Okay, the ATP Shanghai Rolex Masters 1000 event started yesterday. There is nobody attending this event. I think I’ve seen about 40 seats occupied each day when the camera pans around the stadiums during change overs. This is truly sad because of the level of tennis that is on display. Come on Shanghai, you once hosted the Season-Ending finals with record numbers, Asia boasts a booming economy and a love of the sport of tennis, and the hunger for the game has been growing steadily especially with recent uprising stars like Yen-Hsun Lu and Li Na! I’m saddened to see this happen because if I can compare the past two days attendance to let’s say, the BNP Paribas Open in remote Palm Springs, California, people are lining up in the blazing desert sun just to find grounds tickets. I mean, in the past few years, the attendance records down in Palm Springs have been broken each year, did Shanghai forget to market this year’s event or something?! They have all the sponsors they need but it is a travesty to see all the empty chairs and lack of clapping/noise after points. Sigh.

Maybe I’m irritated because I pretty much was reduced to a wobbly version of myself when my legs were taken out after a 30 minute ply-o-metric workout followed by some very light drills on court. I’ve been running 200m sprints the past few days, but today the ply-o workout worked different muscles and left me struggling to stand up at times. Usually I end up hunched over from sprints because I’m gasping for air, today my legs would be shaking and I wouldn’t be able to get enough energy to the big leg muscles to stand after the repetitive jumps and squats. Definitely found an area of my physical game that needs to be improved. . . The drills I did included: Multiple sets of forward squat jumps, jumping over cones horizontal, forward, and backward. Alley jumps, jumping on one leg and moving diagonally, shuffling drills over cones emphasizing explosion on the starts and stops. Sprints (like court suicides) with cones, sprints with back peddling included, and multiple sets of burpees. We brought out a ladder, high knees, cross over steps, 2 steps in each box, backwards through the ladder, in and outs with both feet, and “hop scotch”. A light jog afterwards and I was done with the ply-o workout. Hit the court, massaged my legs out with my roller-stick, and did some volley drills and some ground stroke drills. I worked on my slice mostly today. I tried to catch the outside of the ball more in order to create more of a cross court angle on it. I also tried to shorten my follow through because the excess “gar-bage” (say it with a french accent) on my current follow through doesn’t really enhance my slice at all, if anything it just makes it sit up more for my opponent. It feels like a “shorter” stroke now that hopefully is more effective because it travels through the court faster, stays lower, and doesn’t allow my opponent the chance to run around it. I noticed Nalbandian doing this particularly well against Gulbis last night too when he got into trouble and needed to neutralize Gulbis’ ground attack.

A little thought on the Gulbis and Nalbandian match – Gulbis is going through the same struggle I went through all of last year. He doesn’t “know” his forehand stroke. I saw him trying numerous ways to set up his forehand, whether it was his take back, his grip, or his follow through. I even saw him at one point with his whole left arm pointed upwards towards the edges of the stadium’s retractable roof… Talk about an awkward and inconsistent shot. Let me tell you, I went through the same thing last year, I had no idea what I was doing on the stroke. I was trying to tweak every detail of it too but I couldn’t get the result I wanted. I finally quit trying, and made things simple for myself. I wish I could say this to Gulbis so he wouldn’t have erratic forehand woes. I learned that the most efficient way to take the racket back on my forehand is simply to turn my hips and shoulders and completely trick my body into this pattern instead of worrying about my left hand on my racket when I take it back,how to hold my racket in my right hand on the take back, or how high or low to take the racket back with my right hand. By tricking my body, I was able to develop “my own” forehand that is worry and anxiety-free, it also happened to correct the hitches/glitches in my racket preparation. I literally eliminated the usage of my arms on the take back. Once I’m set up, all I have to worry about is contacting the ball in front with ample racket speed. I also used to drop my racket head way before contact with the ball, but focusing on just keeping my body turned with racket head up, I simply rotate my hips at almost the last second and eliminated the racket-dropping hitch. Gulbis needs to simplify things or else he’s going to be dubbed with the title of the: World’s Best Player with the Most Awkward Looking and Mechanically Flawed Forehand. Good thing he has a great serve, a world class backhand and amazing movement around the court..

Waiting for some fans to show up at the Shanghai Rolex Masters,

Shubert