The match
Finished the Danny Ferro match on 8/31. Lost 5-7, 4-6.
Danny is the best returner of serve I’ve ever played, and that’s the whole story. My serve is what carries me — when it’s in, I’m acing guys in this league three out of four times. Against him I had two aces the entire match. On the last game, the one I needed to stay in it, I was serving well. Those were serves that would have been aces against anybody else on the schedule. He got them all back and broke me 30-40.
He’s also the toughest puzzle I’ve faced. He mixes spin and pace constantly, drop shots you in and then lobs you, and his lobs are genuinely great. He sets up way out wide on his serve, doubles-style, which makes the down-the-line return look wide open — it isn’t, he covers it, and taking that bait cost me break points twice.
Both sets followed the same shape: a hole, then a real run. In the first I fell to 1-4 and won four of the next five to get back to 5-5, before letting off the gas and dropping the last two. In the second I went down 1-5 and fought back to 4-5, then the rain came, and when we picked it up he broke me to close it.
What actually worked, every single time: stop trying to do something with the return and just put it back in play. That’s how I broke him through three advantages at 2-5, and it’s how I broke him again at 4-5. What didn’t work: attacking his serve, and the two double faults that handed him one break.
The read is simple. Against everyone else, my serve is a weapon and the return is a formality. Against him, the serve was neutral and the return was the whole match — and I only figured that out when I was already a long way behind. Twice.
Great points, great match, and the best player-versus-player test I’ve had. But I said after the rain delay that I had him figured out, and the truth is I found the right answer late in both sets instead of early in either.