In order to fix this, I need stop trying to chop low forehand balls with a square stance, and instead groove in the practice of chopping on my forehand with a traditional defensive forehand stance, with the left foot well in front of the right, and the body roughly at 45 degrees to the ball flight. This stance allows me to easily get down to the ball without losing balance or my basic form, and results in a faster recovery and a lower, more stable chop. Since I'm chopping from long range, there is plenty of time to move to a traditional forehand stance, chop the ball, and recover to my basic slightly forehand orientated stance, with the left foot a few inches in front of the right. On the backhand side, I naturally move to a side-square stance when chopping, so I don't really need to change anything there.
At any rate, this is a medium term process, since I have to get rid of the old habit and learn the new one to replace it. But now that I am aware of the problem, it is obvious just how often I was doing this during a match, since I still consciously have to override my old habit. So it's not surprising that I often struggled when opponents would play to my backhand, then switch to my forehand. I'll probably need another month or so to get on top of this nasty little issue, but I'll get there.
Adjusting the mix of attack and defence during a defensive rally
What this refers to is the situation where I am already in a long range defensive rally, and when exactly I should be looking to turn defence into attack. I need to be able to recognize good counterattacking opportunities early, and make sure that I am in a position to take advantage of them. Also involved in this is the ability to use my defensive skills to create counterattacking chances, rather than just waiting and hoping for them to occur. Not to mention the ability to recognize when I am not in a position to properly exploit a chance to counterattack, and continue with my defensive game instead.
This more or less boils down to being able to use my defensive game to create counterattacking chances, recovering quickly and being balanced so that I can exploit these chances, and knowing when I'm not in a position to properly counter attack, and instead continuing to defend until I can set up a better opportunity. It sounds simple in theory, but in practice this is an everchanging target, depending upon my opponent strengths and weaknesses and the tactics he is using. However, I expect my ability to mix up defence and attack well to improve as I continue to improve my chop with inverted rubber, and get rid of my old habit of chopping low balls on the forehand with a square stance.
Physical
Just a quick mention that my legs are still feeling pretty good, so I think the combination of a thorough warm up, dynamic stretching before playing and static stretching as part of my cool down is continuing to work well for me.Competition
I've already written quite a lot today, so I'll just briefly mention that I had a tournament last week which highlighted the need for me to start using my full range of variation on my forehand chop, and improve my mix of attack and defence. I actually had quite a good tournament, reaching the final of the O/40 Men's Singles, and the semifinals of the Men's Singles (losing both in close matches), but there is still plenty for me to work on.I've also got the finals of my local Grand Prix tonight, and I'll be hoping to put the concepts that I've discussed here into practice. It should be a good workout, since my opponents all know my old defensive game very well. I'll need to keep improving in order to have a chance of winning tonight!
