40:30 Yep I sure have tennis elbow and it's not such a bad thing

I have tennis elbow and it's not such a bad thing, it might even be helping my game. I great week of tennis and some awesome hitting partner sessions but now it's time for a holiday and some time in the sun.

Doublefault a journey to the Pan Pacific Masters games 2024

Transcript

Hi and welcome to Double Fault. My name is Andrew and I'm on a journey to play in the Pan Pacific Masters Games in November next year on the beautiful Gold Coast in Queensland. There are now 513 days to go before that event occurs. I think I've developed a bit of a bit of a tennis elbow. Dr. Google tells me I have all the symptoms of a tennis elbow. I've got a sore patch, if you like, on the outside of my elbow area. When I dig my fingers into it, it actually really hurts. And you know what? I actually think it's helping my game a bit, which is really weird because all of a sudden I can't force myself to make certain shots or serves and I can't grip as tight. And I think my serve is loosened up a heap. I'm I've been doing some serves against some of my hitting partners and I really notice it and some of them feel really good. It feels like all the power is coming from my body and shoulder rather than me just gripping that racket and trying to whack it. I'm actually swinging at it and whipping that racket through the ball and they're going faster, they're going in and they're sounding better and I think they're actually looking better. And my groundstrokes to my forehand is way better as well. It's just looser and easier backhand, not so much a single handed backhand. And it actually hurts a little bit for the backhand.

They're working. Okay. I can ignore the pain and play through it, but the forehand and the serve are definitely, I think, getting some benefit from me being injured, which is, you know, the only good thing there is about being happy, being injured is when you get some sort of benefit elsewhere, I guess. So I'm not recommending you go out and get tennis elbow to improve your serve or your forehand. But it's it's interesting and it's actually a bit of an eye opener, I think. I'm hoping that once this injury heals, apparently it can take a few months, but once it heals, then I'll keep on using my newfound looseness, if you like, for my serve and groundstroke. I played a match a couple of days ago against a guy who is coming back to tennis, and I just want to actually say how quickly people improve when they're rusty. They left tennis for years and years and years, played as teenagers or, you know, late teens or early 20s. And they come back and they're rusty and they improve so, so quickly. The first time I played this guy was about, I think maybe a month and a half ago and he won. It was four, three, four, three. So there were four four game sets, Fast4 format. So both sets came down to tie break and he won. But this time he won four Love four two. There's a couple of things there. Number one, he bought a way better game this time than he did last time.

And you know what? I actually brought a better game, too, I thought. But he just outplayed me. The other interesting thing is that there's often such a differential between the first set and the second set. Quite often I'm either losing the first set six Love and coming back on the second set or I'm winning really well on the first set and then I'm dropping out on the second set. I don't know if it's that changeover or a change of mental attitude either way, but I wish I could work it out because I think if I could figure out why my game is changing and make both sets of winning set, that would be really good. So maybe for the ones where I'm losing the first set and doing better on the second set, maybe it's just taking me time to ease my way into it. Or maybe mentally I'm actually thinking that the other player is going to beat me and then they want to beating me and then I'm kind of, well, I'm not going to say resigned to losing, but I feel a bit more comfortable with the game. And then I come back and play some better tennis. And the same with when I'm clobbering the first set and losing the second set, I think I get comfortable with winning and then my mental resolve to keep winning. It kind of eases off a little bit and I start throwing games away.

Maybe that's a thing. Who knows? I'm actually going to Port Douglas for my wedding anniversary, my 30th wedding anniversary this weekend for a six day holiday. So there'll be no tennis. Actually, there will be. I'm going to take a sock with a couple of balls in it to practice my tennis strokes, and I'll use those same balls to practice some tosses for the serve. I think it's it's actually a good opportunity to to do that when you're on holidays because they don't take much room in your luggage and you can go through the service motion over and over again while you're having a little bit of a afternoon rest or, you know, an afternoon cocktail and you can do the ball toss and, you know, practice that, throwing that ball up and having it drop in the right place. And there's only a limited number of things you can do when you're traveling and carrying a racket in my luggage is not a thing, but certainly carrying a sock with a couple of balls in it is a thing. So there's my practice. This for those six days. I'll take that opportunity to try and improve my ball, toss a bit and to practice my tennis serve. So I get a nice smooth kind of motion, which it's getting smoother anyway. Like I said before, maybe it's kind of thanks to my tennis elbow, but it's getting it was getting smoother anyway, and my racket drop is definitely getting better.

I can feel myself and I can see that it's better than it was, you know, 18 months ago. And you'd expect that. I've done a lot of practice since then, but it's looking not like a great serve, but it's not looking like an immature serve. It's actually looking like something in between. I had a squad this morning, like a group lesson with a coach and normally that's coach with, you know, four or 5 or 6 players and you go through drills and different activities. You know, you play doubles, you play a few different things, variations on forehands and backhands and volleys and the like. But this morning's squad was actually just me and one other player in the coach. I don't know why that came about, but this other player, he was red hot, really good. So we took turns rallying with each other and with the coach. You know, it was me and him, me and the coach, him and the coach. And when he was playing the coach and these coaches, you know, they're not amateurs. They know what they're doing with a tennis racket. And this guy, he was actually beating the coach. And when I was rallying with him, he was rallying really huge and deep and really good topspin balls, great backhands. And it was a pleasure to play with him. I got a couple of points of him, which is really great because I didn't think I could get anything off him just watching him play.

