Trying to Learn from Sebastian Fanselow
So, the other day I was just killing time, watching some tennis streams online. You know, the smaller tournaments you can sometimes find. Came across a match with this guy, Sebastian Fanselow. Never paid super close attention to him before, but I watched for a bit.
What struck me wasn’t anything flashy. It was actually how steady he seemed, especially off the backhand side. My own backhand can be all over the place, honestly. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s terrible. Seeing his, it looked so simple, so repeatable. Just a solid shot, nothing crazy, but it always seemed to land in.
I thought, okay, maybe there’s something there I can try. I rewatched a few points, really focusing on what he was doing. Looked like a pretty compact swing, not a lot of extra movement. Seemed efficient.
Hitting the Court
Next time I had a chance, I went down to the local courts. Decided I’d dedicate the session to just trying to mimic that feel. Here’s basically what I did:
- Grabbed a basket of old balls.
- Started just hitting against the practice wall first. Really tried to shorten my backswing on the backhand.
- Focused on keeping my wrist firm and hitting through the ball, trying for that flatter trajectory I thought I saw him use.
Man, it felt weird at first. Really awkward. My body wanted to do its usual loopy thing. I hit a ton of balls into the net, shanked a few sideways. It wasn’t pretty. It felt less powerful too, initially.
I kept at it for a good hour against the wall. Slowly, very slowly, I started getting a bit more feel for it. The key seemed to be the preparation – getting the racket back early but not too far, and just meeting the ball out front.
Later that week, I got my buddy Dave out to rally. I told him I was working on something specific with my backhand. Playing against a real person was different, obviously. Had less time to think. My consistency was definitely worse than usual overall. Made a lot more errors trying the new thing.
But, and this is the interesting part, a few times when I really focused and executed it like I practiced against the wall, the ball stayed low and deep. It felt really solid those few times. Controlled, you know?
What I Reckon Now
So, did I suddenly get a pro-level backhand from watching Fanselow play a bit? Of course not. That’s not how it works. But the whole exercise was useful. It wasn’t about perfectly copying him, because I can’t.
It was more about seeing a simpler, maybe more efficient way of hitting the ball. It made me realize my own backhand swing might have too many moving parts, too much that can go wrong. Trying his style, even badly, forced me to simplify.
It’s something to keep working on. Trying to build that muscle memory for a shorter, more direct swing path. It’s gonna take a lot more practice, hitting hundreds, probably thousands more balls. But yeah, watching Fanselow gave me a concrete idea to focus on. That’s my takeaway from this little experiment.
