Djoker: Hello everyone, welcome to this episode of questionable calls. I'm Rishi joined by David and today the main episode that we're talking about is how to win more matches and how to get better. We'll also obviously recap our tennis week ⁓ that we played since our last episode and David, why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about what tennis you played.

Rachel: played on Friday which was two days ago. First time playing in a long while because ⁓ I have been sick for the past few days which is also why we haven't ⁓ put out this episode or even recorded in a while so sorry for the late ⁓ release but I was playing my first flex singles for USTA match and The guy that I was playing still happened to be the same guy who beat me in singles in co-ed a few weeks ago. That was a 6-4 loss. yeah, going into it, I felt okay, but maybe not at 100 % of my body. So I ended up losing 3-3, but still pretty good match. I had some close games, got some game points and... some really long rallies. felt like I was still playing like myself, but maybe only like 75 % of that. Energy levels were a bit low and made a lot of mistakes, but I some really good points that I won, as well as some bad ones I lost. So overall, like a good first match back. Yeah, I'm getting there. feel like I'm, you just need to play more, of course. But the time before that, We were actually playing a social event and we ran into none other than Sanic Yitter, ⁓ aka Yenickson and lookalike. In fact, why don't you help me stall for time while I pull up the photo.

Djoker: Yeah, it was ⁓ quite an interesting experience. David and I were hitting on the Woodland courts and David points this person out to me that was just walking past the court and he was like, that person looks like, kind of looks like Yannick Senna. And then I noticed him. I'm like, wait, seriously? Like I just kind of catch a glimpse of him. Then we tell the other people we're like hitting with, they didn't see, they didn't observe. And finally that person comes around and David, I was just going to whisper, but David like reached out to him, introduced himself, told him like, Hey, listen, dude, you can, you look kind of like Yannick Sinner. And then he hit with us actually. So that was quite the experience. And then we took a photo of him. He was totally not embarrassed at all.

Rachel: Yeah, you be the judge. He even has a racket. So it's gotta be him.

Djoker: Yeah, of course, that's his racket, right?

Rachel: Yes. So it was just too good not to take advantage of. And he was like very good natured about it. So, you know, we're all about the funny moments, tennis related stuff. So yeah, I had to do that. So that was fun.

Djoker: Mm-hmm. Yeah, he's actually not bad of a player. think what he told me, he's like relatively new to tennis and he sort of did fine. I think he'd like maybe like a two five, three ⁓ early three ⁓

Rachel: Yeah, his name is actually Henry, so if he's listening right now, it's nice to meet you and hope to run into you again sometime.

Djoker: Yeah.

Rachel: But that was pretty much it for me, not too much going on.

Djoker: Yeah. I think it's been three weeks since we last recorded and I have played a lot of tennis. I can finally say I feel like now I've gotten back into playing tennis, which is so funny because I've like pitched about it in like a previous episode that I kind of like lost my touch. I haven't played tennis in a while, whatever. But now I'm at a point where I don't think I've played tennis for like three or four days and I'm already like, this is too much. This is too long that I haven't played tennis. ⁓ Yeah. A lot of really ⁓ interesting things, observations that I had from playing tennis. think to some degree, a lot of my game has sort of like the instinct and the way I sense the ball has just gotten off. ⁓ especially when it comes to like timing when hitting the ball, sometimes I hit the ball way too early now. Or like not early enough, like a little late. So I think for someone who hasn't played tennis in some time, that perception takes a little while to get back. I feel like I finally have it back now in terms of like when to hit the ball and sort of how far. like to position yourself to judge the Anyways, especially something like a pickleball really ruins it for you. Because in pickleball, you kind of have to do like the opposite. You have to keep the racket really close to you. Whereas in tennis, you have to like make a decent amount of distance. But yeah, ⁓ I hit a lot. I hit with a bunch of people that David introduced me through like Racket Racket. ⁓ Played a bunch, I don't think I played a single set yet. I played a bunch of Tuggle Wars, Tie Breaks. I played with a friend of the podcast, Alex, who has improved so much since I last seriously played against him. that it's kicked my ass. Yeah, so it's been quite crazy. I don't think I've played a single set, but that's happening pretty soon. I've played doubles, but I will say this. It's kind of like a hot take, but I think maybe I'll make it a question. I should have made it a questionable call, but I'll have it out. I don't think doubles... really helps you improve your ground stroke game at all. Cause I was like hitting just fine. I was contributing great in doubles until I started playing singles against like people. And then I'm like, my shot tolerance is way outmatched. Like I'm just so bad. I played against, I played a tug of war against David. We didn't get to finish it. I think we played like four points or like five points and I just got one point. And I just like, our gap has now so much widened because of that. Cause I remember a very specific rally when I was hitting against you and I'm trying to go all out, right? I feel like I still have some of my power in the shots and I'm trying to give you like balls here and there and with as much power as I can put and you are just not letting up. Your shot tolerance was just like not declining and then I would do an unforced error. The only point I got was I anticipated a short ball coming and I just had to put it away. and I put it away. Otherwise it was just like there's no getting an unforced error out of you.

