Today I played with the power gals in Delaware. There was also a guy and he’s pretty powerful too. Playing against them it’s a requirement to keep my paddle up and to always be ready. I truly believe playing against them in advance of the combine was unbelievably beneficial because I didn’t face anyone who hit as hard as they do and most of the speed-ups I faced weren’t as speedy as what I see against them.
It was a nice hard work out today and I used my V2 Icon. I missed less shots today than I did the first 2 days with it. I think probably my only concern is going to be the weight but I really like the way the ball comes off. This paddle has power but not quite as much as the Power Air. I can really spin it, I can do my normal shots and then if I hit that sweet spot, that thing will really take off.
Today we had a lot of conversation and chatter, which we don’t typically do. We typically talk and discuss things after each game but today the warm-up was a little bit delayed because I was jabber jawing so much. Some of the games I would even say random stuff because something would remind me of something from this past weekend. They seemed open to hearing about it so hopefully I wasn’t a big distraction.
I think we played 8 games and they all were good. I had to get up super early to get the game in before work but I love morning play so it was an awesome way to start the day.
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I did my Thursday drilling and holy cow was I tired. I finished sore all over. My knee started hurting and my back got real tight. My back being tight isn’t that unusual but my knee, well it’s a fairly new knee so that was a surprising irritation.
We did our normal work, focusing almost entirely on dinking. Since I’m using the V2 Icon I was pretty happy with the chance to get a ton of reps on it and get a really good feel for it.
After we did some dinking I worked on topspin shots. He was essentially doing a drop and I was trying to use topspin to keep him back. After I did that for a little bit we switched but kind of did the same thing only it wasn’t him feeding me. We just kept going, hit after hit, causing a little bit of chaos. It also meant that I got to hit forehand and backhands and depending on how he would get the ball I sometimes would get an overhead. It was a variety of shots to practice.
We actually quit about 5 minutes early because I was pretty tired. I did my best to concentrate as well as I could because it’s great to practice when you’re tired, to see if you’re able to mentally be there when you aren’t as physically capable. I think mentally I was good enough to get something positive out of the workout.
