The Fourth of Six Lessons for Lester Elder

Targeting

 by

Robert J. Ray

By now, the Coach had figured out Lester’s hitting problem—he was always late to the ball—something he couldn’t fix—because of his bad knees.

But also because he was short of breath.

First they worked on the service. Getting the ball in.

Eight serves, all of them in the box.

Then they worked on the next shot—Lester’s return following the service return.

The Coach fed to Lester’s forehand.

When Lester returned back to the Coach—a solid rally ball—then the Coach fed Lester another volley.

As he hit the volley, Lester’s felt pain in his wrist. The pain came from a tiny tear in a tennis tendon on the outside of his wrist. The tear came from three months ago—when a friendly 3.5 player partnered Lester to play against a tough big 3.5 hitter.

Instead of slicing the ball, laying on the spin, Lester chose to show off, starting with the Big Hitter Pro Tour wind-up, the Unit Turn with the frying pan grip, going for topspin instead of slice, grinning with a winner’s glee when he hit a rickety young rising TV star forehand, and felt a little pop on contact, followed by a sharp pen-knife wrist pain.

Lester’s grin faded.

His injury was made worse by arthritis. An x-ray from his sports medicine doc showed the teeny-tiny break in the threadlike tendon amidst the little bone-holes chewed away by arthritis.

Nothing in that unsympathetic x-ray to match the pain when Lester put pressure on the wrist.

The doc, a sports medicine guy, gave Lester a cortisone shot. But the best treatment was rubbing on Voltaren. The pain went away.

*****

The DCTC court at 9:30 AM is beautiful. And Lester was appreciating California like he had done in the old days, when he was a tax-paying resident, living in a condo at a tennis club in San Diego.  

Remembering the old days in California fed new power into Lester’s shots. His new hot forehand knocked over three orange cones. Then the Coach switched to the ad court.

With the switch, Lester got winded

Every four minutes, he needed water.

Five balls in a row slapped the net tape.

What’s going on?

The Coach was at the net, covering the alley. Lester the eternal tennis student in the deuce court, 6 feet in front of the baseline.

*****

The Coach dinks a ball to Lester’s backhand.

Lester’s return is low across the net. Pain lances his wrist. The Coach returns his shot. The Coach is a pro and pros can’t afford to miss.

Lester’s second shot zooms toward the target—the Orange Cone Triangle—six orange traffic cones in front of the yellow ball tube.

Wide by 6 inches.

At minute 25 of the lesson, Lester sees the focus of today’s lesson: the ready position.

Feet apart, knees bent, both hands on the racquet.

Left hand on the grip.

Right hand on the smooth throat.

Toes hurting from the pressure.

*****

A dozen hits from the ready position and Lester feels weariness flooding his knees.

The Coach has the shots—but Lester’s losing by being late getting to the second ball.

Being late makes Lester edgy.

The Coach must be clairvoyant.

Because Lester remembers having the same problem in his Sunday AM doubles match.

He remembers hitting the first ball with solid timing—trying to force the opponents into hitting the fence or the net, hoping to win the point with one well-placed shot.

But then he would fluff the second ball because he was not in the ready position.

And he was preoccupied—trying not to put pressure on his partner, Player PS, who had a bad case of tennis elbow.

So the Coach had designed a drill to help Lester understand what had happened last Sunday.

So how did he know?

The Coach was clairvoyant.

Read More about Lester Elder’s Quest for Ultimate Tennis in Robert Ray’s new book called

Play or Die: Senior Tennis and the Art of Spin