Rachel: Yeah, it's funny you should bring that up because that's foreshadowing for our main topic. But ⁓ is there anything else that you wanted to cover?

Djoker: No, I'm just excited. I'm like all in now.

Rachel: Nice. Hopefully we can actively play singles match between us.

Djoker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this time it's gonna be three sets, two to one, unlike last time.

Rachel: Yep. ⁓ But before we get into our main topic, we actually, as of yesterday, we came back from Portland again. If you remember, for the long time listeners, when we first started, we also went to Portland, which was almost a year ago. So ⁓ the reason we go to Portland is because as USTA members here in the Pacific Northwest region, One of the perks is getting access to the Nike employee store in Portland. That's where they're based. Lucky for us. And ⁓ you can get everything for 40 % off and there's no sales tax. So it's a pretty good deal if you find things that you like. And Portland is only about a two and a half hour drive away from us here in Seattle. So we decided to go down there, hit up both Nike and Adidas, which you can go to regardless. ⁓ we also stopped by Columbia, but that's not, ⁓ tennis related. And we went with our friend Harry, who has not been on the podcast, but he has been an observer. You want to know that though? ⁓ so this time around, we went to like the same stores pretty much, but did you notice anything different or how was the experience like this time around?

Djoker: It was absolute shit, comparatively. So last time I went to Nike store in Portland, I bought three, like three of the tennis t-shirts or whatever, tennis tees and three shorts. And there was this whole rack, things on display for Nike court available. And if you go to our Instagram channel, we kind of take a video of it. It looks like, yeah, there's a section for tennis. This time it was two of those like small hangers. That's it. Two hangers for tennis. Like somewhere around the corner, it just says tennis. There's two hangers. I tried out a bunch of the clothing. I think it was the Australian Open. ⁓ Kits. The center one was so bad. I sent a photo to David and I like, how does it look? He's like, this is the ugliest thing I've ever seen. ⁓ I ended up buying like an orange Nike court tee and a white non tennis. It's a Nike court short, but it's not, I don't think it's for play. It's like cotton. ⁓ The other shorts that I wanted to buy, didn't have my size L. So that was a big L. ⁓ Other than that, I don't know. It's just. just uninspiring.

Rachel: Yeah. For Nike, at least they had some outerwear. They had some jackets. They didn't have the last time. But ⁓ I ended up getting the ⁓ Carlos tank, the one that he wore to win the final. And ⁓ that one, it's OK. But. ⁓

Djoker: I I like that one. I was wishing they had a T for that one.

Rachel: Yeah. Let me pull up the video. So this is on Instagram, but for you viewers right now, you can see this. So there's two racks. Here's all the center stuff. and then the Carlos stuff. That's it. That was everything for men.

Djoker: Yeah, for women's actually, one of our friends called me to just give her like the quick display of what's in there for women. It's like half of what's there for men's. I think there's four available things, ⁓ one hoodie, two dresses. I think that's it, or three done.

Rachel: ⁓ okay. Yeah, we also saw ⁓ this, which if you think it looks familiar, that's because it's the same as this.

Djoker: I guess we should be a geopolitics podcast.

Rachel: Yeah, plenty of stuff happening in the world right now, ⁓ they had both the hoodie and the shorts, or the pants, which you almost got.

