Big Hitting and “Going for it” – Shubert Blog

Written by: Resendiz on 30th September 2011

Big Hitting and "Going for it" - Shubert Blog |

Hey everybody, another day of practice in the books, and I’m still very confident in my game. My movement is balanced, and as previously noted, I’m trying to be a little “smoother” out on court. I feel that when I lose my balance, movement becomes strained and inefficient, however when I’m on balance, power simply flows through my shots. Today I felt like I was getting to every ball and tagging it to the exact place I wanted it to go. I even felt myself going for a lot bigger of a shot than I normally do and saw them dropping inside the baseline at the last minute! I was mildly surprised! I still had good racket speed and timing after a 2 day lay off. Maybe I was reacting to my surroundings. Today I was at Advantage Tennis Academy and there just happened to be a lot of juniors around as well as some very good college and professional talents. The courts are fast at the Racket Club of Irvine so that also contributes to the speed of the ball. With a seemingly “un-caring” state of mind, I struck my shots with an effort to hit a bigger ball. Not necessarily flatter, more aggressively, with more spin, or the intent to hit winners. I literally felt like I could muster a little more energy into my swing to make it go faster, the quicker I came through my shots and effectively met the ball out in front and give it a little flick of the wrist after, I saw my shots zipping through the court and causing my opponents to go on the defensive.

I started out the practice warming up with Liz Jeukeng, currently #665 in the world on the WTA circuit. After that, we mixed things up and I ended up hitting with some former UCI Men’s team members. To my surprise, Travis Rettenmaier walked in and began sparring with the juniors on hand during the Academy’s workout. Currently he’s #129 in the world (doubles) and was as high as #57 just last year. I remember watching him coming back from injury playing in a well-known Men’s Open event at the Jack Kramer Club in Palos Verdes, CA about 5 years ago against one of my best friends. I thought he was one of the best players I’d ever seen in person, excellent touch and an all-court game style. So now, in the present, I looked on from a few courts down and saw an opportunity to test my game against him. We ended up playing a tiebreaker and I was able to put a few good points together of solid tennis and was grateful in the end that I had the opportunity to play with Travis. I remember he served and volleyed on multiple occasions but two different occasions stand out distinctly for me because I was able to hit two backhand passing shot winners cross court. I struck them beautifully and I think my efforts during the match I lost at the Laguna Niguel Futures qualifying have helped my cause in terms of hitting my backhand under pressure to a specific target. So I was happy and felt that today I literally blasted some groundstrokes and they happened to go in – All the while keeping in mind that I might play it a little safer if there was more pressure, but today the shots were true so I might as well let em’ rip! I can’t really say when the last time was where I trained in a situation where there were two currently ranked professionals on the same courts around me, maybe it’s never happened!

In review, hitting a bigger ball does essentially mean more mph’s on the actual shot, however to attain that speed, I recommend “letting go” of your anxieties or fears concerning the shot and really focus on swinging fast, not hard. If anything goes wrong and maybe you don’t time the ball perfectly, your stroke is still generating a lot of racket speed, which means a lot of spin, which should keep the ball in the court and possibly scare your opponent into thinking you’ve hit an effective shot (because your swing was fast) however to their surprise they may be receiving a blooper in the middle of the court! Take advantage of short balls by moving up to strike them, lower your target over the net, these two simple ideas can help improve your weapons and deliver knock out blows to your opponent. It can sometimes be a gamble but if you have the proper movement and proper preparation, it’s a calculated risk that must be taken! Good luck!

Always trying to improve,

Shubert