I think there's a real benefit in playing against someone who plays really well. He had his absolutely beautiful forehand with a wonderful follow through, a big circular motion. And when you play against those guys and it's not competitive, it's just, you know, having some rallies and having a bit of a bit of practice hitting, you try and emulate that. And I was trying to emulate that because that's kind of what I do when I see a really good player on the other side of the fence there. I try and copy what they do to make my game better. And I picked up so many things from hitting this guy today and with the coach as well. He actually hit hit with me as well. As I said, it was just the three of us on the court. There wasn't a lot of instruction going on. There was a little bit of, you know, a little bit of instruction, but not a huge amount. But it was more a case of watch and learn. And I think there's a lot to be said for watch and learn. You can watch YouTube videos and see how players do things, but when you're watching good players play live and actually when you're involved with playing a game with a good player, I think you learn a lot more. I think you can actually copy and see what the other player does and emulate their strokes.

And you know, I think you maybe you don't wind up being an instantly better player, but your mind absorbs that, I think, and then you can use that in games down the track. It was a good session and I really enjoyed it. I got to say, I really do enjoy the squads where you have lots of variety of players and I know the other players and it's fun playing, you know, various types of games. But this kind of session was way more intense. You know, just the warm up rallies. We were just bashing it out from the back line and I was getting way more topspin than I normally would. I was actually hitting these balls as hard as I could, and they were still landing in in past days. Those balls would have gone way over hit the fence. It just shows that after a bit over two years, I'm actually hitting the ball with lots of topspin. Not as much as I would like, but enough for it to go into the court. Even when I hit it really hard, like I wasn't mucking around. I was really hitting hard, following through, and those balls were dropping over the fence and landing well and truly inside the baseline. Mind you, the other guy with the beautiful swing and much more experienced with me, he was returning those suckers with interest. But it doesn't really matter because I just got a bit of an insight as to how much I've learnt over the last two years.

I feel that often I throw games away when I'm playing against players who have a I'm going to say a lower ranking, but I'm going to say, but it's really players that hit softer. Rallies like the competition I'm in has some players that they do hit softer, they hit longer, they hit harder, and you have to provide your own pace. And I wound up losing a lot of games against those people. And I think it's because, you know, when you're hitting a hard rally with a person who hits hard, you can really feed off their balls and they provide a lot of energy to start with and you can just give the same back. But when a ball comes soft and reasonably accurately, it's harder to return it in a way that you would like to hit them. Because, you know, I'm a typical guy who likes to hit from the baseline. I just like to whack it really hard. And when they don't have. Nice. And you hit it really hard like that. They they do go long. I have a few games coming up with some softer hitters, some matches. They are and I think there's that. I might take that lesson to the court and try and keep a sustained rally going, a softer rally. I can run most things down. I'm not a slow coach on the court, even though I'm 63. Yes, I said that 63. So I'm not a slow coach on the court.

I can get around and I can return most things quite successfully. The only problems come in when I start to try and hit winners or start to aim for the lines. And there's no need for that in this sort of game. Just as long as, you know, I keep my returns deep and I don't stand on the baseline, which is a stupid thing that I just keep on doing. So hopefully in the next coming weeks, I'll have a few more games in this competition. Tonight's competition game. Unfortunately, it's been cancelled because the player couldn't make it and next week's Tuesday night competitions also won't be able to make that because I'll be in Port Douglas. But I have a few other matches coming up. You know, I play two competitions. One's a hard competition, one's a softer competition, and I have a few games coming up in the softer competition, which I'll try and bring that attitude with me. The harder competition is a different story. Those folks in that competition, they do like to hit the ball hard. They hit deep, they hit hard, lots of topspin. If I give them the opportunity, they'll hit a cross-court winner, which gets me every time it serves me right for feeding their forehand like that. But I think that those two competitions need different approaches. I think I try and pay attention to what's happening when you when we have a practice rally to see what sort of balls the other players are feeding.

And I do actually focus on trying to feed some to their forehand and backhand and a few higher ones, a few slices just to see how those players react to it or hit him a bit wide to see if they'll run for it. And I'm starting to recognize during the warm up rallies what sort of a player I'm up against. Trouble is sometimes I recognize that I'm up against a player that, you know, it's a player that's better than me. There's no other way to say it. There's players out there in my comps that are way better than me. And those things are lessons. And sometimes, you know, you win a game off a player like that and that's a bit of a joy. You kind of go, I actually won a game and I wasn't expecting anything, and that's not a negative attitude that I'm bringing on to the court. That's just being realistic. You know, you're outclassed sometimes, and then the best I can do is basically just try and make a few points and just, you know, just try and keep the damage down to a minimum, you know, a bit of damage control and try and play the high percentage shots. You know, they might out rally me, they might hit winners, they might beat me. But chances are that I can I can win a few points and maybe the odd game off those people.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this with you today. I haven't recorded a match this week and I'm not going to. I was planning on recording tonight's match, but sadly, as I've said, that person has backed out and can't make it. So there's no recording of a match. It's just me rambling on as I am doing right now. I think tonight I'll regrip my rackets. I'm using Tourna grips the soft touch ones which I really like the grips, you know, they get kind of slimy after a while. I sweat a lot through my hands and, you know, it gets rainy and it's dewy. And after a while, they still grip well because they're tourna grip and they're really good, but they start to feel a bit mucky. So I'll probably regret my rackets tonight. And hopefully tomorrow morning I'll have a hit with well, I'll have a hit with a guy I can't beat. And then hopefully Thursday I'll have another squad and then it's off to Queensland, to Port Douglas for a bit of snorkelling and a bit of R&R and maybe a little bit of tennis. Toss practice and and tennis service swinging practice with balls and a sock. And hopefully next week I'll be rested, my sore arm will be better, my Achilles will have healed a bit more again and I'll be ready for some good solid gameplay. So I'm Andrew and this is double fault. Thanks for listening and I'll be back again next week with some more of my journey.