sorry to hear that fitzy, must be a real bummer when your serve isnt working, hard to get around that, espaicly if you are up against a big server as you know you wont get many chances.

best of luck in you next event?

will you play dubs with Cramer?

i have to say its been great reading your thoughts and insights this week, will you be providing us with the same again?

"So yet another chance blown no real jump made, be for i know it im slipping from a good prospect into another run of the mill english player."

Bad luck today, but enough of that, even though I know you were mainly saying it out of frustration. You got a point here  and you might well get similar chances the next couple of weeks, so there's still plenty to play for.

It's just a vcase of making a bit of a breakthrough - at the moment getting 50+ points to get in the top 500, say, must seem like a faraway dream, but the reality is that if you start picking up a few more points, your confidence goes up, you get more DAs or high seedings in qualifying and it gets easier to get more points. You never know when you might get the chance to make that breakthrough, you just have to be ready to grab it with both hands when it comes along.

If you know you can do yourself in mentally when your serving is off, have you ever planned out how to deal with situations like that - beforehand, I mean, not during the match when things are going wrong and you're probably not thinking straight.

One obvious thing to try if you are missing lots of serves (I realise that means you probably already have tried it) would be to stop trying to do anything special with your serve and just get it in, e.g. do 2nd serves on your 1st serves. You're even more likely to get them in than actual 2nd serves, since on actual 2nd serves, you're under pressure from the threat of a df.

You're not likely to be punished too badly for that at your level and you'd only need to do that for say, half a set, until you had steadied the ship a bit and regained some confidence/feel for your serve. Just a thought, anyway - like I said, I imagine you've already tried it, but there must be something like that you could try in situations like that - perhaps even practice that kind of fallback approach, even if you feel a bit silly doing it.

-- Edited by steven at 13:10, 2008-10-15

Hard luck, Fitzy. It's a shame that you're getting affected by rain delays and then getting inside your head when serving. It suggests - as is the case for many players (including really rubbish ones like me) - that the main thing you need to work on is mental, rather than much to do with technique or fitness.

Cramer's found one way of dealing with the mental side of things, but I hope you're working on a slightly different one!  As Steven says, the mental approach needs to be worked on outside matches, rather than improvised when things go wrong.

Anyway, stay relaxed for the next tournament - and build on the useful point picked up here.

-- Edited by The Hoose at 13:17, 2008-10-15

At any level you play at your going to get punished for doing second serves on the first serves, especially for an elongated period as the opponent will have sussed it. Sometimes you do want to just get it in but then you just take 10-20% off, not go the full whack and just do a second serve. Serving gremlins are different than any problem with any other shot as it is just such a repetitive motion that if the action starts to go awry, whether it be ball toss or whatever then you can't really adjust. You really cannot worry about doing double faults, as if you think about it you are more likely to do one as you lose track of what you need to do to get the ball in. It's all about having confidence in the shot, as if you don't have confidence in it it will go pear-shaped in pressure situations as you don't trust it.

Bains won 6-4 7-5 , so let's hope he still had the legs to run from the locals.

Feaver plays third seed Vasiliev and Bains plays seventh seed Filenkov in the two GB v Russia quarter-finals.

-- Edited by The Hoose at 16:02, 2008-10-15

Just got back in from my meal, was good reading all the comments i got from my sad and sorry blog post when i came back from my match, always the rorest times just after a loss. When you either make no sense, or you make complete sense. If you get that.

I agree with taking a bit off the serve i did indeed do that today, but he was spanking winners off it everytime i did, and i havent got a weak 2nd serve, hense the reason i double fault somtimes. Its all to do with confidence.

leaks back to the days of when i was playing at queens with the LTA and i went through a stage of accepting the fact i was going to double fault at least 10 times per match, and other players i was training with would have a joke about it, at the time you find it funny aswell, but inside it kinda gets to you.
I have to sort that out.

In responce to the question about my game style, i have a very natural style, seems effortless, time the ball very well and sweet, nothing wrong technically. Could be a little bit smarter on the tennis court, i have alot of power in my strokes. Serve is key but its not vital so much that if its not working i cant graft away from the back.
Im very fit aswell and in good shape so i can beat my opponent that way.

I think i will play with cramer just for the crack i mean i enjoy doubles but, it seems to much of an oppertunity to miss out on. Being able to have his energy on the court and to be playing with it, will be amazing..... lol.;)

Yes well im sure its nice for you to have an insight into the tennis tour kinda thing.
I will happily keep this going, and if anyone knows a publisist who wants to help promote my book, i will write it. I personally think i have alot to tell given my troubled childhood and recent events in tennis with allegations and arrests and things like that!!

Tennis is a world where you have to judge yourself against other people, but you cant if you get me. so if i was to keep comparing myself to dan evans i would be coming off second best hands down at the moment, but that would just destroy me. Everyone has their own peak, mine might be when im 24, its just trying to graft away and either having the finacial backing to get you there, have the LTA put the money where their mouth is(which wont happen), or just finding a way somehow. Which is the path im heading down unless somthing changes.

I think i have blabbed on enough in this post, breaking records for words typed i think surley, most probably switched off halfway through im sure.

:)

No worries im sure i will meet you at some point!