Humbert Vs Lajovic Barcelona
I’ve decided to write a piece on Humbert. I have not watched too many of his matches and I have no agenda.
I just singled him out.
I’m not the type of person who can stay doing something for too long.
I live seasonally here in New England
I’m like the “Jack of all Trades” and “Master of nothing”
But, when I get into something, I tend to be very good at it. I see through the bullshit and narrow down the focus on how to attack and how to win.
I’m starting with present matches and moving backwards to the Australian Open.
I’m hoping to have a “book” on him on how to play him by the end of it.
First game Humbert serve
-This was a stock game of Deuce “T-switches” (Serving T, moving the player to the middle of the court and switching the +1 to either side…depending on the opponent…depending on what you are trying to establish) and Hugo’s wide lefty hook.
*I like T switches. It allows for longer combos essentially.. If you coordinate it with a “box game” you can manipulate the baseline movement of your opponent.
*Training at the tour level should be two v one’s.
*Training at the club level is simply feeding a ball in and having the player rip the center of the court (preferably a specific side…and if you want to get better, make the space smaller) and then the point goes open…**Use your imagination players and coaches. Players on the opposite side are the feeders…they can feed stationary….from a corner…or they can feed from the center….have to touch a certain spot and then recover to the shot (this is most effective).
**I just paused to make an insta post…Still have venom in me. Attacking bad coaches and Bad Parents. I keep wondering why I have so much venom towards both parties. Kidding. I know why. I don’t like phonies.
Second game Lajovic’s serve
Not much to write home about here but on the game point Lajovic hit a kick out wide that Humbert looped…but Hugo was “dead in the water” out of the corner. He had to ZIP out fast and got caught with a double back +1 winner to the Ad corner.
**made note**
Hugo can be exploited on clay on the Ad side with T combos, Wide combos, and bodies. The key is…What combos do you have? And when to use them. Hopefully, your combos have alterations.
Third game
In the middle of the game, you can hear the Liners from another court “Whistling” as whomever is cleaning the lines. That’s BushLeague for an ATP stop. So annoying. The clay looks dry as shit too. Slippery. When it’s slippery like this there will be a lot of droppers and a lot of corner slide attacks.
Hugo’s forehand is big from within a one to two-step basis, but from a stretch, it falters on slippery, dry clay (I wonder how it will look when I dive into hard court matches).
Hugo had a tactical slip at 30-0…in a way. He stopped using the T switch at Deuce and went wide and “Ate Shit.” In some ways, I look at that as “Ok. It’s 30-0. Time to switch up the patterns.” But, if that is all your mind is thinking, then, that’s base thinking and kind of silly (we have all been there at some point. I made plenty of tactical mistakes in my youth and had to “eat shit.” But, I also didn’t have technology like they do today. It would have been nice to sit back and analyze my mistakes, visually, instead of a bonehead coach ((coaches)) who said things like, “you made too many errors” or “you need to be more consistent” yadda yadda.
Here's the thing.
1) you don’t have to switch patterns so early. If it aint broke, don’t fix it. I learned this lesson the hard way. When I was a kid, I had a little RM80 dirt bike that I had to pop start. I loved that thing. Zipping around the street. One day, my Dad felt the need to fix the idle and as he was revving the motor, higher, higher, and higher there was a loud pop and a gurgle. Grey smoke filled the driveway after the motor blew. That was the end of my dirtbike. It was fine, yet he felt the need to tinker with it….”If it aint broke, don’t fix it.
2) You have to have multiple plays on each serve that you feel comfortable with. And stop looking at each piece…the serve, +1, +2 as separate. They co-exist. T-switches have multiple sets that can continue to be used over and over. The problem, like life, we get to comfortable with easy points. I used to love easy points. Now, I hate them. Kind of. I want to play the baseline points and keep the opponent chasing the carrot.
Fourth Game.
The font is slanted now and I have no idea why. I f-ing hate technology. And don’t have the time to google what the hell happened. So, now I will write in this slant form.
Here’s the break for Hugo….yet he loses the set 6-4. Why?
More on that later.
When he gets up in the game, his forehand gets bigger. No surprise. Don’t we all get a little bigger when we are up?
-I see this as a positive and a negative.
The more cheap points and the less quality points played, the lower the value on the cheap points and the scale tips the other way. IMO.
Why?
Because you're falling for a trap. A self trap. As humans, we will naturally take our guard down when we have so many cheap points. Players have to learn to build confident baseline points, not necessarily to win the point, but to establish depth and make the other player dictate a little. Bait patterns (especially ones designed to trap the opponent into going for something stupid). This has to be learned in practice. Baiting patterns. Leave space, making look open and take it away…there’s way more to that. I could fill a chapter on baits and how to lay traps. It also helps if you know the outdoors. If you have ever hunted. Even with a BBgun. How to flush animals out. Half kidding.
There is so much to be learned off the court.
For instance, I want to take my daughters to Boston…with a mini pad and pen. Pick someone in public and follow them. Write notes. Who are they? What do you notice? Follow them everywhere and then convene in the park. GO over notes. What did each of you see? Why do you think that? Etc etc.