Djoker: pants here. I did and I really would have got first of all it was like super comfortable it was really nice but the zipper for the the jacket just wouldn't go it's like broken or something or it's just poorly designed

Rachel: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This, this top is like, or this, hoodie is pretty common. Actually. It's like the tech fleece, I think it's called. ⁓ and in case you, you're listening, only you're not watching the video. We're referring to the, the gray, Heather gray Nike tech fleece hoodie that, ⁓ president Maduro, ⁓ formerly of Venezuela, ⁓ wore during his trip to the U S, ⁓ iconic photo.

Djoker: Yeah! trip. Yeah. Holding a water bottle, handcuffs, and a gray Nike tracksuit.

Rachel: Yes. But it's funny that we, yeah. Yeah, we're talking about maybe ⁓ being this for Halloween, pretty easy.

Djoker: totally want to do that for Halloween. I don't know, that's potentially insensitive to some people, but I don't think so. I think it'd be pretty funny. But sad, it's sad it's malfunctioned. Yeah, I think that's that's that for Nike. Adidas, I felt like, again, also reduce their tennis stuff. But I did buy something fun from Adidas, which is the it's a jacket and leggings that's supposed to be just like a walk on thing. Pure white. So maybe when we finally do go to a grass court, I'll like wear that to the court or something. So that'd be kind of fun.

Rachel: Yeah, Adidas. ⁓ I felt like it was very similar to last year. They only had one small section for men's tennis apparel. Don't know if they even had any women. I didn't check. ⁓ for shoes, men's shoes, ⁓ they had two colors of the Barricade 14s, which are the newest release of the Barricade. ⁓ I think the windows for getting the different colors are kind of small. So they didn't have the color that I wanted.

Djoker: And yeah.

Rachel: but I got one that was similar in my size. Just so happened to get the last one, which was the one on display. So I barely got that one. That's all I got from Adidas. ⁓ But yeah, I didn't buy too much.

Djoker: Yeah, to some degree I just had this feeling today morning after our whole like tiring shopping trip. Tennis warehouse clearance rack is better.

Rachel: Well, the selection is definitely better, but if you're going for pure value, I think it's hard to beat 40 % off still with no tax.

Djoker: But if you check out the clearance racks, you get like a really crazy value at tennis.

Rachel: You can, yeah, sometimes you can even stack discounts at other sites like we talked about during Black Friday. ⁓ in the end, the difference might only be a few dollars. And it comes down to what exactly you want. ⁓ If it's the same across both, then you as get the lower priced one. But it is convenient if you're already making the trip, you're already there, you find something that you kind of like. And what you see is what you get if you just multiply it by 50 % and then no tax.

Djoker: Okay, would you say it's worth it?

Rachel: Well, I would say it can be, but it's hard to predict because you don't know exactly what's going to be there before you get there.

Djoker: I'll be a little harsh or like real. I think if you're going solely for tennis apparel and like tennis clothing, it's absolutely not worth it. Because if you check out tennis warehouse and if you just monitor it relatively closely, you get 60, 70 % discount on tennis stuff. However, here's where it does become worth it. If you're just going for like general stuff like buying shoes, like the latest shoes or the latest or if you want like a white Air Force One or if you want a certain piece of clothing that's like hot new fresh arrival and you want it for cheap then yeah maybe like a general Nike RID does they don't give too much of a crap about tennis

Rachel: Yeah, they actually, this time they did have the Vapor 12 shoes at Nike, which I was surprised by. ⁓ But that was it. And they didn't need to have my size, not even in the back. So that was disappointing. And I only buy tennis stuff anyway.

Djoker: Yeah, it's pretty pretty slim pickings in my opinion when it comes to pure tennis stuff, maybe shoes you can potentially get a good deal because Adidas and Nike both had their latest models which you wouldn't find in clearance. yeah, otherwise I think unless you want to buy general Nike Adidas stuff or like we went to Columbia and I think I got some like nice worth it stuff out of it. It's really not worth it.

Rachel: Yeah, at least if worse comes to worse, you can always return the items if you really don't like them. And you don't really lose any money that way. Of course, you have to spend the time to go down there, but it's not like you're stuck with them.

Djoker: ⁓ yeah, true. They're decent. They're return policy place.

Rachel: Yeah. So that's why I like, I will, I'll tend to buy more or I'll buy something that I'm on the fence about, and then think about it a little more later. Return it if I have to.

Djoker: Making the day to go to Portland is kind of tiring, especially David, you drove.

Rachel: Yeah, but it was, you know, fun to be with friends.

