and shared it with two online coaches, first with Vincent Simone from Tennis Doctor then with John Craig from Performance Plus Tennis. Both have done an excellent analysis you can find on the “Home” page of this website.

My grip was fine. I am still struggling with the toss, but this is another story. Vincent and John has highlighted that I was opening the palm during the serve motion. We worked on it with my local coaches. I also relied on instructions provided by Peter Freeman from Crunch Time Coaching. I was equipped with an hair brush on the court!

It is not possible to measure the improvement of my serve speed, as by this time I did not have Swing Vision. What is sure, is that in February, I hit at least half a dozen aces in each of two matches in Uster against good R7 to mid-R6 players. Also with my buddies, my aces and service winners have become “normal”.

Footwork

Footwork is clearly an area where I have some deficits due to my former illness. I have also purchased Richard Brice’s training programm for mobility, vision and footwork. My local trainer convinced me to do some rope skipping and to purchase a footwork ladder.

However, it is only once I used Swing Vision that I realized how poor my footwork was.

Now I am doing some shadow swings in the community room of the gym after my workout. I got some plastic heads to have targets to work on. John Craig rather advocates to do the exercises with the racket in the hand.

After a few weeks, I was running down more balls and feeling better on the court. I still need to work on it, as my body is unstable, feet not apart, almost never sideways.

Forehand

Last but not least, as the most played shot in a match, the forehand. My grip is semi-western, same as Djokovic. Several local trainers have observed that this grip is not good, so I should shift it a little bit.

I do not think that this is critical, as players like Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff have even more extreme grips. I changed from a full western to a semi-western grip after the COVID break in 2020. At that time, I got systematically blisters and skin damage forcing me to tape my index base knuckle for protection.

Improving the forehand was challenging. It seems to be the easiest shot for beginners, but the most difficult to master for intermediate players. I lost some time by focusing on the wrong priorities. Most of the Youtubers encourage you to improve the racket lag, use the kinetic chain for more power, pat the dog, etc… The reality is that all this is useless if your feet positioning is poor. It is Richard Brice’s credo. So I spent some time fixing it. On the other hand, just to focus on the footwork is not a holistic approach. One still needs to work on the forehand technique.

Ok! So now I am looking forward to play another winter tournament season. I would like to use the full potential of a combination of online coaching and local coaching by setting up a collaboration. Ultimately, this could be used by the trainers to promote their business and be useful for Swiss Tennis, the swiss tennis organization as a baseline to propose this kind of collaboration to coaches and/or students.