Peter was practicing his serve on the court next to me. I sprained a ligament in my thumb trying to return his serve a few weeks ago. He made up for it today – he looked at my serve and suggested I toss the ball with the palm of my hand instead of my fingertips. This way the ball doesn’t spin. I suppose it’s like a juggler, they pop the ball up in the air with their palms.

Before each stroke in a match, I rehearse my next shot – I am practicing technique. Once the point starts I think about where I want the ball to land. After the point starts, it’s too late to think about technique, there’s no way the one-step-at-a-time conscious mind can keep up with all the steps needed in even one rally. But what happens if I lose technique during a match? My serve starts going into the net for instance. It’s likely that I’m taking my eye off the ball but to correct that, I would have to be thinking about technique during the point. I don’t know the answer and the back and forth yo-yoing between the two is driving me a bit crazy. I can sometimes choose to think about one technique thing only during a point, say keeping my eye on the ball while serving, but it takes me out of the rhythm of my shots. Any suggestions?
practiced for an hour; played two sets with M.: 6-4, 7-5; practiced my serve for one bag of practice balls
Success Analysis:
1. I hit some hard serves for service winners.
2. I played agressively and won a lot of points at the net.
3. I moved back a bit and gave myself room to step into the ball and hit it more solidy.
Injury Report: I went to see my physical therapist, Andy Choi, because I was feeling twinges in my elbow again. Two things seem to be bothering my elbow: I am still dropping my racket as I hit the ball which weakens my wrist and puts pressure on my elbow, I twist my racket to hit across the ball when I make contact on my serve but I don’t really have enough flexibility in my forearm to do this.