Originally Posted by
tennisking1
Yeah, we had a battle. Unfortunately, I was so spent from that match, I lost 6-4 in the third to a guy 180 in the world. It happens though. The way to beat Grosjean was to hit right at him and attack his forehand. He had a great backhand. Most people think you should go to the side a player doesn't hit as hard, but attacking that side usually draws more errors. Especially if you hit hard to their power side. There are, of course, times where that doesn't work, but it works well against western forehands. The bigger swings against a very hard ball usually gets a weak reply. I didn't realize that he had done so well. I knew he was a top 20 player, but he wasn't when I played him. He had been injured. I'll take it though. As for the knowing what's going on, I used my peripheral vision a little, but once I decided to hit a shot, that was what I went with. Against net rushers, I went right at them with lots of pace and spin and then passed or lobbed on the second shot. Of course, if the obvious passing shot was there, I went for that immediately, but I usually made the net rushers hit a shot. A lot of times, when they couldn't deal with the pace and spin, it broke their confidence. If they were volleying well, I at least had a good chance at another pass or lob. Thank God I never had to play Edberg though. He really had the best volleys and net movement I have ever watched. He played loosey goosey in every situation. I think that is a big reason he was so phenomenal. Suspect forehand, but it never really let him down. When it was on, it was pretty darn good too.