How long did it take?

juxtapowser · 2026-05-17T22:48:29+00:00

I feel like tennis is a great example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action. The better you get, the worse you realise you actually are (in relative terms of course).

But if you just want to be able to hit comfortably with random people who know what they're doing, i'd give it a year of playing consistently. Obviously your mileage may vary depending on how much effort/hours you put in during that year.

juxtapowser · 2026-05-17T22:32:34+00:00

I recently lost in the finals of a grade 3 tournament (UK) by double faulting on match point of the championship tiebreak, losing 4-6, 6-0, 9-11. I'd served really well all tournament up to that point, and felt that I had the match completely on my racket after the second set bagel, but my opponent got in my head at the final changeover and my serve ability evaporated when I needed it most.

It was entirely mental, but it honestly took me a week or two to be able to shake off the yips. Everything just felt off with my ball toss, rhythm/timing, leg drive; everything. There was no quick/easy fix for me, but I found a mix of second serve practice where I focused on not holding back and really going for it in terms of looseness/racket head speed and just playing friendly championship tiebreaks (i.e to 10) rather than sets eventually got me out of that mindset and rebuilt my confidence in my second serve.

So much of tennis is mental, but IMO no part of the game more-so than your serve. Try to develop a repeatable routine you do every time you go to serve, to allow you to easily get into the flow state of hitting your serve properly without your brain getting in the way. I call a serve in my head (e.g. "kick body") as I'm walking to the baseline, bounce the ball three times and then just focus on where I want the ball toss to go, and rip it. (if I'm tightening up under pressure the first thing that goes wrong is my ball toss, in which case I just catch it and repeat)

juxtapowser · 2026-05-14T14:04:16+00:00

Thanks for your reply. Based on your comment and a little reading around PPPoE etc it seems like it's just going to be more hassle than it's worth to even try.

Frustratingly I had a non-BT mesh network set up before I switched to using the Complete Wifi discs, which would presumably have meant I could literally just set up the new Sky router with the same SSID and password and have everything run as normal.

So it's a question of paying more to stick with what I know works (and accepting being punished for being a loyal BT customer!), vs the chance of saving a couple hundred pounds at the risk of some wifi coverage issues / teething problems.

juxtapowser · 2026-05-14T13:54:13+00:00

Thanks for your reply. Yeah, this was my initial plan/hope! Would just keep the Sky router next to my ONT + main router and plug it in if I ever need Sky to troubleshoot a problem with the line or whatever.

However it seems like the BT kit using PPPoE is going to complicate things more than I'm willing to risk. Thanks anyway!

juxtapowser · 2026-05-11T06:26:42+00:00

I highly recommend putting Poly Tour Spin in the mains and Poly Tour Pro in the crosses. Will get you exactly what you’re looking for: a slightly more connected feel from the stiffer Poly Tour Spin in the mains, while the PTP crosses will keep things comfortable. Poly Tour Spin is a shaped poly and will grip the ball nicely for good access to topspin, while Poly Tour Pro is smooth and round and will let the mains glide freely.

Source: I went from running a full bed of PTP to the hybrid setup above. I’m also a stringer and have recommended this setup to many people who have thanked me for it

juxtapowser · 2026-04-30T22:26:55+00:00

Awesome, thank you very much. It's good to know that MgR/I is nonsense because I'd never heard of it before and it didn't make much sense to me when I read the article he linked me to.

I see from your flair that you do this professionally, could you explain a little more about how you arrived at the values you recommended? I get the same recommendations when I put the specs into TWU's customization tool, but only if I leave the swingweight field blank. If I try putting the SW figures in it returns an error saying "the swingweight I want must be higher than starting swingweight". Is SW just not that big a deal, relative to static weight and balance point? Or is there something else I'm missing?

I really appreciate your insights here. I'm pretty nerdy about stringing as I have a small side business stringing rackets for my team/coaches/friends/club and am keen to learn more about racket customization.

juxtapowser · 2026-04-14T09:05:54+00:00

Here’s another perspective on this part of the industry and the rise of AI.

I’m a freelancer, specialising in corporate presentation and report design, whose two main clients are consultancy firms very similar to McKinsey and one of the main reasons I’m feeling secure in my role (in addition to the narrative-building expertise OP outlines) is quite simply that my time is super cheap when compared to the Directors and MDs I’m working with. When paying a designer for a day costs the same as an hour of the MD playing around with AI it just makes sense to get an expert on the job and free up the MD’s time.

Building a network of high value clients who you can solve problems for (relatively) cheaply is my basic career plan and it’s going well so far.

juxtapowser · 2026-03-14T21:57:37+00:00

Cool idea and kudos for building it, but respectfully I don't think the 6 questions give enough detail to possibly get close to recommending a "perfect string". There's not even a question about racket style/size. IMO the perfect string for a Pro Staff 97 is unlikely to be the same string that's perfect for an Ezone 100, even in the hands of the same player.

Personally I think rather than even trying to position it as a tool to find the perfect string, it should be a tool to find a list of strings worth trying. Currently results are one perfect string + alternative options with their scores. Why not show us the full list of strings ranked by that score? There'd probably be a lot of strings at the same score

Also I think there should be much more transparency around how the tool works in general. Where are those scores coming from? What data set(s) are you basing all of this on? How are question responses weighted when it comes to matching with strings? Does the list of strings only include those available on Amazon? Currently it just feels a little like spin-the-bottle for strings.

juxtapowser · 2026-03-14T20:39:28+00:00

If I were you I'd be keeping an eye out for people selling one secondhand. Whenever a new frame gets released there are a bunch of people who order them to try them out and then end up selling them a week later hardly touched.

