Hey Dan! Yeah we’re super excited for the Olympics there has been some great matches already! I think like you said the return of serve was your main issue in these matches and a couple of other important things but overall I think it’s fine margins and with some small improvements you will see a big difference. Also like you said you didn’t play your best, so there’s more to come there!
So with the return of serve there are a couple of things that will really help cut out the mistakes, on the Tomahawk but also on other serves as well. The first things is to try to take your push shots a bit earlier, so trying to step in and meet the ball sooner after the bounce, by doing this it’s much easier to keep the ball low and difficult to attack. The other thing on the return of serve is really spotting early if you can when the serve is short or long, this will help with decision making on what shot to play. trying to always get your topspin in against the tomahawk especially, makes it easier to return.
The last thing on returning is to really try to pick a shot and stick to it, it’s easy to get indecisive and end up doing a kind of half and half return which usually ends up being weak. So try to be brave and commit to a positive shot, if it’s a an aggressive push or topspin.
I think in the open rallies it was fairly even, but both these player managed to get on the attack a bit quicker than you and force you into just keeping the ball on rather than you managing to attack and move them around first. Sometimes this can be down to placement as well, so early on in the rally trying to get good positioning of your shots, either wide into the corners or even better into the body/elbow of the opponents. This quite often forces a slightly weaker ball for you to attack!
Last little thing I think that will really help you is working on variety in your rally play, so mixing up placement like I said but also being able to throw in a slow topspin with more spin, or suddenly a more fast aggressive shot. This will make you much harder to play against and give opponents more to think about and deal with.
But as I said it’s small margins and with a little improvement I think you will surprise yourself, keep up the good work!
All the best, Dan 🙂