Djoker: Yeah, I would agree with that for sure. I think that concludes our, do you wanna quickly show some of the stuff that we brought, like tense related?

Rachel: Like a hall.

Djoker: Like a what? A hole, yeah.

Rachel: Yeah. Let me grab my bag. This is a great podcast to write.

Djoker: Yeah, you grab yours first. I think I have some stuff lying around here.

Rachel: Yeah, it ended up not being much. But ⁓ first, these Adidas Barricade 14 shoes, which you see that it's black with white stripes. I wanted the white with black stripes, which looks better in my opinion, but at least this is still the same colors.

Djoker: I got this ⁓ Nike court performance tee. ⁓ It is still kind of expensive, 90 bucks. So I probably got for like 50. ⁓ Not bad. ⁓ Kind of completes my, I don't want to say collection, but with like a black or a white shorts, this color actually would fit well. So it's not too bad. hat by Nike this ended up being like $17, $18 so I was like, eh it's a steal. Sorry, Adidas, yeah yeah yeah. And a jacket from Adidas. I think it kind of looks comfortable, looks kind of cool. However, the thing that I don't like about Adidas is they don't have like a Adidas court symbol that Nike has which.

Rachel: want to do this. Right. It could be any sport, right, like any general adidas.

Djoker: Yeah, it could be any sport. It was in the tennis section, but yeah, it could be any sport. So that's the only like con with Adidas. I quite like the Nike court symbol. It's, it's, it's, I don't know. Representation matters.

Rachel: Yep. I got these Carlos tanks, ⁓ three of them, small, medium, and large. And no, I don't wear all three sizes. ⁓ I am thinking of possibly reselling them down the line if ⁓ once these get phased out of Nike, because they're still on sale or for sale on the Nike site right now, as well as other retailers. So it makes no sense to list them right now. But. Looking at the eBay sold listings from this model, you can see that some people bought them right after the final because they were like all hype about Carlos. And at that time they're probably sold out on most places. So then someone like jacked up the price. ⁓ So, you know, that's very uncertain. ⁓ If I don't see that happening, then I can just return them or maybe keep one for myself, the medium. But ⁓ otherwise. Yeah, not super excited about this, just wanted to get them just in case.

Djoker: Do you want to join the scalpers?

Rachel: You can call it that, but hey, ⁓ I'm providing a service that people need.

Djoker: Yeah, yeah, I think that's about it. There's more stuff that I have, but it's not worth showing. So much so.

Rachel: Okay. Well, ⁓ moving on to our main topic, what everyone wants to do, how to win more matches, a of a clickbait title, I guess, but at least we're fulfilling our promise. ⁓ I've broken it down into two categories, sexy and unsexy. And, ⁓ we're talking about at the intermediate level, let's say like, even like three, ⁓ could apply some of these things all the way up to.

Djoker: Mm-hmm.

Rachel: four, five, five, ⁓ maybe because the unsexy side is about foundational ⁓ skills, habits, things you should always be doing, ⁓ especially at our level, which is closer to three, five, four, ⁓ And then the sexy stuff is like extra, you know, like if you get bored or if you already nailed the foundational stuff, you're good with that. What else can you do? And let's say like, You're really good at the foundational stuff, so is your opponent. How do you get one up on them? So, starting with the unsexy, you mentioned shot or rally tolerance earlier. Would you mind explaining what that means?

Djoker: So what that means is that when you're hitting with someone, you don't miss. You can hold the rally the back and forth as long as possible. So the number, let's say if your rally tolerance is five, you relatively, most times you consistently have it, you can hold a 10 shot rally at a good amount of pace. that's like normally comfortable to you. What do you think about that definition?

Rachel: Yeah. It sense. It's something that's mentioned in some of the classes I've taken. ⁓ You want to be able to maintain a rally, rather competitive or non-competitive, because that's just good tennis. know, like getting the ball over, getting the ball in. And a lot of the stuff, you'll see the common thread is not missing, like getting the ball in. That's at the very core what you need in order to stay in a game. ⁓ Now... Where you hit, how you hit, that's where the variation comes in. ⁓ But yeah, it is important to be able to hit back whatever is hit at you. ⁓ so that, that, yeah, that's pretty much like the most basic thing you want to be doing. then similarly, if you're serving, yeah, getting the first serve in. It sounds simple, right? Don't miss the first serve.

