You all should know that Angel has read all of the blog posts. I asked if he had any technical disagreements in re content and he replied that it was all pretty accurate. So now you are assured of veracity, at least by two peoples' opinion. :-)
Angel is currently ranked 4.67 or thereabouts, he is expecting that to go up as they had a good tournament result the other day. I told him he had to play at 3.875, and he agreed to that.
I want to talk about the conversation we had, but let me jot some thoughts about his play.
A lot of shots from his ground strokes landed about half way into the service area, i.e., not flirting with the end line much. His speed was reasonable, but not outlandishly fast. The balls could easily be returned, if, of course, you were there to hit them. He placement was usually up the middle and then up the middle and more so, up the middle. If you were determined to cover the middle like syrup on a pancake, then suddenly the balls seemed to go up the sidelines. Hmm...
But the major difference I saw that made Angel different from you and me and greater Downs population is that his shots were very well controlled for height above the net. He hit most shots with a touch of top spin, kept them low, and as mentioned previously, not particularly deep. Oh, and you are not likely to hit a ball to him when he is at the net that he can't get a paddle on.
He wasn't perfect and missed some shots, usually side/wide shots and net balls. I guess he missed a couple long, but that was rarer than the other misses. He was very consistent and controlled. It looked like a game with little angst in it, quite relaxed and a player with time to deal with any shot he got. It was very polished and smooth.
I gave an assignment to a couple of players to let me know what they wished they had talked about before playing in the tournament this past weekend. So far nothing has been turned in. Angel mentioned that his partner and he had a four hour conversation before they started to play together. There is a lot to talk about it seems. Of course if they talked really slowly, maybe not that much, but I joke. Tournament preparation is a topic that sadly I know not much about. If anyone wants to contribute a guest post, I'm all for it. This paragraph is here as Angel mentioned the topic.
Partnership agreements is a topic that has not been explored much in these pages. In some ways it is not important for the Downs as there is so much mixing and not much pairing off. But maybe down the road it will be worth talking about. Note that if there are a lot more courts, then the game may change from "there are too many players here," to one of "Who can meet me at some park at some time." That may herald in a time of partnership v. partnership and change the look of the whole PB scene around here. But this is a topic for another time.
Let me note some things that I picked up from playing against Angel. The middle of the court is where the action is. Keep the ball low. You don't have to hit it hard to be a good player. When he was not playing, the shots was three feet higher in the air and a lot more errors! His drives, while probably not at full speed, were still difficult to block from the kitchen line as they were usually below the net level and had a lot of topspin on them. He had some wild serves that he used a couple of times, lots of side kick and difficult to return. He mentioned a game against a fifteen year old who had an incredible serve that they couldn't return much at all. The quickly found themselves at zero to seven - it was a game that didn't end well.
In summation, the road to "Better" might be to control the arc of the ball keeping it lower, moderate speed - no need to hit them long, get better at hitting diving balls. If you want to crank hand speed up to eleven, that wouldn't hurt either. :-)
Angel mentioned that he thought that the level of play at the Downs was much better than he has seen previously. I guess we're doing something right!
Thanks Angel, for dropping by and sharing thoughts and play!
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