Beat some older guy Richard S 6-3, 6-3. Was lowly ranked but seemed pretty decent. Played smart. Stumbled onto 2012 rankings and he was rated top 5 out of 40 people then... Then played the number one ranked guy in the league Jay C. He won 6-4, 6-2. And he was just a bit better. Thinking what I could have done differently... Could have practiced putting away loopy soft balls. But then he simply wouldn't have hit them as much. He was extremely good at mixing it up and feeling me out for weaknesses. My one hand topspin backhand is still a weakness though improving. This was the first time I used just an eastern grip on it. But only hit it when he rushed the net. My slice was sometimes good, sometimes not aggressive enough.

His net game was excellent. Mine was really bad in comparison. And my serve wasn't powerful enough, I think. But he made it look effortless to get to everything. He always moved so smooth. I had switched back to the Prince Graphite Classic Longbody for this match. Think maybe it's not quite as good for serves... But it could just appear that way based on who I'm playing... Against the previous two opponents with the prostaff 6.1 stretch, my serve certainly seemed huge. In the second set against Jay C I really went away from speed and more towards placement which maybe was a mistake. I hate hitting double faults but against this guy some free points would have been nice. This guy really made me work. I didn't feel bad about losing. He was better. Still with a bigger serve it would have been closer. So back to the prostaff stretch.

Maybe my groundstrokes were better with the PGCL. Or maybe not. Was using a different grip. Also different strings. Put cow gut in the prostaff now and with eastern/western will see how I hit groundstrokes. Finally got hitting partner and going up tomorrow...

Played the last 3 games against Jay C with my prostaff 6.0 85. Groundstrokes were immediately better. Topspin forehand and slices. But serve lost some. Think a big serve matters more....