He's Your Pusher (Final Tennis Notes of the Winter Season)

Today, in the last match of the EBRC Winter A-League, I played Chinmoy for third place-- we were both 7-4, I think, and folks were excited to see us play because we are both known for getting everything back-- but Chinmoy is more of a classic pusher/moonballer while this week, I've been teaching the high school players how to beat that kind of player, so I've been practicing along with them-- basically, you need to abandon your normal game plan-- if the moonballer hits you a moonball, hit a moonball back and sneak up to the net-- you'll most likely get an overhead or a swinging volley-- and in general, you need to hit the ball deep and up-the-middle with heavy topspin and be very patient, then when you get a shallow ball, you can slice a short shot to the backhand side and rush to the net; Chinmoy also has a directional flat serve that he can hit to your backhand or off the side on the deuce serve, but as long as you poke it back fairly deep, he's not going to kill the next shot; so I used all the strategies and I beat him twelve games to two . . . I've never run to the net so much in a match, never hit so many overheads and swinging volleys, and I definitely ended up in no man's land once in a while, but it really disrupted his game-- he wants to hit it back and forth forever and then maybe hit a weird spin shot but I made the point go fast when I could, and I hit the ball deep with topspin when I couldn't waited to throw him off balance and get to the net, so I was very happy with my mental game (and my leg is not 100% yet but it held up) meanwhile in the championship match on the court next to us, Rey and Dhiraj were in a battle that went to a tiebreaker, then there was a disputed call and they almost came to blows and there was some chest-bumping and lots of cursing -- and while Dhiraj won the match, they both lost their minds-- you have to remember tennis is a cooperative sport, even though you are competing against the person you are playing, and you need to remember the big picture (no one wants to play with a lunatic).