Travel to Cyprus

Archive for October 20th, 2010

Cyprus Tennis  – reviews the 3rd day of a week long intensive tennis course at Aphrodite Hills – 20 October 2010 – Tennis in Cyprus

An early start again.  A big rush again to get there in time, so we had breakfast at Aphrodite Hills.  It was an excellent day.  It was hot, but not too hot.  We started again with hitting a short ball from the baseline. This time I had a small target to aim for.  It still took me time to get the hang of it, but I did hit the target once and came very close quite a few times.

Cyprus Tennis waiting for that ball

Then we moved off plan and decided to work on my groundstrokes and get me hitting the ball early – either at the top of the bounce or before.  This an aggressive form of play so I of course enjoyed it.  It’s also hard work and certainly gave me a workout.  Throughout, I used focus points, mainly 1 on the bounce, 2 on hitting the ball, focusing on making it a quick transition from 1 to 2.  Also, I noticed that the times I took the ball really early and did it well, were when I was moving my racquet back in time with the approaching ball – another focus point.  We spent quite a bit of time on this, putting targets for me to aim for, first to the sides and afterwards in the centre.

Finally, we worked a little on my serve, especially my second serve.

Meanwhile, my friend’s group grew again to have 4 people, with Jo joining from the UK.  They covered groundstrokes again, looking at how to anticipate the return and do what I was doing – bringing the racquet back in time with the approaching ball.  Twice this was done with headphones on with music.  Then they moved onto volleys, the position to take and how to move forward and take the volley.

Jo hitting a volley, doing the "panther"

Later on I played again against another opponent, trying to put into practice everything I had learnt.  Some of it worked, some didn’t, but that may of had something to do with the pretty strong wind that was blowing  

 Overall, we both had a great time and made progress, but we both need to practice more everything we learnt.

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Cyprus Tennis - reviews the second day of a week long intensive tennis course at Aphrodite Hills – 19 September 2010 – Tennis in Cyprus

A slightly later start today, so we had time to make a super juice.  Loads of green stuff, such as fresh coriander, spinach, celery, cucumber, as well as avocado, beetroot and ginger (according to Heaven on Earth Herbals).  Delicious!  My friend thought so too and a great way to start the day.  This was followed up an Actimel later on.

Onto the more important things – the tennis! Well the 2nd started the same – we were a couple of minutes late arriving at Aphrodite Hills tennis academy- the superjuice was just too good to miss!  And we began with practicising the short ball from the baseline.  It still takes me a while to get my range in – I either fire it far to far over or int the net.  Wyn kept saying just forget the net.  Just aim higher.  Just tell yourself to do better this time.  It kind of works.

We did loads of work on an approach shot off a short ball and then did this followed by an approach volley.  It took me ages to get the approach volley working, so a lot more work required on that. 

Finally, we did some work on my serve, adding a little bit to my action.  Really just making it “flow” better as Wyn puts it.

Meanwhile, on the other court, my friend’s group increased by 1, with Daniel from Switzerland joining them.  They did a lot more work on groundstrokes, adding some more focus points, as well as discussing Nadal a lot. Naheed found focusing on which colour the ball was primarily (they were yellow & orange balls) very good.  Again, they had the headphones on for part of it, having chillout music relaxing them, while they were given instruction on what to do.  It’s as if the rest of the world disappears and there is just the music, your racquet and the tennis ball – it’s amazing! 

Later in the evening, we took part in the regular Tuesday evening drill session followed by matchplay.

Overall, a good day.

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