31 Comments
User's avatar
John Merigliano's avatar

Word. Coach keeps telling me to stop being so "creative". I'm trying.

Expand full comment
Rick Stratton's avatar

I’ll take a really good drop shot over a victory any day 😂

Expand full comment
Andrea Petkovic's avatar

same!

Expand full comment
Calin's avatar

Not at all for me!

Expand full comment
Calin's avatar

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. 🤦

Expand full comment
Lorena Popa's avatar

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 🐰

Expand full comment
Andrea Petkovic's avatar

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 🤪

Expand full comment
Lorena Popa's avatar

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! 😂🫶🏻

Expand full comment
Bruce Deacon's avatar

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.

Expand full comment
Robert Machin's avatar

I guess you read Brad Gilbert’s ‘Winning Ugly’. Any thoughts on that?

Expand full comment
Hank Moravec's avatar

Ok, you have us on the ledge. If not the drop shot, what were you going to hit? :)

Expand full comment
Joe Bruin's avatar

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.

Expand full comment
Sung J. Woo's avatar

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.

Expand full comment
BMac's avatar

So playing people who are not as good as you are usually brings down your game. How do you not let that happen???

Expand full comment
PK's avatar

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!

Expand full comment
Kevin Ellis's avatar

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

Expand full comment
Harrison's avatar

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

Expand full comment
Julie Moore's avatar

Do you think Swiatek will ever beat Ostapenko?

Expand full comment
Joy In Flow's avatar

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.”

Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

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."

Expand full comment