Excellent article again. I understand you perfectly you want to win in style. I play at the recreational level, 3.5 (I guess) I could win more marches if I would become a kind of mix of moonballer and pusher. It would need several weeks to learn it, and several marches to play it, buy it's against my esthetics DNA. 🤦
Ok if you asked my most annoying opponent is my brother who i never get to beat yet I'm always playing so much better than him, so i need your advice on how to beat him (he runs well and has powerful serve) 😂😭 ps. My mom made a huge pot of SARMALE, and you're invited! Happy Easter 🐰
have you tried just playing through the middle? players who move well usually WANT to move. don‘t give him that, destroy him with kindness. tell your mom hi and i‘ll be there in about 12 hours 🤪
Of course i did not, i tried to overplay him by hitting left-right which shows how good i am at making/changing tactics in a match 🧠 but I'll try that in the next match and he won't know what hit him, thank you coach! 😌 Haha we are both waiting for you! 😂🫶🏻
Andrea, I am an almost 78 year old Canadian man who has never played tennis, but just love your articles so much I’m going to start paying. You DO write with style and I think that had they been contemporaries, you would be close friends with Dorothy Parker and Truman Capote.
And those pimples? Artistic micro-tats should do the trick.
I want to like this post more than once. Thoroughly enjoy your writing. Any chance your book will be available in English any time soon? Please advise.
Your mentioning of Dale Carnegie and repeating names reminded me of a guy I used to hit with. Charlie. I remember his name because every time he missed a shot, which was NTRP 3.5 often, he would yell out, "GODDAMN IT CHARLIE!" among more colorful expletives. He always named himself, though, so he must've been a fan of the book.
Brilliant. As a 66 year old male 4.0, I have to stop hoping the opponent doesn’t return my brilliant forehand and just keep hitting. Struggle to build the discipline to stay at it on not crack at the key moment. Still trying to turn myself from an American lacrosse player into a tennis player!!!! Great writing. Please come on my podcast.
Love this! I’m Harrison, an ex fine dining industry line cook. My stack "The Secret Ingredient" adapts hit restaurant recipes (mostly NYC and L.A.) for easy home cooking.
Curious what your thoughts are on the following: “The true opponent is always yourself -your own tensions, fears, and misconceptions.
The greatest tennis players know this intuitively. They don't play against their opponents but with the flow of the game itself. They surrender to something larger than themselves. In Zen archery, the master says, "It is not I who must shoot, but it shoots." In great tennis, it is not the player who plays, but it plays. The player becomes a vessel, a conduit for something transcendent.”
So much fun! People really do show who they are especially if the match is not going their way, full of blaming, just ignoble in defeat. Some even act ugly in victory, strutting, preening, basically insufferable in victory. Those people, I only play once because they question my line calls and lie about my shots. They make the game ALL about winning. Only once did I stop a game and stroll over to the other side and point to my ball's mark in the clay, clearly in. There were no other marks anywhere around. It was early in the game. I told him, "If you're gonna start lying this early this big, let's call it quits right now."
Word. Coach keeps telling me to stop being so "creative". I'm trying.
I’ll take a really good drop shot over a victory any day 😂
same!
Not at all for me!
Excellent article again. I understand you perfectly you want to win in style. I play at the recreational level, 3.5 (I guess) I could win more marches if I would become a kind of mix of moonballer and pusher. It would need several weeks to learn it, and several marches to play it, buy it's against my esthetics DNA. 🤦
Ok if you asked my most annoying opponent is my brother who i never get to beat yet I'm always playing so much better than him, so i need your advice on how to beat him (he runs well and has powerful serve) 😂😭 ps. My mom made a huge pot of SARMALE, and you're invited! Happy Easter 🐰
have you tried just playing through the middle? players who move well usually WANT to move. don‘t give him that, destroy him with kindness. tell your mom hi and i‘ll be there in about 12 hours 🤪
Of course i did not, i tried to overplay him by hitting left-right which shows how good i am at making/changing tactics in a match 🧠 but I'll try that in the next match and he won't know what hit him, thank you coach! 😌 Haha we are both waiting for you! 😂🫶🏻
Andrea, I am an almost 78 year old Canadian man who has never played tennis, but just love your articles so much I’m going to start paying. You DO write with style and I think that had they been contemporaries, you would be close friends with Dorothy Parker and Truman Capote.
And those pimples? Artistic micro-tats should do the trick.
I guess you read Brad Gilbert’s ‘Winning Ugly’. Any thoughts on that?
Ok, you have us on the ledge. If not the drop shot, what were you going to hit? :)
I want to like this post more than once. Thoroughly enjoy your writing. Any chance your book will be available in English any time soon? Please advise.
Your mentioning of Dale Carnegie and repeating names reminded me of a guy I used to hit with. Charlie. I remember his name because every time he missed a shot, which was NTRP 3.5 often, he would yell out, "GODDAMN IT CHARLIE!" among more colorful expletives. He always named himself, though, so he must've been a fan of the book.
So playing people who are not as good as you are usually brings down your game. How do you not let that happen???
Each time I read one of your posts I think, "Wow, best yet", and then I do it again. 🙂
Your writing is informative, insightful, and entertaining.
Thank you for bringing it!
Brilliant. As a 66 year old male 4.0, I have to stop hoping the opponent doesn’t return my brilliant forehand and just keep hitting. Struggle to build the discipline to stay at it on not crack at the key moment. Still trying to turn myself from an American lacrosse player into a tennis player!!!! Great writing. Please come on my podcast.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conflict-of-interest/id1674893973?i=1000700151680
Love this! I’m Harrison, an ex fine dining industry line cook. My stack "The Secret Ingredient" adapts hit restaurant recipes (mostly NYC and L.A.) for easy home cooking.
check us out:
https://thesecretingredient.substack.com
Do you think Swiatek will ever beat Ostapenko?
Curious what your thoughts are on the following: “The true opponent is always yourself -your own tensions, fears, and misconceptions.
The greatest tennis players know this intuitively. They don't play against their opponents but with the flow of the game itself. They surrender to something larger than themselves. In Zen archery, the master says, "It is not I who must shoot, but it shoots." In great tennis, it is not the player who plays, but it plays. The player becomes a vessel, a conduit for something transcendent.”
So much fun! People really do show who they are especially if the match is not going their way, full of blaming, just ignoble in defeat. Some even act ugly in victory, strutting, preening, basically insufferable in victory. Those people, I only play once because they question my line calls and lie about my shots. They make the game ALL about winning. Only once did I stop a game and stroll over to the other side and point to my ball's mark in the clay, clearly in. There were no other marks anywhere around. It was early in the game. I told him, "If you're gonna start lying this early this big, let's call it quits right now."