40:15 I might be developing tennis elbow

Tennis is a joy and a frustration. So many  games are going to a tie break lately and my elbow has all the classic symptoms of tennis elbow, not fun.
I'll battle through though, I think It's actually helping my swing in a weird way. The only way it doesn't sting is if I swing looser and fuller which makes for a much better delivery.

Doublefault a journey to the Pan Pacific Masters games 2024

Transcript

Hi there. This is double fault. I'm Andrew, and I'm on a mission to compete in the Pan Pacific Masters Games in November of 2024. That's 520 days, nine hours, 60 minutes and three seconds away, according to my website just here. That's not a lot of time. That's you might think it's like over a year, but it's not a long time for someone who started tennis just a couple of years ago and has never really played as a teenager. I play against so many players who have played as kids and, you know, they come out and they know inherently what they're doing. It's just built into their mindset from their youth. So I'm starting off on the back foot already, but I'm trying hard and I'm training hard and I'll get there. I'll be working hard on my serve. Over the last two weeks, I've been filming myself. I've got a tripod, I stick my camera in there and I film myself and I go review what I do. And it's amazing how different it is when you practice a serve that's a shadow serve or a shadow swing, and then you do one with the ball in the air all of a sudden my serve tightens up. My swing is not loose and easy anymore. My racket drop just doesn't exist. It's just amazing how much different it is. So to talk to my coach today, a little bit of a squad this morning and the other person in the squad left early, so I had a little one on one session with the coach and I asked him to have a quick look, a quick review of my serve motion to see what he thinks.

He thought it was okay as a shadow swing, but he said the same thing. You know, when the ball's in the air, I'm just rushing it. The serve is just completely different. And apparently I'm doing some odd twisty thing with my wrist. I think I've got a kind of a mental image of what wrist pronation should look like. And I'm trying to do that. And it's making an exaggerated, twisting motion with my wrist, which is not doing me any favors. So he's he's had a look at that and gave me some suggestions to fix that up, which I'll take to the practice court this week. I think one of the things he suggests is we're throwing a ball a little bit higher, a little bit further in front because my toss tends to be above my head somewhat. And also fixing up that that swing, that exaggerated pronation where I'm almost approaching the ball with a back face of the racket rather than edge on. So I need to be a little bit more relaxed and not try and force the wrist to twist around or not trying to force pronation to happen.

Just let it happen As part of the swing. I'm also not following through very well and that's another thing that I'll be taking to the practice court this week. I played a game this morning with a friend of mine and I played this fellow Terry, every Tuesday morning at 630 in the morning. It's winter here in Australia, almost winter it's getting cold, but nevertheless I'm out there in my tracksuit pants and my jumper having a hit with him and we're really evenly matched. He sometimes beats me by one game. This morning it was five four and then last week I think it was six five and the week before it was just a draw. And I think we're a fairly even match. But what's interesting is that he he beats players by quite a lot. And those players he beat beat me by quite a lot. You would think that it would be more of an even show between me and the players that he beats by a lot. You think I'd have a better chance? I think sometimes we succumb to playing a style that we don't really that we aren't really used to when we're playing other players. I play against some players and they just they just beat me all over the court. It's not because I think I'm playing badly, it's just that I start playing badly when I'm playing these players and it's because I start playing badly when I play some of these players and I think that it's their game play style that messes with my head a little bit.

I think I try and change my game sometimes to suit my opponent or whatever that opponent is bringing to the court, and that's not helping very much. I think I'll let a few balls go by this morning, which I had that old assumption thing, you know, I assumed it was going in and they weren't going in. And I also managed to retrieve a couple that I didn't think I would get to, but I got them anyway. I've said this over and over again. You know, you've got to go for every ball and you've got to assume every ball is going to go in. And I did. The other bad thing that I do, I was standing on the baseline a few times and got caught out by deep ball. And that's another thing I keep saying I'm not going to do. I'm not going to stand on the baseline. But hey, there I am standing on the baseline and the ball just bounces at my feet where it's either difficult or I just find it impossible to return. So I've got a match tonight and it's against a player that I've beaten before. She's someone who's coming back after a long break, but I believe she's getting better quite quickly.

She used to play as a kid as well, so I don't know how it's going to turn out. I think I won last time. Six love six one. So there are two six game sets and she might give me more of a showing this week and that's okay. I think that in with a reasonable chance of winning the day to day but you never can tell with these games. I've got another game coming up. A couple of days with another player that I feel is a is a weaker player than me. But the last time I played this person, she she almost beat me and it was really close. And I think she would have beaten me, hadn't she? But she got she got an injured calf during the second set. I think it's one of those things where sometimes I go into a game and I just assume that I'm going to be the better player and I take a more blase attitude onto the court. And I think that I think that lets me down as well. I think I need to get out there and assume that it's going to be a fight no matter how weak I think the other player plays, it's going to be a fight and there's a chance they'll win. And I need to put in more of an effort and just assume that, you know, that player is going to put in a good solid effort and I need to hold my end up and play the shots and make it difficult for them.