Djoker: Second one, getting first serves in. But what I've seen a lot in our level is that people try to like make the first serve really like destructive. and sort of rely on their second serve as a backup to not miss. But what happens is that they keep messing up their first serve. I've seen that in a lot of people. And that's a problem because then you're sort of always in a serve game on like a defensive serve, right? If your first serve is really that great, then you need to, like, it's only great if you get it in. And oftentimes if people just take 20 % out of that like really crazy first serve and they keep getting it in, that's so much better. And the other thing is people kind of go for like, ⁓ I can hit a serve really hard, really fast. The problem is if you don't, if you're mindless about serving, like A, you're going to miss a lot. B, even when you hit a fast serve, a good returner knows how to deflect that pace back. And if they do deflect that pace back, then you're the one on the back.

Rachel: Yeah, it's not about hitting aces. That's going to be very hard to do. It's about hitting the right spots, even if it means serving slower. And I'm no expert on other sports, but I would imagine it's similar to batting and baseball. You're not going for home runs all the time. You just want to get runs, meaning if you have players on bases, you want to get them across home. So it's about like aiming the ball in certain spots where someone can catch it.

Djoker: getting on base.

Rachel: ⁓ so yeah, of course, second serves there for a reason, but like, for example, in my map, I find myself missing a lot of first serves and I had like three or four double faults throughout two sets. Whereas my opponent rarely got any chances, I mean, any need in a second serve, most of the first serve for going in. So consistency is the main key here. ⁓ and then as you raise your level. then your first serve will improve overall, but you still have to get it in.

Djoker: Yeah, I think the main like you could call a human fallacy is that some people they've hit like an amazing first or one time and their goal is let me go try to replicate that every time, which is too hard to do. Going slowly, getting a foundation of a good first serve that's consistent and then try like up it a little better is better.

Rachel: Yeah, and ⁓ I mentioned that my server wasn't that great, right? But then I had some games in which I held to love more than once. So it's really all over the place when it comes to serving with me. Next one, higher percentage shots. This refers to, like, for example, hitting cross court. Because if you remember trigonometry, the distance of the hypotenuse is greater than the other way. So in this case, hitting from one end of the court, one corner, to the opposite corner, you have more chance of getting the ball in rather than hitting straight down the line. So generally, if you are in a rally, you want to be hitting forehand to forehand, back into backhand ⁓ and not mixing it up unless there's an actual good opportunity to do so. at this level, usually you win points by your opponent being the one to hit the ball out. You lose points by making the error yourself. So ⁓ not really ideal to go for winners, rather just like we said rally tolerance. Keep the ball in play. You don't want to just like dink it over. This isn't pickleball, but at least like hit to big targets ⁓ across the net. And you know, like the middle of the net is lowest, right? So if you go cross-court, the ball is probably going to pass over the middle, but you can also aim for an imaginary target, like two or three feet above the net. That way it'll just curve in.

Djoker: Yeah, and, ⁓ And this is something I'm going to say this, I suck at, because I mentioned earlier, I was playing against David recently when I came back and it's sort of like hitting the smaller target and taking a risky shot is a losing game. And here's why. A lot of times when I realized in our rallies that, okay, I can't get an error out of David. So I would take unnecessary risks and the ball will land at the net. I would try to hit like a forehand cross court like too early or randomly. And what would happen is it would hit the net because the net is higher on that side. Right. And if you're not properly prepared, if you're rushed, if you're too rushed hitting a hard down the line, it's, it's, it's, it's a losing strategy.

Rachel: You can also kind of get a feel for your opponent and usually the backhand side is the weaker side. So if you have a decent backhand, getting to a backhand to backhand cross-court rally can be good for you. Or you can also run around the ball and hit an inside out forehand to their backhand. Some people would say try to hit more forehands in general. But yeah, that's a way to still hit in that same place. And then overall just like we said you win more points by outlasting your opponent That doesn't mean you get into like 24 shot rallies necessarily, but usually ⁓ sooner than later Someone's gonna hit the ball out and if that's if you can make that not you for more of the points Then you'll be more likely to win the games

Djoker: think that's partly true but there is a caveat. A lot of people have this tendency. the opposite tendency as well. People don't pull the trigger. when they're supposed to. And that's also a huge mistake.

