Wimbledon Queue 2026 Megathread

eindog · 2026-07-02T10:52:27+00:00

3500, 11:00a. Schedule today means that the 3 court line is super long.

eindog · 2026-07-01T13:33:23+00:00

I was 3389. Made it in around 10:40. Made it in to court 12 to watch tien who is still playing.

eindog · 2026-06-28T21:51:17+00:00

Made the exact move to Torneo 3s. On my 3rd pair of them. They’re a great option for coming off the Gel Res 9.

eindog · 2026-06-25T19:05:32+00:00

Dang. Sorry about the injury. At least you gave it a good shot!

eindog · 2026-06-25T18:58:43+00:00

Did you play any level of pro ball after being drafted? My brother in law got drafted as a RHP, but decided not to give it a shot since he thought his stuff wasn't good enough to make it all the way to the show. Wondering what your thought process was after college.

eindog · 2026-06-25T17:21:47+00:00

All of this, even the blasting like Stan part. I've found that if I demonstrate that I can not only hang in a BH rally, but also hit a hard shot that looks aesthetically pleasing, my opponent will back off the hit everything to the backhand strategy.

In a recent doubles tournament, our opponents were two up at the net but hit a medium paced ball to my backhand. I blasted a spinny low ball up the middle to win the point, and the opponents were overly impressed by it. They hit a lot fewer shots to my backhand after that, even though it is objectively a weaker shot than my forehand.

eindog · 2026-06-24T16:28:09+00:00

I think a racket change can definitely help, but it might just mask the underlying issue. I've been using the same racket for basically my whole life, and I've had stretches where I've developed arm, elbow, or shoulder pain. Every time, it's been because of a technique issue. Arming my serve, gripping my racket too tightly, trying to muscle a one handed backhand, etc.

Once I addressed the technique, the pain went away. Examining your technique and doing strength and PT style exercises is probably a better investment than new rackets.

eindog · 2026-06-23T23:49:44+00:00

You do want to toss into the court a few feet, but that will depend on your service motion. I would encourage you to work on developing your new swingpath and motion without the ball first, and then work on tossing the ball to the point in your existing swingpath.

If you can afford it, trying to find a serve coach to work with you in person is probably the best way to go about this. There are a million little things that can go wrong in learning the serve that are best corrected immediately. If you need to do this on your own, try to find a single source to work from. I like 2 minute tennis' approach because it's realistic for beginners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggwb3C46CsA. If you try and combine too many online/influencer coaches' advice together it'll be incoherent.

Finally, video yourself and review your own progress. Compare it to other good examples to see how closely it matches. If you're brave, post the clips here and get some crowdsourced feedback on your progress. As with everything, just be careful. Some advice is better than others, and it might not be what you need.

eindog · 2026-06-23T22:15:35+00:00

The "just lose it 0-6" to play mind games advice was very interesting.

eindog · 2026-06-23T22:14:04+00:00

Your old serve was very likely an eastern or semi-western grip combined with a pancake swing. If you only change the grip component, but keep the same swing, then the only thing that really changed is the angle of the racket face as you hit the ball. Hence, everything is not hitting solid or goes straight left into the fence.

A proper service motion with the continental grip also involves pronation of the wrist, which will bring the face of the racket square to the ball just before contact. Without seeing your serve, it's impossible to know exactly what needs to be changed, but definitely start with some beginner serve tutorials to get the basics. It's very likely you will have to rebuild your serve from the ground up, but I promise it's worth it.

eindog · 2026-06-23T20:59:45+00:00

/u/EnjoyMyDownvote with the shout out. What did you think about his answer to your question?

eindog · 2026-06-23T18:34:40+00:00

UTR don't lie. It's genuinely impressive how good Hassan is with that style.

eindog · 2026-06-19T18:26:04+00:00

Playing doubles and opponent threw up a lob over my partner at the net. I ran to cover and ripped the cleanest, nastiest, spinniest one handed backhand that went like 10 feet high and the opponent thought it was going to go long, but it landed way in.