Sometimes it's hard to make it difficult for the other player if you know they're a nice player and you're getting on well on the court. And sometimes on the occasion when I've played really well against another player and beat them by a lot, I kind of feel a little bit like guilty for taking the game away from them. And I know that's really a dumb attitude to play to have in a competitive sport. It's just this little niggly feeling that creeps into my head now and then and I just start apologizing for winning shots, stuff like that. And it's just it's just not a good look. Anyway, so I'll. I'll be out there tonight. It'll be cold, it'll be dark, but the opponent will be trying to beat me. I'm going to go out there with a winning attitude and I'm definitely pumped and ready to ready to go for this game and make sure that I walk, walk away a winner. So come along to the court and I'll have my mic with me and I'll make some commentary and hopefully it'll be a winning night for me. Okay. So here we are at the Taylor Street Tennis Courts, home of the Northern Suburbs Tennis Association, and the organizer of this particular competition.

I'll be playing a lady player tonight. I played before with good results, but you never can tell how these things go. Tennis is such a funny sport that very unforgiving. So I'm going to go out there with an attitude of chase everything down, assume everything is going in, assume she can get everything and don't try and hit unnecessary winners. I think it's my home game, so I'm supplying the balls. I've got these beautiful Wilson balls and beautiful packaging to premiere all court a really nice balls and they don't mind too much if it gets a little bit damp. A lot of balls ones I have been using Dunlops they get a little bit of water on them and they get really heavy and they don't bounce very well. But these Wilson's seem to bounce really well and they're just nice balls to use and they seem to last a bit longer than other balls. I've used nine minutes to the match time. Kids are still playing. Last term we were playing on courts that are right down in the bottom end of the port area quite a ways away. But now we're playing on these beautiful courts at the front. Premier courts seem to have a dearth of hitting partners at the moment. It just seemed to have fallen off the radar. I'm down to one hitting partner for Tuesday morning, so Tuesdays is a big tennis day for me.

It's up to four hours worth of play. Really. The time you stick an hour worth of hitting partner in the morning, an hour and a half of squad and then up to an hour and a half of competition. It's like, yeah, it's getting up for four hours depending on how long the comp goes. I seem to know, or I've talked to so many people that young lady work in his shop. He says, Hi, Andrew to me and I'm going, Do I know you? But between football and tennis and work and other group functions, I know way more people than I can remember. I know. I think it's a good thing. So in front of me are four courts, beautifully lit, full of kids and instructors. Each court's got four kids on it and looks like they're playing a bit of doubles. These kids are very fortunate to be learning this at a young age. See, all the coaches down there are rugged up. I'm feeling all the court time I've had today in my legs right now. So this this must be the start of round two. Let's try for back backhand. See, here he goes with that nice distance. See if I can keep myself together for an hour and a half. The hills, valleys, hills, it is. What do you want to do first?

Okay.

Okay. Here we go. Another game, another tie break. I don't know what's going on with the last few games, but they're just all going down to tie breaks and I'm tending to win the first set and they just fall away on the second set. I mean, today I was winning for love On the first set Tuesday night I was winning six love on the first set and I just throw the second set away and I don't know why and I'm just scraping, scraping through on the tie break. So I am winning the game overall. But it's not a particularly satisfying win when you're doing so well and all of a sudden you're not doing so well. And I really wonder why that is. I don't think I'm changing my game. But all of a sudden, come the second set, for some reason, my I'm serving badly, I'm making unforced errors. I'm just doing things that I know I shouldn't be doing and I'm just giving points away today. I just gave away so many points and I just I just I'm just at a loss. I have no idea why that is. Maybe it's just a lack of experience or a lack of mental fortitude. Maybe I just start kicking myself after a while and. And I kick myself more and more as the worse I get. Maybe I just get overconfident after the first set and then I throw a game or two away, and then that confidence just disappears.

And then all of a sudden I'm playing against myself rather than my opponent. I could have won that second set. Today I have a mental image of myself playing this game where I'm just throwing points away. She was playing an easy game. She was playing lofty shots. They weren't particularly hard. She was returning all my balls and they didn't have much pace. And I think my problem is I started trying to put pace on them. I guess I just wanted to finish the game. I didn't really enjoy winning the first set because it was for love and it was just over so quickly and it just didn't feel competitive. And then I think I just started playing crazy shots that I shouldn't have been playing and I could have out rallied this person every time she was playing soft rallies. And I can return a soft rally all day. And I was just losing patience and trying to hit a winning shot, which I kept telling myself, I'm not going to go out there and hit winning shots. But I was just trying to hit winning shots. I'm guilty of breaking my own rules. I think when you make yourself a set of rules, you need to stick to them. And today I really didn't stick to them. Not quite sure what I can do about that, but there is some. Anyway, I need to come out with a better mental attitude after the first set.