Rachel: Right, this is where we get into the sexy side. assuming that everything just talked about, You know, you've internalized, you are applying. ⁓ Let's say you play an opponent that is just a brick wall and keeps hitting the balls back, does everything just as well as you do. How can you inject that extra little bit more to hopefully win? ⁓ And when we talked about a few episodes ago, the, I guess it's my theory. I don't know if it's mine. I just heard it somewhere. I don't remember, but the, ⁓ the rally sum theory of tennis. How like you get a neutral ball, you kind of hit a neutral ball back. If you get a big ball, then you have to be on the defensive a little bit. But you're going to get balls that land at different depths. like short, medium, deep. Obviously you can't approach on a deep bouncing ball usually, mass majority of the time. If you get kind of a no man's land or kind of a shorter ball. you probably could approach. knowing and recognizing when those balls occur can help you a lot.

Djoker: Yeah, no questions there. Absolutely.

Rachel: Yep. Just have to recognize them, then take the initiative to like maybe hit it down the line and shot to the backhand approach on that. That's what I do a lot. And then for yourself, you can consciously vary your own depth, like we just talked about. So people are going to be used to hitting at the baseline. But what if they get a shot that lands closer to the surface line? They're going have to come up a little bit. Maybe the ball bounces a little lower and they're not going to be used to that. Or maybe you force them to come up.

Djoker: Yeah. I have a fun one for this. So for a long time, what I used to use against you, David, was I would vary my depths because your side to side movement was really great. I hit the corners, you're like running, getting the ball. But sometimes people have a problem of going up for the ball. Or sometimes people have a problem of retreating for the ball and people hit the ball over their heads. And that's not that you can hit a shot that heavy if you're hitting like your head level, right? So that's that laziness that you can exploit when you're talking about like varying your depth for like a north and south movement. It forces your opponent to master both movements, east, west and north and south.

Rachel: Right. Most players at this level are not going to be as used to going north-south. Because a lot of points just start and end on the baseline. And that's what they're used to. Another thing is to think one to three shots ahead. And what I mean by that is, for example, if I'm serving ad side and I serve out wide on the ad side, then let's say everything goes well. The serve goes in. returner hits the ball back, they're pulled out wide on their backhand side if they're right-handed. What I can do now is I the open court. I can hit to the other side, ⁓ their forehand side, and unless they're super fast, they might not be able to get there in time, or you force a really defensive shot. So from that you can come up, get the volley, get the overhead. Not saying that it's going to work every time, but you're increasing your chances getting that point if you do it correctly. So you're not just thinking about where to the serve, you're thinking about what you're going to hit after that.

Djoker: Yeah, I completely agree with you. this is something I would say the only thing is you've got to be confident in all of your shots. You've got to have a lot of practice and a lot of confidence to be able to think three shots ahead. Because for that, you need to reliably hit at the spot that you want for the serve. Then no matter what ball comes, you need to have the confidence to be able to go up to the net. And execute the volume. So I think this is important but don't jump ahead. Get the the unsexy foundation done and then think about

Rachel: Yeah, it is a lot to have in your mind in a very short amount of time. ⁓ it's like chess, right? Like, except I would say maybe even more high pressure and a lot faster paced. ⁓ But that's what's fun about tennis. You can strategize that way. This next one will sound like we're contradicting what we said earlier, but sometimes it is right to switch up the rally and go down the line because people are used to a cross-court rally, let's say five, six, seven shots, at that point, you might as well change it up. Again, yeah, if you feel confident, if you can be consistent, ⁓ just go down the line and they might not be expecting that because they're just camped out in the corner.

Djoker: Yeah, I'll tell you this. That's what I used to do against you. I used to camp out at the backhand corner. I know your backhand cross court is really great and you didn't really have a good backhand down the line. Now you do. Now you have a pretty decent one. So for me, going against your backhand wasn't that big of a problem. It was just kind of kept out there, right? Because I knew if I gave you a backhand, then I know where to go. And if your movement becomes too predictable, that's also by the case for me.

Rachel: Yeah.

Djoker: And this is something I worked on changing. When I initially played league, I would just go to people's backhand. Forehand, ⁓ inside out. ⁓ Backhand, cross court. Because I would just hope people mess up. when you become too predictable... then that causes a different problem.

