Category: The Game

The No-Warm-Up Warm-Up

A while back, I was at a club as a member of the visiting team. We took the court and proceeded to warm up for our doubles match. The woman I was hitting against seemed to be, well, terrible. Her groundstrokes had nothing on them, little powderpuff balls. When I tried to warm up my volleys, her shots either landed limply in the net or sailed over my head. The few that actually made it to my racquet felt like little marshmallows.

Frustrated, I briefly considered saying that I would warm up against my doubles partner. The league rules allow this, but I’d never seen it done before. I pretty quickly decided against it. For one thing, we’d already used up most of the time allotted for the warm-up. I couldn’t very well start the warm-up over, could I? Anyway, my partner and I were obviously better players. Maybe the warm-up, or lack thereof, didn’t really matter.

But the real reason I didn’t request to change warm-up partners? I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. By saying that I wanted to hit with my partner, I’d be essentially telling my opponent she wasn’t a good player. I couldn’t see how to get what I wanted without making this stranger feel bad. Continue reading “The No-Warm-Up Warm-Up” →

2

The Tennis Threesome

If you play doubles, you’ve almost certainly faced the situation of one player not showing up.

At first, you and your two tennis buddies assume the fourth player is on her way, so you start your warm-up. Midway through your warm-up, you each check your phone for messages. You spend the next ten to fifteen minutes trying to contact your fourth and then anyone else you can think of who can show up quickly. Finally, you spend five minutes cursing your absent friend and plotting your revenge. (Right about now, slashing her tires doesn’t seem like a wholly unreasonable response.)

By the time you’re done with all that, you’ve already eaten up a half-hour of court time. Now what? One player may decide to drop out, leaving the remaining two to play singles. Barring that, you’re left with Canadian doubles. Continue reading “The Tennis Threesome” →

3

Tennis Math and Settling for Quality

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I sat on the couch, browsing on our laptops for Christmas present ideas for our daughter. (Well, I think he was browsing. He may have been reading about the Patriots.)

In my searching, I came across a ten-foot-long phone charger. I’d never thought about how inadequate the dinky iPhone chargers are until I saw this one. My daughter doesn’t have many outlets in her apartment. With this mega-charger, she’d be able to sit on the couch with her phone while it’s plugged in across the room. Brilliant!

What’s more, this cable was zebra striped! So cute! (If you’re going to give a functional item as a gift, you need to jazz it up a little.) I mentioned it to my husband as I started to order it. Continue reading “Tennis Math and Settling for Quality” →

7

Is Tennis Too Slow?

Although I wasn’t a big sports fan growing up, the sound of a baseball or football game on television always evokes a warm, fuzzy feeling in me. Even if I’m not watching the game, the voices of the announcers, interspersed with the occasional crack of a bat or crunch of helmets, conjure up memories of langorous weekend afternoons in my childhood home.

It seems like people had more time back then for sprawling on the sofa to watch the local team. Nowadays, we’re all too busy and our attention spans are too short. We still want to watch, but who has three hours to devote on a Sunday afternoon? (Well, aside from people who write sports blogs, that is.) Continue reading “Is Tennis Too Slow?” →

0

Winning the Tiebreak

Next week begins our fall/winter league. Last year, my team ended up in sixth place out of ten teams. Not bad, but not so great, either.

Point-wise, there was a sizable spread between the first and last place teams. But having played those teams twice each, I noticed something interesting. Aside from a couple of big hitters, the skills of the first place team weren’t all that much different from those of the last place team. Everyone had game, but at the end of the season, one team had earned the right to play in a higher division this year, while the other team was going down.

I wondered what accounted for the wide gulf in results between these two comparable teams? At least some part of it–probably a large part of it–had to be mental.

I decided to spend a little time looking at my own team’s statistics. Out of 72 matches last season, my team played 25 super tiebreaks. (A super tiebreak replaces the third set in this league.) If you find yourself in a super tiebreak, your opponents aren’t blowing you off the court. You’ve already won a set. You obviously have the skills to win the match. Whether or not you do is mostly mental. Continue reading “Winning the Tiebreak” →

4

Choosing Smarter Shots

Today’s my last post about consistency, at least for a while. As promised on Monday, I did a little poking around into the topic of shot selection. Poor shot selection is a major factor in a high unforced error count.

Here’s an elegant way I’ve seen shot selection explained: Assess what’s going on in the point–where you are, where your opponent is, and what options you have–and then choose the best of those options.

Here’s a simpler way to put it: Stop trying dumb shots. Continue reading “Choosing Smarter Shots” →

3

The Long Gray Wall

When I was a young kid, my mother used to take me with her when she was meeting her friends for tennis. The park where she liked to play had a long gray concrete wall–really long, and really high. This was back when handball was a popular activity. In the evenings, you could usually find three or four handball games taking place simulaneously on each side of the wall.

But during the mornings, when my mom took me to the park, the wall stood empty. I’d bring along my little wooden racquet and hit against the wall while I waited for my mother to finish her game. I wasn’t very good so I ended up doing an awful lot of running as each inadvertently angled shot caromed off the wall. But I was young and energetic, and chasing down my ball to give it another whack with my racquet was all part of the fun.

Later, when I learned to control my shots a little more, I’d go to the wall on my own. I’d deliberately hit my groundstrokes inside-out, working forehands down the length of the wall and backhands on the way back. I could complete three “laps” of the wall before my lungs would give out. Continue reading “The Long Gray Wall” →

11

Consistency (Yawn.)

During practice, our team coach Tom likes to call out pop quiz questions, especially when we’ve just screwed something up. By now, we’ve heard the questions so many times we could answer them in our sleep.

When one of us makes an unforced error, he calls out one of his particular favorites:

“What’s the biggest weapon in tennis?”

“Consistency!” we dutifully bleat. Baaa. Continue reading “Consistency (Yawn.)” →

7

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

Up ↑