Next week I'm likely to have three competition games and going out and playing like that is just it's not going to win me, not going to win me games. Monday's game in particular is going to be a close game. The fella I'm playing beat me four, three, four, three. Yes, a tie break on each of the two sets. And I played well against him in both those sets. And I think I played well because I didn't come out and over the top winner for the first set. It was a struggle and it was a it was a competitive game from start to finish. And I think that's the sort of game I play better in when it's just competitive like that. I think I let my guard down too easily on on a game where I start off winning easily and then I just become blasé about it. And then when I start losing a few games, I become frustrated and I start trying to hit winners that I'm not capable of winning and taking shots that are just they're low percentage shots and that's not a way to win a game of tennis. I need to be patient. And if it's going to get down to a rally match, I need to settle down and get into a rally match and not try and add speed, not try and add pace to a ball that doesn't have pace, just hit them back as they come until hopefully the other side makes an error and keep them deep, keep them in the middle of the court.

Don't go for the lines and just just be patient. I think when the game is a bit more competitive up front, like the guy I'm playing on Monday, then, you know, patience disappears a little bit because the game is more frantic and the rallies, they're not as long and there's not as soft and as rallies really just try not to be hitting it out from the baseline until someone makes a mistake because they're too deep to go in and play at the net. They're too fast at our level to really change the direction much of the ball and try and play for the corners and it just winds up being a rally match with the occasional change of direction. And I'm okay with that because I'm not getting the time to think about it and I'm not having the chance to see a slow ball coming that I think I can turn this into a winning shot by adding my own pace to it. The ball comes and Scott Pace. All you're doing is pushing it back with the same amount of pace. Anyway, we'll find out what happens next week. I think the next week's games, they're all going to be a little bit more competitive, a harder game.

Ames. I doubt too many of them will go to a tie break, but we'll see, I guess so. This last couple of weeks there's been a bit of a hard slog. My arm is hurting. My my legs are hurting. I'm just hurting all over. I don't know what it is. I think I'm just maybe. Maybe I'm playing. I don't think I'm playing more than usual. I think the games are just getting harder. And my my body is starting to complain a little bit about it. Come on, buddy, stop complaining. So we will keep this up and hopefully I'll keep on accumulating a wealth of knowledge and skills as I go. I'm definitely placing my balls better now when I aim for a spot on the court during a rally, they actually, most of the time they go where I'm aiming them serves not so much but balls during a rally. I'm getting pretty good at picking a spot and having it land within that within a few meters of that spot rather than just generally getting it in the court. So I'm pretty happy with that. I've caught a few people wrong footed, which is is nice to see because I've made a correct decision based on what I'm seeing the other player doing and I'm actually picking a few drop shots off at the right moment, but I've just got to keep my game under control and keep that patience under control and just rally the ball.

If it comes down to a rally match of soft balls because I'm just not winning those soft games anyway, we will keep on carrying on. Another week is coming up. The weather's going to get colder. It's winter. And I know from past experience that during winter when I'm playing the mornings with some of my hitting partners, it gets pretty cold. You know, 5 or 6°C. It's outdoor courts here, so it's it's cold and the balls don't bounce very well. But one of my hitting partners is back after being in the state and now and then having Covid. And he's just contacted me yesterday saying I'm ready for a hit. So I've got him coming tomorrow. And he's a big server, which is kind of fun on the one hand and frustrating on the other. And hopefully my other hitting partner who's currently overseas will be back in a couple of weeks and then we could get back to having full week of tennis in the mornings, which is nice. It's a good way to start the day even on a cold morning, and it gives me an opportunity to try out new skills and new things that I've learned on the court with my coaches and of myself. I don't think I'm going to get an opportunity to have a serving session this week, which is a bit of a shame because my serves, they still come and go and and they're improving.

Not quickly, but they're getting better. I'm feeling looser. When I do hit the ball, they go deep and fast and they bounce high and they're they're really sound snappy and they look like a good ball. But not, not not enough of them are good balls. It's just a bit of a hit and miss affair at the moment. So I need to keep practicing that, loosen up, make sure that I film myself and review what I'm doing afterwards and hopefully by this time next year, I'll have a better serve. Now I know I'm going to go play in the Pan Pacific Masters Games next November. There's actually an ITF tournament in Queensland in July next year, which is kind of good at. It's a run up to the games and it's also an age based tournament. So it's every five years, so 40 plus 45 plus 55 plus 65 plus and so forth. So I'll be 60 plus. So that'll give me an opportunity to experience that sort of tournament, which is something different to the usual local tournaments, the local competitions. And it'll give me an opportunity to get exposed to that sort of environment. So hopefully next June or July, I can't remember which month it's in. I'll be up in Queensland showing off my hopefully improved skills to a bunch of new players. Anyway, that's me. Andrew and this is Doublefault. Thanks for listening and I'll be back next week.