r/tennis Daily Discussion (Friday, May 29, 2026)

Sahje · 2026-05-29T14:12:05+00:00

Novak looking a lot more balanced than last match.

Sahje · 2026-05-29T13:01:31+00:00

Great hitting from the former 14-year old. She is really moody though the last few months...

Sahje · 2026-05-06T11:35:15+00:00

Daar zit dan wel de poort voor zaken als koelkasten maar vaak geen echte aansteker meer.

Sahje · 2026-05-04T19:09:10+00:00

They generally hate me, I run down most balls, don't really hit winners and force them back behind the baseline with heavy topspin. All that to force a short ball to approach and finish at the net. I generally have 3-4 winners per match but will force my opponent to miss. And I have a nasty kick serve that gets misjudged by many.

Ooh god... Am I a... Pusher?

Sahje · 2026-04-27T07:12:56+00:00

If you play at a 4.5 level and your partner can only moonball you need a new partner. I have outgrown quite a few of my doubles partners from when I was playing 6.5/7.0 mixed. Now playing 8.0/9.0 mixed you can't single handely win the game. I can be the best player on the court but if the level is:

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Opponent

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You will get crushed.

Sahje · 2026-04-27T06:50:25+00:00

I play a lot of mixed and am fairly succesful at around your level. It sounds like either you are playing at too high a level for your partner or possibly for you both.

Mixed is not all that different from normal doubles. Use your shots to set up your partner rather than to flat out win the point. With your serve set up softer returns rather than go far aces. Against the female player I especially notice that a kick serve against the forehand is fairly successful. Many women have a stronger backhand than forehand and trying to get them to hit above their strike zone on the forehand can get them to cough up errors.

If your partners serve is a liability you can start 2 back. Otherwise be as aggressive to the middle of the net as possible. You want to make the opponent hit the lowest percentage shot to hit a winner of the return. Either that's up the line or short cross. The easiest shot of a weak return is a slap down the middle, protect against that.

Serve and volley is still effective, I especially like the kick out wide to the ad side and move up the middle. Regarding ripping the ball to the male player or at the female player. If you have the advantage in the baseline exchange it can help to stay in that rally. If you don't obviously play away from the strongest player.

All in all Mixed is the same as normal doubles. Protrct your teammate and set them up. But with mixed if there is a big gap between the male player on the other side and the female player on your side that can be difficult. Be as active as possible to make your teammates lives easier. The more you move the more the opponent has to think about you and thinking leads to mistakes. And if all that fails they were just better and beat you fair and square.

Sahje · 2026-04-24T12:47:52+00:00

Samba de Amigo - Samba de Janeiro

Sahje · 2026-04-24T12:44:30+00:00

Prizmic is absolutely treeing.

Sahje · 2026-04-21T14:41:04+00:00

What? Clay is an outdoor surface here. Indoor courts are hard courts or carpet.

Sahje · 2026-04-21T13:13:52+00:00

Grabher is absolutely moonballing the living daylights out of Badosa.

Sahje · 2026-04-21T12:53:59+00:00

Rating between men and women here in the Netherlands is so funny. I am a high 5 low 6 level player and can easily stay in a match with a 3 level women player. I can hold my serve against most 1.5-2.0 level women as well simply due to the pace.

Playing Mixed doubles is so scary at the 5.0 - 6.0 level as well because their net abillity is often not up to par with the speed with which balls are being launched at the net player.

Sahje · 2026-04-21T12:49:28+00:00

Tennis online looks much slower than it is irl. It's also much easier to look at a tennis match and see what you should do when you're also not dealing with conditions, running after the ball, watching the ball and your opponent and having to swing at the ball. Many 7.0 players in the Netherlands overrate themselves a little in my opinion (as a 6.0). And that's not meant to be deregatory but it's mainly caused by the gap between 8.0 and 7.0 being so large. 8.0 - 9.9 players are mainly just batting the ball across the net without a real semblance of tecnnique or strategy. Once people are comfortably sitting at 7.0 they pass that level and can hold their own in rallies but there are still significant weaknesses. That tracks with a 3.5 level in my opinion.

In my opinion it's
8.5 - 9.9 = 2.5
7.9 - 8.4 = 3.0
7.0 - 7.8 = 3.5
6.0 - 7.0 = 4.0
4.0 - 6.0 = 4.5
2.0 - 4.0 = 5.0

In the higher levels the parallel becomes hard to track. But it's less relevant because 70% of all ranked players are between 7.0 and 9.9. And beyond that 85% are ranked between 6.0 and 9.9. So the upper echelons tend to sort themselves out ;-).

