Played Jay C again and alas! Lost again. Was up 5-2 and lost 6-7, 3-6. He just breaks me down. Hits short balls. Hits deep balls, Fast balls, slow balls, Heavy topspin, slice. Sharp angles and eventually I start hitting errors. This time I really tried to stay leaning down into the ball and did the new serve thing. May have helped slightly... well that's being optimistic. Lost by about the same score as usual.

I've changed my grips so many times. I think today once I was getting worn down some more topspin would have helped. Against lesser players I don't get broken down and I can hit flat balls with precision. Today I eventually really could have used more topspin. The backhand especially broke down. So I'm going to change my grip, yet again. Going back to double bevel 8 on the backhand and double bevel 2 on the forehand.

I've done this before but I thought with the new super powerful racquet I have even less room for error hitting flat.

....so I tried it against Blake H (the really good high school player) and lost the first set 6-1 and was down 3-1 in the second. I was using a semiwestern/continental grip on the backhand and the top hand in semi-western always has added errors. Additionally not having the bottom hand wrapped over a little just leaves it feeling "wrong". On the forehand side I was going continental/semiwestern. It didn't feel as bad but the extra topspin is an extra calculation.

I switched back to my old backhand then and used the new grip on the forehand but not really trying to hit so much topspin and I came back and won the second set and then a tiebreak 10-4.

The Andy Murray grip backhand works good except when I play a really good player like Jay C. Then it finally gets broke down. Now going to try the old double eastern forehand grip on both sides. This means less access to topspin. But I think it will break down less. I think it won't look as nice against a ball machine. But against good players I will hit less unforced errors while still being capable of hitting winners. It means hitting the ball beside my body instead of out in front of me and I think that's actually preferable and leads to more consistency. Just less topspin.

This is what I did last summer and I quit it because I decided I needed more topspin. All these other good players hit balls that look like pros and I'm looking not as smooth and hitting a Connors ball.

I may be mistaken but will try this a few times. The thing is, how it works against mediocre players and a ball machine isn't the same as how it may work against a really good player. When I don't have time or I'm getting worn down by shot after shot, running all over the place, I still want to be able to hit a decent shot then instead of falling apart. The real test is how I will do next time against Jay C.