**Learning never stops and you can learn just as much about tennis off the court than on…tactically.
Fifth game
I love watching for tactical mistakes. Momentum changes. Who we are as people off the court carries with us on the court. My personal opinion of Hugo is that he is “soft.” Most tennis players are.
He blew a 40-15 game with a failed +1 drop shot (low value unless you built up your +1 corner games) and a back-to-back +1 error to go back to Deuce. I can feel his mind turning. Second guessing. If you watch people enough, they are predictable. They follow the same patterns. We make the same mistakes and not everyone has the energy to meditate and correct “faulty wiring.” Even if they do, the people you hang out with stunt any growth or change because…because…we fall back into the routines we had been living. We are creatures of habit.
Hugo has gone away from the T-switches and started using open patterns. When players are beating you on open patterns it means you have a shitty game plan. You haven’t developed the middle of the court…or you haven’t stayed on establishing a pattern long enough. The sad part is that the only way to learn this is to use it in practice and LOSE and figure out why something isn’t working.
Anyway
Hugo gives the break back
Sixth Game (and Seventh)
Queston:
How do you play your serve and return games?
Do they coexist?
How does one affect the other?
You should think of these questions and have answers.
This is what makes and breaks a lot of players at all levels whether you are a 3.0 rating or whether you are a 7.0
It matters.
You have to see the bigger picture (in a world that is small picture focused…with social media and easy-to-grasp technology).
This is the question I ask and I want to find an answer.
Does Hugo think about his serve and return patterns as a unit?
Or a separate identity?
This matters while I build a plan.
I would have erupted as a 20-year-old. Listening to the sweepers whistling would have driven me bonkers because of my PTSD. I hate sharp noises especially when I'm getting pissed (used to. Now I don’t care…for the most part).
He goes back to the original game plan. T switches on the deuce side. But. He’s not focused. He’s not committed in his mind. His mind is elsewhere. And it affects the game. He gets broken at Love.
Eighth Game
The mind is searching. His mind. His game plan ran out and now he’s back to the start again.
This happens to us all when we play zone tennis. It is very basic and it slowly becomes a physical and emotional game.
Box training is for smart people. People with good memories. Hunters who look to trap their victims into making bad decisions…it’s more about making the opponent make errors than it is about hitting winners.
*This is a huge difference and hard to grasp*
Ninth Game
Was a gift by Lajovic. Reminds me of my old college days. Get the break and hold for the set. The amount of 5-3 return games that I dumped (before I matured) you could make piles with. If I knew then what I know now….wasting games is childish and wasteful.
Tenth game
Lajovic has a “heavy” grip on his one-hander…meaning it’s a long tilt from forehand to backhand and the setup is deliberate and takes time. He’s one of those players who spent a long time “perfecting” his one-hander and “loves” the feel of it. When players have a “time” issue, you can use it against them.
-you can attack different depths
-different spins
-different speeds
But, what works best is combo manipulation.
Learning how to set a number and then deviate from it.
But, most players today focus on +1 power.
6-4 Lajovic
With every serve location, you should be able to play a few different ways. Looking at T switches….you should multiple attacks.
Aggressive
Defensive
Neutral
And each one should have a couple of different options.
Aggressive T switches on the Deuce side has 3 +1 locations. Box 1, Box 3 and Box 4…You can add Box 2 as a fourth location used to “double the serve.” So, let’s say four.
What you want to be able to do is understand each +1 location and what it does.
-Box 1 is a switch back
-Box 2 is a same
-Box 3 is a “lead” (keeping the player moving in the same direction in order to “flip” your +2 based on what you are trying to do
-Box 4 is “corner ball”
To work on this use groundstrokes. You get more reps that way. Or even second serves. Rip the feed to box 2 then hit your +2 to box 4….work in hitting “doubles” before you train in triples.
-You can play a game where you can only hit to those two boxes
-…can hit your first two shots and then it goes full open
-Serve to box 2, +1 to box 4.
**Change your +1 ball flight and see what happens.
**Change the speed
**Move into the net etc
Then repeat the same process with your +2 another day….
**This is what I call “working out of box 2”. Box 2 gets the initial shot where the point starts and you can “recycle” to that spot as needed
**Down the road, you can work on resetting the combo every 3rd shot….then fourth (rarely do you need to go beyond four….it’s easier to train 3 ball and four ball combos and “loop” them….anything outside of four ball combos is a waste of time kind of…it’s like the old school seven ball drill….forehand, backhand, approach, volley, volley, overhead, putaway….when are you ever going to play a point like that….Never!
Throwing extras out there
**Mirroring combos….like a 2, 3, 4…then 3, 2, 1
Or 3, 2, 4…2, 3, 1….these are mainly for concentration improvement and memory development
**Mixed combos
3,2,1…2,4,1
Mixed are when you switch up two three ball patterns
Mirrors are just flipping the same combo the opposite way
I know everyone is all hyped up on power and speed but I'm hoping the new gen picks up on combos and box training so that they can bring a thinking man game back to the fold…with this new gen…I’m not sure if their attention spans can hold it together.
I’m not even sure if people read my stuff (other than the shitbirds who try to take food off my plate….does the first amendment still exist? Or are we catering to the emotionally challenged?)