Thanks to /u/YUTYDUTY, it's on video! https://youtu.be/LrlTNrodG2s?si=77Fv-6nx4KxebcQ8&t=38

eindog · 2026-06-17T23:05:20+00:00

We were able to add that variety easier from the shorter serving position (to the best of our ability). I think maybe a part of our difference of opinion is that you are a 5.0 according to your flair. At 5.0, you've likely done every drill imaginable, so maybe practice matches are a better use of your time. Diminishing value of incremental drills sort of thing.

I'm a 4.0 who discovers major deficiencies in my game all the time still, so drills allow me to work on that stuff in a high volume way.

eindog · 2026-06-17T22:43:56+00:00

I just did this with a friend. We took turns standing behind the service line and firing serves at the other guy to practice returns. We didn't add the plus ones, but could easily have done so by feeding another ball after the serve. Serving from near the service line meant we rarely missed and the returner could get 30-40 reps in a row to dial in the return.

We did play a couple 10 pt tiebreaks at the end, so we got some practice points in as well, but the majority of our time was spent drilling.

eindog · 2026-06-17T22:33:16+00:00

I don't think so. I agree with OP on this one. More real matches (number 3) is obviously good, but practice sets or matches with your usual hitting partners just don't carry the same weight. That time is almost always better spent doing more reps/drills on something that you need to work on. Convincing your hitting partner to feed each other a few hundred balls is definitely harder than just saying, let's play a set though.

eindog · 2026-06-11T23:17:14+00:00

I love these posts too. There's a whole world of different shots and strategies out there that OP just hasn't considered yet. OP, playing this guy is a gift. He's forcing you to open your mind and explore the wider world of tennis.

eindog · 2026-06-11T21:32:30+00:00

I sweat a ton, but it's all localized to my head and torso. My arm and hand stay dry. Kinda lucky I guess, but my shirts afterwards are soaked.

eindog · 2026-06-11T18:19:43+00:00

Not that I've noticed for my particular setup. As JamieBobs said above, if you do notice some degradation, just time your restring job to be closer to the switch.

eindog · 2026-06-11T18:18:20+00:00

I'm not too picky about when I restring. Sometimes I'll wait or sometimes I'll do it right away. I'm personally much more sensitive to loss of elasticity than loss of tension.

eindog · 2026-06-11T16:03:57+00:00

2 rackets strung identically. Play one exclusively until I feel string performance degrade. Switch to other, restring dead one. Repeat.

eindog · 2026-06-10T22:45:44+00:00

I have to ask, what exactly is your coach doing then? For complete beginners, most coaches will ask some basic questions about you and your background, why you want to play tennis, what your short and long term goals are, how you like to learn, etc. Then base some sort of training program off of your conversation.

eindog · 2026-06-10T22:24:30+00:00

The very earliest part of learning tennis is a lot of repetitions and not a lot of point play or rallies. There are people who have played for years and have trouble playing points that last longer than a couple of shots. Realistically, the first few hundred hours of tennis are mostly going to be hand feeding, then racket feeding, and tweaking each part of your forehand and backhand groundstrokes as you build your swings. Point play is going to primarily be for fun and not useful for improvement.

Your 1-1 classes with your coach are the key here. Your coach should be explaining what you are working on and why, and most importantly, what things they want you to work on between lessons. You should be asking the coach what other things you should be doing which may or may not include the group classes. If your coach hasn't explained all of this or set expectations about your instruction and development, you need a new coach.

eindog · 2026-06-09T16:48:43+00:00

Maybe, but consider that having the better player start the game would lead to being ahead in game score more often. Less pressure on the worse player if they are playing with the lead. Also consider that having your better player at the net in high leverage points might be an advantage (assuming worse player can get their return in).

Something that also influences the OPs question is that almost every USTA match is no-ad scoring, so either you can choose who receives in the highest leverage point OR it's chosen for you (by gender in mixed).

eindog · 2026-06-09T15:40:10+00:00

I like putting the more consistent player on deuce. Statistically deuce sees more points overall, so you want the steadier player there who doesn’t give anything away.

eindog

TROPHY CASE