Questions?

Tonight, hit with Mike Curran at Centre Court. It didn't go horribly, but didn't go particularly well, either. One thing I'm proud of--I'm trying to learn how to control my emotions a bit more. I'm trying to learn how to apply that theory that if someone is watching you play, from the sidelines, they should not be able to tell whether you are losing or winning. Boy, if I can learn this, it will be a huge victory. A few things: 1. I'm trying to hit the ball with more depth. I worked on this and noticed it during our hitting session/warm up, but it kind of went out the window once we started playing points. 2. I'm trying to learn to occasionally just throw a deep high ball to my opponent to mix things up more, especially if I'm in a trouble situation. A deep, high, cross court ball, tonight, to Mike's backhand. 3. I'm trying to hit through my slice backhand a bit more, to emphasize the follow through and thus hit a deeper ball that will push my opponents back on their heels instead of letting them mover forward. But tonight, the big question was how to beat Mike as I had never played him before. I realized pretty early on what the problem was--he doesn't hit with the much pace or topspin. So, unlike Dan or Matt or Jason, who give me good pace that I can use and balls that sometimes will sit up, Mike gave me no pace or very little and I found myself over-hitting and spraying balls, then trying to pull back and not hit with as much pace and missing with stupid errors (in the net, for example). I found myself in a real quandary over how to beat him. I was wildly inconsistent tonight, making error after error after error. The question i found myself faced with was/is: if I can't direct play with my forehand and play at the kind of level of pace that I want to play at, what should I do? Should I grind with him, at his pace, and hope that he will make a mistake? Or should I stick to my game plan and what I know I do well? Then, late in the evening, I finally stumbled upon something that I probably should have stumbled upon much earlier--his fitness or lack of fitness. I'm not the fittest guy out there, but I was and am fitter than him. We played a few points and he was really tired afterwards. It dawned on me (DUH!) that I should play more points like that one--move him around, bring him in, lob him, tire him out, wear him down. This was one surefire way to win. PRoblem was, this assumed a level of control that I just did not have tonight. Once I figured out that I could use this method to beat him it was a) too late, b) almost impossible for all the unforced errors I was making. Additionally, it took me back to this other question: should I adapt my game to his game (he's not fit, so I'll slow down my balls and move him around a lot)? Or, should I not do this and try to overpower him and direct play with my forehand (my "A" game, when it's working)? And I really don't know the answer to this question. I ended up not winning these games much tonight. I think we were both surprised. I was annoyed and upset, but not terribly. Watching tennis and reading about tennis has me thinking more. But once again, I am reminded of how little I apparently know about how to win at this sport...