Rachel: Yeah, we didn't even talk about footwork. Like that's something that goes on the unsexy side. Like always be moving your feet, always split step before every shot, split step when you volley, that kind of thing. ⁓ That's like maybe the most important thing.

Djoker: That is the most important, not maybe, that is the most important thing.

Rachel: Yeah. ⁓ and then this last one, it's, it's pretty tough to do to pull off, but hitting on the rise. And I say this because, ⁓ a lot of times the kind of shots you're to get are relatively deep balls that bounce pretty high. So that can have a tendency to push you back like three, four feet behind the baseline, which is not necessarily bad, but you still have to be able to come up when you need to. If you want to take the ball, ⁓ or take time away from your opponent, which is a big deal, you can just hit on the rise. So again, it's about throwing off that rhythm, right? Like people are used to bounce hit, bounce hit. If you take off like one or two seconds from that, then that can really give you an advantage. It's tough to do though. And I usually my on the right shots are not very like offensive shots, but at least it kind of takes away my surprise.

Djoker: It's very tough to do. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I remember in one of the AAMU classes, Coach Liz, what she had us do was one side just, not a rally, one side just gives a really lobby ball that's supposed to go to the baseline. And the other side was supposed to just stay low and get the, ⁓ you know, take it on the rise. And you know what, another thing that helps you, like it has an added benefit. Can you guess? Practicing taking the ball on the rise. It is an added benefit to another part of your game. David, can you guess?

Rachel: watching the ball.

Djoker: Nope. Yeah, that's you. need to watch the ball to be able to do it. That's like requires the most focus. It's the return of sir. because if you're taking the ball on the rise, got back swings gotta be short, stay low and roll up, right? And same goes with return, so back swings gotta be short. And the little technical things that kind of go everywhere, it benefits you immensely.

Rachel: Yeah, I remember ⁓ my back swing used to be pretty big on the return and then it was like you and maybe someone else had pointed out that, that, about it. And I took it to heart. like, if you watch this video on YouTube of Agassi demonstrating ⁓ returns, cause he's one of the best returners. And he also said the same thing. You just rotate your body a little bit and that already brings your racket back. No need to bring it back any further and then just go forward.

Djoker: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I think that pretty much sums up stuff you need to do.

Rachel: Well. Yeah, you're welcome for the free lesson. It's funny that Adam is not with us because he's the coach.

Djoker: He is the coach. think from, we preface this by saying we're not coaches. And a lot of stuff that we mentioned here is a bunch of stuff that we're bad at ourselves. ⁓ Yeah, but funny thing, Adam's not here.

Rachel: Yeah, we're only speaking from experience, not like we're reading you a book or anything. But this is stuff that's worked for us or things we're working on. And hopefully you can benefit from it as well.

Djoker: Yeah. Mm-hmm. As for the pro scene, anything fun happen since Australian Open David?

Rachel: There's been a lot of smaller tournaments, South America, some in the US, Middle East, of course, ⁓ some good matches. But the most notable thing is that Medvedev has broken his, excuse me, his curse, you could say, of never winning a title in more than one place. However, this particular win was in Dubai and ⁓ as you may know, we're about to get drafted for World War III. So there's been some conflict happening in the Middle East and ⁓ the Dubai airspace is shut down as of now, I believe. So, ⁓ well, not only that, but he won the title via walkover. He didn't even play because his opponent, Greek Spore, couldn't play. So a lot going on there and ⁓ It wouldn't be a medvedev victory, I guess. I mean, a second victory without some kind of shenanigans happening.

Djoker: Yeah. And he finally wins a title for the second time. And what's sad is we were thinking of a celebration in the chat. I'm like, my money's on Greek sport just because it's Medvedev's like, Med, to win a title for the second time again. But in the unlikely case he wins, I'm hoping it's a messy, like it's a really funny celebration, but I guess nothing happened.

Rachel: Yeah, just a ceremony, which is kind of super anticlimactic.

Djoker: Yeah. ⁓ And ⁓ one more thing actually that I think it's sort of forgotten to us. The appearance fee shenanigans for some tournaments is just like left me. with, I just think there's a certain amount of unfairness in tennis. Here's the example, Qatar open 500 winner gets $500,000. But guess who makes the most money? Yannick center and Carlos Alcáez. get paid 1 million each just to appear in the tournament. Cause that's what sells the tickets or. And in terms of Qatar, it's not really about selling the ticket. It's about sort of spreading that fuck you money to try and get like a Al-Khaiz vs. Sinner final. Right? So, yeah. Which didn't happen. So, I'm kind of glad that their wish didn't come true. Because it's just, I think it's the whole concept of appearance is a little unfair.

