Alright guys in today's video i'm gonna play a set against my former student reed who played
for clemson and i'm gonna be miked throughout the match i'm gonna guide you a little bit through my
thought process as i'm playing the set
Definitely late on that forehand should have gotten up to that quicker kind of reaching for it and pushed it long
when i have a little bit of time i get to set on my forehead and be aggressive problem is when i'm
under the pressure i have to play defensively so i want to be aggressive as much as i can
my 30-15 i need a first serve right here thinking about going down the t with a slice
okay that worked out great 40 15.
all right another one down the t i'm gonna flatten it out
yeah we can stay we can stay for the whole time reed i'll take the sun
i need a tan all right right here come on break right away get that break right away
all right now he's got a second serve i want to right away be aggressive put pressure on him
make him think about missing those first serves get a little bit of anxiety into
this game i'm gonna be super agressive on this one even if i miss it's okay
all right it's all right move your feet no footwork on that return one thing i find
with not playing a lot of matches which i don't i rarely play now you lose the timing on the return
so return is definitely something you gotta practice a lot in a real match type scenario
so i'm gonna use this first game to get my feel for the return back get my timing right
i got distracted by that car noise I gotta turn that off in my brain
beeingn distracted by things but this really is annoying
stay active on your feet stay lively lively
30 15 get this point and the game it's tight come on
fantastic return this is exactly where i like returning right through the middle of the court
come on 30 all get it right here
ah run for that you could have had don't be
lazy the return was way too weak see i got to put pressure with the return
i literally could not see anything on that overhead check out my video how to block the sun i
tried to block it with my hand it worked somewhat 15 love first serves Nick first serves
too good that return was deep i didn't do a good job deflecting it back i got killed
way too low of a toss throw it higher that toss was so bad
come on huge point come on
yeah he knew it he says he knew it but it's good to mix up that second sometimes he actually
doesn't he didn't know it i don't think he did otherwise he wouldn't have framed it but uh
yeah you got to mix up that second serve every now and then don't be predictable with the kicker
every now and then like once again in crucial moments give it a little mix up come on nick
i'm gonna actually stand further back on the second serve because i feel like when i come
in and my reaction time is too slow right now i'm going to stand further back and rip this one
right through the middle
all right so that was supposed to go down the middle but he doesn't know that it looks like i
hit an unbelievable um down the line winner but actually it was a mistake it was way late
that's the old dropper works on hardcourt too
another shank but it's okay i'll admit it to you guys he doesn't know he thinks i'm
returning like a maniac but actually that was not supposed to go cross-court i hit it way too early
and it was a shank but the intention to go through the middle
is so huge because even shanks will go in it'll go to the corners so guys i recommend you got to aim
that return through the middle of the court hard djokovic style come on love 40. first one
oh you had it come on man get out a little more height a little more height
another good return see that gives me confidence i can run around my backhand rip that forehand
for a winner i don't think he's going to pull it slice out wide i'm going to do it again
yeah again miss hit forehand good shot reed I hit that so bad that approach that again
not clean off the frame
i don't know what that was a hybrid between an angled backhand and a lob
horrible horrendous and the serve might have been out too
love 40 deuce stay with this game come on stay with it
so bad common stay with it don't give up now
stay with this game come on stay strong again come on aggressive forehands again back up
see now i think he's got a little bit of his head because i'm returning well on this side
and he's going for more in that second come on one more break point break point number four this one I'm gonna get right here
this is so weak that return so weak you gotta hit that thing harder
come on come on nick
all right there's the break but just in general now when i got this break especially like a
long return game like that i finally got the break there's a little bit of a relief usually
and players relax and they get broken right back it's very common so this is what i'm going to try
to prevent in my next service game i'm going to focus super hard on the first couple of points
as if we're still on serve not even going to think about the break i want to hold
this break because what this means if i serve decently i can win the set so
this game is absolutely humongous right here i'm going to go wide slice nice cutter out wide
fantastic start fantastic i'm missing that flat one i'm going to try to slice
it out wide i want to mix it up a little bit i'll make him hit that backhand return
that's the beauty of a kick serve guys it's not easy to return guys will make a lot of