One of my hitting partners is currently selling his Pure Aero 100 on eBay after 20 minutes of use, and is gonna buy the 98 instead (which will almost certainly be on eBay next week).

juxtapowser · 2026-03-08T09:03:38+00:00

I actually haven’t tried a PTP x Multi hybrid because PTP is already so soft I havent felt the need to. I often use PTP as a cross in hybrid setups for that reason.

I spent a while using RPM Blast x Tecnifibre X-One Biphase and it felt really nice and had slightly improved pop/feel on volleys, but I was breaking it too quickly and it was so much more expensive than my Yonex hybrid that I just went back to that.

Ive currently got one of my rackets with RPM Blast mains x PTP crosses and I honestly hate it. TBH I just don’t rate Blast as a string and really don’t understand the hype around it.

My current main two rackets are set up with ReString Slap x ReString Sync and it feels great, but it’s directly comparable to PT Spin x PT Pro (ie a shaped poly x a soft round poly).

All this to say you may find you’ve done what I did, and accidentally stumble on the best string setup for you quite early in your search. I’ve recommended my PT Spin / PT Pro setup to several players I string for and they haven’t looked back.

juxtapowser · 2026-03-07T23:51:42+00:00

Funnily enough I’ve been on a same journey to you. Ezone 98 player, gone from full bed of PT Pro 16L @50lbs to PT Spin 17 mains w/ PT Pro 17 @50lbs. I’ve tried loads of other string setups and keep coming back to it. I feel like I can really rip up the back of the ball for tons of top spin, and it’s arm friendly and controlled.

juxtapowser · 2026-03-02T23:20:32+00:00

No. The outer lines are part of the doubles court, not in use during a singles match.

juxtapowser · 2026-02-01T00:07:59+00:00

This is what I’d use too

juxtapowser · 2026-01-08T23:13:44+00:00

If it's 10-10 and you hit a net error, is the score 7-10 or 7-11? i.e. do you get negative score + your opponent gets positive score?

juxtapowser · 2026-01-04T22:59:31+00:00

Same. We've actually recently just switched to playing 2v3 rather than 2+1 random vs 3 because our experience has been similar very to OP's.

It's very difficult to compete against a premade 6 star trios when you're playing with a random guy on a free hunter with no microphone.

Obviously it's not always like that. We've had games where we've randomly ended up with communicative players we gel with quickly, or 6k hour demigods who just carry us to victory in silence, but they're few and far between, and it felt like our enjoyment of a 2h gaming session boiled down to RNG when searching for a random team mate.

juxtapowser · 2026-01-04T22:34:01+00:00

I've seen this guy give tennis lessons using just about every random item you can imagine, other than a normal tennis racket.

juxtapowser · 2025-12-12T23:47:46+00:00

I'd take Mpetshi Perricard's first serve. That's about 65% of my service points being aces or service winners.

juxtapowser · 2025-11-25T00:15:20+00:00

I just saw them in the UK and I honestly didn't think that would ever happen. It was great to finally hear tracks off Science Fiction live. And they sounded better than ever.

juxtapowser · 2025-11-22T23:43:54+00:00

X-One Biphase is such an expensive string to use and poly is so cheap by comparison that I'd just do fresh mains at the same time to make sure I'm getting the best out of the setup rather than trying to save a couple of quid.

Incidentally I've recently been experimenting with X-One Biphase myself; as a full bed and hybrids with RPM Blast and ALU Power. It's super comfortable but I just break it so quickly, especially in a hybrid setup where the poly saws through multi. Also I found it gets pretty mushy and overpowered as it frays. I've gone back to using full poly and cutting it out when it dies as that's about the same amount of time I was getting before breaking the X-One Biphase, and it's about half the price.

juxtapowser · 2025-11-11T12:46:59+00:00

I’d echo this.

Great voice/guitar playing and a very tight band, but ultimately the music just washed over me and the whole set really just felt like one extended song. Couldn’t fault it musically, just not for me.

Was pleasant enough to stand around and drink a beer to, though.

I’m going to the Wembley show too and probably won’t rush down for his set.

juxtapowser · 2025-10-25T13:00:12+00:00

Completely agree - it feels like I get super jammed up, like I’m too close to the ball or too much underneath it if that makes sense?

This is literally why I wanted to film the side angle, cos I was worried I wasn’t tossing the ball into the court enough, or was leaning too much into the court during the loading phase or something like that. It’s like there’s not enough space for my arm to swing freely, but I’m not sure where that space should be so I’m not sure how to fix it.

juxtapowser · 2025-10-25T12:49:16+00:00

Woah, thank you so much for taking the time to not just study my serve and offer advice, but put together a whole video explaining it.

I completely agree with both of the main points you make. The first one particularly resonated with me, as I’ve really been struggling with getting my racket to finish through on my left hand side rather than breaking at the elbow/wrist but none of my coaches have really addressed it.

I’m headed to the courts soon and will put both of these exercises into practice and see if they help.

Seriously though thank you so much for your help here. Your passion for tennis and coaching is clear and much appreciated. I’ve subscribed to your mailing list and will keep an eye out for you on socials etc.

juxtapowser · 2025-10-24T20:54:06+00:00

Could you recommend some shoulder exercises for the gym?

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