G’day,
Today’s two-minute sneak peek under the hood of Getting Tight, which launches in four days, is all about joining the dots between the mental, emotional and strategic aspects of competition.
Jeff Greenwald, a former No. 1 player in the world in men’s 35’s, had just taken the first set against Francisco Clavet, who is a former ATP Top 20 player after a rough start to the match. It was the semi-finals of the national 40’s in La Jolla in December 2019.
But was Jeff aware of the right strategy to ultimately take down his Spanish opponent? Watch the video and get a feel for how Jeff and I blend the mental/emotional and strategic elements from the metrics in the “Match Intelligence Report.”
VIDEO: Getting Tight Sneak Peek – Opponent Awareness
Mini-Lessons
Jeff and I expand on the key focus points in the video to provide more depth and understanding of what we talked about.
- After Set 1, Jeff acknowledges that his mental/emotional state is right about where he wants it.
- Always have an awareness of how you are “trending” in this area.
- Are there adjustments that need to be made? Do you need to show more energy, or maybe less energy, depending on the moment?
- Playing only 40% of points in the 0-4 shot range is incredibly low, and definitely favors Francisco over Jeff.
- This is where the mental “awareness” of the game plan is massive. Know your opponent. Know what their intentions are.
- Keep track of patterns of play as the match progresses, and play points on your terms.
- The 5-8 shot rally length is where Francisco really took control of the match.
- This grouping of 28% of all points was the wheelhouse of the victory.
- The first thing is to recognize where you are bleeding points in a match. The second thing is to try and counter it.
- This is a monstrous amount of long rallies.
- Francisco is trying to attack Jeff’s legs and lungs in this area. Jeff typically does this to his opponents, but Francisco is a former Top 20 player who feasts on longer rallies.
- This is a rally length that feels good to be in because you are hitting lots of balls, but it’s so tough to form an advantage, and you become completely gassed in the process.
- This is the “common cold” of losing tennis matches.
- Attacking your opponent in the 1st 4 Shots is exactly what Jeff, and you, need to do to beat “consistent” opponents.
- Bring the battle to the start of the point instead of grinding so much at the end of the point and getting so fatigued that victory becomes out of reach because you physically can’t execute your game plan.
- Remember Jeff mentioned that it was a slow court.
- Combine that with Jeff’s conservative game plan and rally length is going to be considerably extended. That’s going to favor Francisco much more than Jeff.
- Jeff has beaten a lot of players by outlasting them. Francisco, as a former Top 20 player, is simply too good of an opponent for that to work against.
- Hoping Francisco might miss is not a game plan that was going to be successful this time around.
- Ok, so the mind is willing, but the body may not be.
- Always keep track of how much energy you are expending to win points, games and a set.
- Is it something you can sustain? Do you have enough gas left in the tank to win two sets – not just one?