I got asked to go drilling with a guy I’ve never drilled with before and he’s left-handed. He’s also a big hitter and has a lot of good, unpredictable serves. I don’t see a lot of big hits a lot of the time so it was a great opportunity for me. I also had no play lined up (on a Saturday!) so I’m grateful he was able to get out and drill.
Before we arrived we had a couple of text messages discussing what we might want to do and that helped us have a game plan. No one else I drill with does that and while we manage to put together a solid workout in the moment, I think I liked today’s session better than the winging-it approach.
We did a basic warm-up, as if we were going to play a game, and then we moved to a drill. After we did that, we played skinny singles. Then we did another drill, then played skinny singles. I thought the flow was better because of that – we would work on something, even if it had a game component, then we would play another game to see if we could implement what we had just drilled. It made for a good flow.
When we played skinny I wasn’t able to return some of his serves deep enough and he was able to dictate the point from the get-go. He suggested a new way to hit some returns and fed me some balls to try. I was a little bit too dramatic with my attempts, taking a giant backswing that wasn’t necessary. A lot of times I will over dramatize motions in order to sort of force myself to do things a new and different way. But doing that in this scenario basically meant I was practicing something I shouldn’t ever do.
I was able to get a few returns like he suggested and they worked. I wasn’t able to do it all the time but it was a nice addition to my normal options.
We did the drill where you feed the person short and they drive it, earning 2 points if you let it go out. He didn’t hit many balls out. I don’t think I fed him the best balls either but that’s what happens when you play with a lefty, you have to do everything backwards and sometimes that can get sloppy.
We ended with skinny singles, which I thought was smart because we were both tired. I definitely got a good workout.
My knee started bothering me for a little bit. Eventually it went away but I did have to deal with that, playing tentatively, for a little while. I don’t know what the heck is going on with it. I’m trying everything I know to do, Advil, ice, wearing a compression sleeve at night, stretching. It’s super frustrating to have this new fear to go along with all my other mental shenanigans.
I want this problem to be something simple. I’m really happy that once I got going it didn’t bug me but I pretty sure something is amiss. As long as I can move I’ll be alright but the last few times I’ve played it was hurting bad enough that I was afraid to move in quickly on a drop. That’s a problem.
Anyway, it was great drilling session and my shots were back. I had a couple-three days of poo poo play but today felt good and that’s a good thing.