mistakes off of it you gotta learn to kick the ball
finally i make a half-court shot
he's fast so these drop shots have to be good they have to be very accurate
that's why i use them very seldomly i don't want to overdo it he's way
too quick for it to be a thing i do all the time all right now i'm up for one
let's get that insurance break guys when you get an insurance break
you can make the set go your way most of the time so i'm going for the insurance break right here
i now got confidence i'm hitting the ball hard it's not missing that much
i just got to stay with it don't let up
that was a bad backhand great shot reed i didn't hit it right i shanked
it a little bit went right in the middle of the court i was
maybe a little too far away from the ball keep my feet moving come on
ah that was a weird was that with that slice
yeah it bounced like so high i lost my time timing on that
again i mistiming my backhand return he took some pace off for that that's what
that's what uh messed me up doesn't matter come on stay with it
the funny thing we reed is he used to have a two-hander and he switched to
a one-handed when he went to clemson and so the one-hander can be a little bit erratic at times
but he does slice most of his backhands so it's kind of tricky i don't really like returning slice
funny how we just talked about that and i barely got that over the net i did not bend
that was a lucky forehand but that's what i mean he's got a nasty slice all right come on you got
a break point right here equivalent to set point so you've got to get come on you got to get hyped
what a kick and what bad footwork that was a crazy kicker i reed on a first serve too which
was surprising again it was kind of a sleeping on the return of serve there
was not having the right intensity having a little bit of a down right now i got to pump myself up
i should have gone down the line maybe because i've been going cross-court
every single pass maybe give him a down the line he's not expecting it
very very many backhand mishits
a huge game right here
that's a great serve nick come on
come on nick
all right good volley come on nick come on good approach shot too nothing too fancy
just make him hit that pass
Alright I'm gonna play super aggressive in this game and try to conserve my energy short points
it's a good return actually could have gone in could it it didn't but i didn't
expend any energy there exactly what i'm looking for right now
that's a fantastic pickup reed
to good reed nice service game all right my friends here it is can the nickster serve it
out 5-3 i'm gonna need some first serves i'm gonna go down the t i'm feeling this one right here
half court shots have gotten a little bit better right now in the beginning was a little shaky but now
i'm putting them away quite comfortably
fantastic serve nick come on
toss was too low
that would have been really good
So there i mixed up that second serve actually i went for a slice
and it worked actually it works really well i missed the ridiculously easy volley
but it's okay i'm right where i want to be 30 all 5-3
there we go bread and butter come on come on
finally went down the line it worked whoo 6-3 you know what killed me
the game at when i was trying to get the insurance break yeah 4-1 i was serving 1-4 that game just
took everything out of me i got is that the one you went up 0-40 no that's the one i broke
i went up 0-40 on on 2-1 and then you came back and then it was like couple back and forth it was a
long game yeah yeah do you play really well to get it back to deuce and then you gave me
a couple of mistakes you gave a double fault if i remember double fault yeah kick wide on the deuce
yes and then you had i held and then that game when i was trying to get the insurance break that
destroyed me that was a long one oh that was for like a 15 minute game and it took everything out
of me i was actually very tired of that that's why i let that game go a little bit at 5-2
i couldn't i just had to let it go conserve the energy but you know
what shot you were hitting amazingly well the pickup topspin forehand like off a deep return
that's a fantastic pickup reed man you're redirecting it with spin it's not easy to do
because you got to accelerate on it i just usually deflect mine like super low
you gotta be super low super still super steady but i usually like deflect mine
you actually took a cut at it a couple times and you made it so weird because normally you wouldn't
think this would work but for me backing up on your second serve gave me more time to rip the
return because if i stand closer and if i step in i can't rip it because i'm i'm not set up for
it to end up kind of like making a shorter type of swing like kind of just redirecting it back
and if i back up and give myself space i felt like i could take a huge cut at this huge swing at it
see my backhand return wasn't working well at all i was just kept shanking everything
again i mistiming my backhand return so you probably should have gone more to my backhand
yeah like trying to go down like on the deuce down the t and maybe out wide
i'll tell you what to like playing on that side the entire time oh my goodness i was
tossing up those junk balls there i couldn't see those at all i don't even know how i made it i
thought you're running for one like this i was blocking it with my hand which worked somewhat
i literally could not see anything on that overhead