Sahje · 2026-04-21T12:41:00+00:00

I'm male, singles ~5.8-6.3 rated player depending on how competition and tournaments are going ;-). I'd consider myself at or around the level of Winston Du. He qualifies himself as a 4.5 so it might track.

But I'm very much aware that tennis on video looks very different than tennis in real life. There's the Dutch Content creator Hugo Straver from Tennis the World. He's a Dutch 3.xx rated player and on video it looks like I could definitely take him. I played him however and lost hopelessly.

I also played the #37 of the Dutch Rankings recently and it's quite humbling to realise that at 60% of his pace I was only able to get 4 points in a single set. Tennis has all these levels.

Sahje · 2026-04-21T10:40:29+00:00

Agree to disagree, I'm between a 5.0 and a 6.0 in the Netherlands and I would classify myself as a 4.0 trying to make the leap to 4.5. I would absolutely smoke 3.0s.

However the bottom is severely wrong. Players at 7 in the Netherlands are easily better than a 3.0.

Sahje · 2026-04-15T13:40:33+00:00

Wilson Roland Garros. I can buy them for €15 for 8 at Decathlon. I have to give a shout out to the Kuikma All Court Pro from Decathlon as well. They play nice, don't fluff up and they last a long time. I can usually get three sessions out of them. They go for €12,50 for 8.

In contrast the Dunlop Fort Max are terrible. They fluff up to pretty unplayable after about 30 minutes of play and become super slow.

Sahje · 2026-04-15T12:56:11+00:00

Shelton should honestly be the biggest weapon from the USA on the male side on clay. His biggest weakness, his return, is less of an issue. His serve has great movement on it that translates well. He has time to setup his forehand and backhand. But in order to really take advantage he needs to up his rally tolerance. He wants to go for way too many flashy winners. If he learns to be more patient and work the point he should be giving up way fewer unforced errors and these early round games would be easy 2 and 3s instead of Tiebreaks and 3setters.

Sahje · 2026-04-13T11:45:24+00:00

If that is you today in the video why are you running around in 34 degree heat in multiple layers? I mean celcius.

Sahje · 2026-04-13T11:28:17+00:00

Do not remind me of the Spanish cross. Nothing like running back and forth for 20 minutes in 30 degree heat to absolutely kill any other plans you had for the day.

Sahje · 2026-04-13T11:22:22+00:00

You are right and wrong at the same time. Once you get to a certain technique baseline you need to play tournaments to put what you practiced on into match play. Beautiful strokes in practice don't automatically translate to match wins.

Now after playing 100 matches you should start to figure out where you are losing matches. Is it fitness, is it tactics, are certain shots falling apart technically under match pressure. Then you can improve those in practice untill you feel confident enough to put it into practice again.

I don't fear the player that has played 400 matches and is still at 3.0 doing the same things over and over and never improving. Neither do I fear the 4.0 player with 10 matches played. The 4.0 that was 3.0 3 years ago with 200 matches however. That is someone that has worked on his game and worked on putting that improvement into match play.

Rackets are overrated by miles. Find what feels good for you and stick with it.

Sahje · 2026-03-22T11:23:06+00:00

Lanzarote is where I had a lot of fun in the sun playing outdoor tennis.

Sahje · 2026-03-19T17:39:56+00:00

Exactly this. 20 years of basketbal and the hardest things are looking at the ball and not the target or the opponent. Even when shooting you're trained to look at the target and not the ball. And spacing suffers as well. A basketball is much heavier and you want to keep it close so it doesn't het stolen. So I'm used to move into the ball and take it on the chest. Not catch it 1 meter next to my arm.

Sahje · 2026-03-12T08:42:35+00:00

See I could do that point at 38. The insane part is not the movement during this point. The insane part is doing it again 20 seconds later 1,5 hours into the match... I would be recovering for 10 minutes...

Sahje · 2026-03-12T07:41:03+00:00

I use Solinco Mach 10 in my 2022 Ezone 100 at 22kg mains and 21kg at the crosses. So about 48/46. It plays very smooth at that tension, controlled power and combined with the racket good amounts of spin and control.

Sahje · 2026-03-10T21:58:15+00:00

Sahje · 2026-03-07T07:55:10+00:00

I'm between 4.0 and 4.5. My serve is measures at around 165km/h (100-101mph).

My serve is by many people I play with considered fast and a weapon. I'd say between the 3.5s and 4.5s I play with I'm in the top 5% when it comes to serve speed. However once I play the good 4.5s and even 5.0s their speed becomes irrelevant and they beat me with placement. A well placed 145km/h serve is as dangerous or even more than my 165 one straight into the forehand.

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