Rachel: which didn't happen.

Djoker: to all the players.

Rachel: corporate.

Djoker: Yeah, yeah, it's kind of, yeah, rich get richer, right? Anyways, I think it's time again. It's that time again in our episode. What do think, David?

Rachel: Yes.

Djoker: It's the cue coat of the episode. Kind of going on with the themes. I'm kind of roasting myself here, but here's a hot take. People who are 3'5 care more about their rating than improving on tennis. What do think David?

Rachel: I agree. ⁓ Similar to in school, some people care more about grades than actually learning concepts. And you would think if you master the concept, you will get good grades, right? But it is possible to answer the test questions in a way that will get you a high score without actually learning anything. That's kind of me in college, actually. But ⁓ yeah, people put so much weight on the number. Right, three, five, four, ⁓ and ⁓ first of all, you should focus on having fun first, but. ⁓ You can never get better unless you get better, right? And by that, mean, like, again, if you actually improve, you start winning more matches. That's another thing too, right? It's not about just improving. It's about actually winning matches that matter. That is what's going to bump your number up, but that shouldn't be your main goal.

Djoker: Yeah, I'll tell you my sad story. And I'm telling you, I've been a victim of this. I've done this so much myself. I went to my first league as a three, five self rated because I hit with a three, five before and I thought, yeah, I'm this level. And I in the league get absolutely humiliated and I lose a ton and get bumped down to three, ⁓ computer. I'm still three, ⁓ computer rating in USTM. Uh, and to me that, uh, next year I played the three or flex league to bump up my rating. I destroy everyone in the three or league, uh, flex league. I played three, five league where I think I have an okay result, but I still don't get bumped up. And to some degree, like I took that so much to heart that for some time, like, fuck this, like, why do I play? I'm, I'm, this is not worth it. Cause To some degree you assess your self worth with that rating. So, I don't know.

Rachel: very true. again, we keep saying this, but it bears repeating every time because 3.5 in Seattle is not the same as 3.5 in most other parts of the country. When people hear 3.5, they have an image in their mind of most people. What they think of there is probably more like a 3.0 here. So you have to calibrate your expectations in that sense. So when I talk about like, ⁓ a 3.5 should improve these things, people would be like, That's way too advanced for 3.5 to be doing. I'm like, well, here it's just right.

Djoker: Yeah, I'll give you an example. Our friend Adam, he played a 4-0 league in Seattle and he was getting like a little bit of his butt handed to him. ⁓ And it was like sort of like mediocre level. He went to Tacoma. He's the god of all the 4-0s. ⁓ I kind of, and I'll tell you, it still to some degree stings me that I'm still computer aided 3-0. I kind of got a little vindication when I played the UTR ladder and my UTR rating which is 4.7 something 4.8 corresponds to like a high level 3.5 I think in USTA or whatever you think.

Rachel: because I'm like 5.3 and that's like still 3.5.

Djoker: Oh seriously? Wow, okay. Low 35. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like 4.7, 4.8, yeah, yeah. I'll be UTR ranking in something, but anyways, yeah. So yeah, I don't feel like a 3-0, but yeah. Right now I bet if I play I'd be like a 3-0 level, because I wouldn't win matches.

Rachel: in Seattle. Yeah, well, the more you play, you'll go back to where it used to be.

Djoker: Yeah. But yeah, that's our episode.

Rachel: Well. Yeah, thanks for listening everyone. And I wanted to give a special shout out to my friend Sen. He ⁓ reached out to me saying that he does listen to every episode. One of the silent phantom listeners. And he was asking me when the next episode was coming out. So again, very sorry that this one came out so late. But ⁓ if there are other people like Sen who listen, let us know. And it really ⁓ encourages us to keep going. And in the meantime, check out our Instagram at questionable pod. We did post those videos and photos from our trip and we'll be posting more memes as we think of them. ⁓ Give us a rating and review here on YouTube, like and subscribe. It's YouTube law and on your podcast platform of choice. Thanks and see you next time.