Hi Deep that’s great. I’ve just had a look through the videos and this is what I think: So in the first video you mentioned the return of serve on the backhand side, especially the longer sidespin serves. Many players struggle with these type of serves actually. The ones you missed you were usually more passive and maybe a bit indecisive on what shot to play, I felt all the better returns you did you decided quickly and played a more positive topspin. The serves where he played it shorter in your backhand you mostly returned really well with a positive flick, so it’s just trying to get this same feeling when the long serve comes in. When there is a lot of sidespin you need to play positive and hit through the ball to counteract the spin, otherwise it can fly long off the end as was happening sometimes here.
on the second match, in the 18-16 set at the end I think the areas you mentioned are both right, so the recovery after serve and leaning back a bit and off balance, so try to work on getting that space and keeping your body weight forward because you have a good 3rd ball when in position well! The dropping the bat on the blocking is also spot on, it’s so important to keep the bat high to block well or even get the chance to counter attack. Maybe just trying random blocking drills in training as you said it was usually good in practice.
I also feel on some of the points where you had set point you were maybe a bit tense or tight and didn’t quite manage to play as positive as some of the points you won. That’s natural when the game gets close but still something you can try to focus on. I would say that you could vary your serve placement more, especially at the end of the set when it was close. Your forehand open up won a lot of points against this guy and I feel you could have serves more short into his forehand to try and get more long pushes into your forehand side and get the attack in first. More often than not the player who got the first spin here won the point.
Lastly definitely something that would really help your game is being more aggressive when returning serve, so making your push shots deeper and faster and really trying to put the opponent under pressure and make it hard to play a good attack, this would also really help your first block and make it easier as it will be harder for them to get a quality spin at you too. So some work on really low deep pushes and aggressive flicks would be good!
None of the matches I have seen you have played badly at all, it’s small changes which will help you keep improving. I hope that all makes sense, let me know if you have any questions on it 🙂
