hey guys today's video I want to feature a match with Instagram here one of my
students that actually lives in the UK and doesn't work with me that often but
um pulling up to the courts and these guys are warming up you guys ready to go yeah yeah
let's just play one set wow Shamir so the wind is blowing like in this direction just keep that in
mind as you guys play yeah I'm not gonna do any coaching you guys play the set when you're done
we'll sit down we'll talk about what happened I'll give both to you guys
some tips okay okay all right so just play your best and we'll see what happens okay
first of all the conditions were super tough today yeah
like from one side it was blowing hard this way and then from the other side
very similar to our practice session that we had right exactly so you have
to be very careful when you're playing on this side you it's very easy to overhit
exactly and on the other side you can hit much harder but the problem is that
the wind does not always dependable so you can't just say I'm gonna hit
everything hard everything's gonna land in there's these spots where the wind
goes away and now you're hitting hard and sloppy and the ball goes way out exactly
also the danger of playing on this side is that the ball dies
but let me just give you some tips to both of you guys some of the things that I observe so
with you Adam short term tips that I can give you things that you can improve immediately
would be just generally having a little bit more intensity between the shots a little bit
more footwork you often get caught a little bit flat-footed and you have to make improvisations
because of that like the ball jumps on you especially on a windy day like today
and right now your strongest shot is the forehand obviously
so you kind of have to build your game around the forehand run around as many
backhands as possible long term what you need to work on is improving
transition game that's really got burned a lot today your transition game meaning
like the shots that are happening in between the Baseline and the net
and your Net game your volleys you're not comfortable with the net
and one part of your game that's completely underutilized how tall are you
six one or something okay for somebody six one you're under utilizing your serve you're
just kind of just getting it in you're not really utilizing any power sources
so a long term goal should be to develop some better serve mechanics that way you
can get a little bit more free points your backhand especially the slice is very weak
it's wouldn't really slice anything now until you develop Proper Slice
technique those are the long-term goals okay tendency do I look like
listen this is something that a lot of players struggle with across all recreational levels
and it's just a matter of like when you look at somebody who plays the high level they're
always bouncing around they get a forehand like here like this where you guys you're more
like like this you know you're like you're just kind of the heels are on the ground more yeah
and in between the shots the heels are on the ground more often too so it's about being on
your toes more but the problem with this is it's going to be very uncomfortable to play with more
intensity it's going to feel weird you're going to feel so awkward to bounce around and move around
like this so it's something that you really have to force yourself to do because it's not something
that comes natural to players Shamir my coach in college was Mel Purcell and he gave me one
of the best tips that I ever received and the tip was don't get beaten by a cheap shot it's
such a simple tip but it's so true because so many times today you got burned and you got
beaten by a cheap shot especially on this side where the wind was blowing you know with you
so this is something that you can improve like right away just it's just a mental switch that
you're going to have before every point plan to react to every single ball and be ready for every
single Ball even if it feels like the ball is going to go into the net you still go for it don't
do any Drop shots I think I only hit two there's way too many yeah there's too many Drop shots
what I liked was your control from the Baseline I thought you controlled the ball well I really like
your one-handed backhand you didn't miss that many and you did slice a lot with slice ended
up working in your favor except on the return or serve yeah which is not really a slice it's
more of a chip that's something we got to work on the chip is a little bit technically there's some
issues there you're too too big with the chip and you're blocking it yeah you miss hitting the ball
on the return of Serve now when you play against Emma if you make mistakes like you did today
it's going to be very difficult similar to what I told Adam the intensity has to be much higher
and you really have to find big targets and keep the ball in play because once you start
missing against her it's just going to be a downward spiral that's going to be tough to
get out of because your confidence is going to go way down and it's going to be a disaster so it's
going to be the utmost importance to keep the ball and play play with high intensity you know
big big targets and how you're going to do that you're gonna have to try really hard yeah but I
did like a lot of things that I saw today on your forehand side I thought forehand was pretty good
you're controlling it well you were you weren't going for too much and the serve was strong your
serve has gotten a lot better you've got some a lot of free points off your serve thanks
Nick thank you thank you guys that was a good match tough conditions today the wind was rough