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Posted

Played with Blue Star 15 gauge as a kid.  Leoina 66 15L gauge by the reel while in college.  Prince synthetic 16 gauge as a poor out of college.  VS gut in my later competitive days and now 18 gauge Babolat poly, strung in the 40's lb range.

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted (edited)

Long but funny story I heard from my kid's middle school tennis team coach (he's the high school team coach) at a tournament this weekend.  A little backstory, there's a 7th grade girl from Ukraine who came here last summer with her mother as a result of the war.  Her sister plays on the Tyler Junior College team.  Anyway, she's a ridiculously good player and plays on the eighth grade team.  She's also funny, gets along well with everyone on the team, and speaks very good English. 

 

Anyway, when she first started playing in school tournaments, she'd come up to the coach afterward and, in her thick accent, emphatically ask, "Why they suck?!?  Why they no try?!?"  He had to explain to her that she needed to not say that they "sucked" and that they just hadn't been playing since birth like she had. 

 

It's really fun to watch her play.  She was hitting with my son a few months ago and hit an absolute rocket forehand winner against him with a memorable, satisfied grin on her face.  She's really smart and I think she is trying to figure out a way to skip 8th grade so she can play high school tennis with her friends next year.   

Edited by dcbc
  • 3 months later...
Posted (edited)

Reviving the thead.  DCBC the younger (14) son braved the heat for a tournament on a mostly cloudy day and sets to 4.  Squeaked out his first match on a tie-breaker by 2.  He hates matches to 4 because he needs time to wake up, but oh well.  Second match was against a girl with a solid first serve and super consistent overall.  He ended up in another tie breaker (he has a tie-breaker win streak going back to last fall that we now have talked about against better judgment of the jinx variety).  Anyway, during his first match, some friends of ours (parents of another player who's one of his buddies) were watching him and we all noticed the same thing---he was hitting good shots, but they were straight back to the other player.  During the break, I had a little conversation with him about how he could exert way less energy overall if he just stopped hitting it directly to his opponent.  By the second match tie-breaker, I think he bought in.

 

 

Edited by dcbc
  • Hook 'Em 2
  • 2 years later...
Posted

So I still prefer singles but that might be changing. I’ve been devoting 15-20% of my practice to doubles skills and doubles theory/strategy. Recently I shifted from focusing on my shots to focusing on court positioning first even moreso than singles. Follow the ball is an easy thing to say but once it clicks and the spot to be becomes automatic all of a sudden the ball comes to you or they hit a great winning shot. I really feel like my doubles game is rapidly accelerating based on this change in focus and perspective. 
 

we are in San Miguel de Allende and playing lots of tennis for a few weeks. I’m all of a sudden 6-1 in doubles sets. Today I was the only player on the court undefeated. It’s an incredible feeling. 

Winning is pure happiness. I remember when I was winning at 3.5 and the last 2-3 years at 4.0 have been a total slog to gain traction and experience but man what a feeling. It’s strange but athletic competition brings real meaning a depth of purpose and it’s just rec league for fun. Amazing really.

here are our courts. Purely Mexican in appearance and in hospitality. The court owners are amazing folks.

 

 

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  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted

I've never played on anything but a hardcourt. Playing on clay or grass would be incredible. And after my initial surge of play during my wife's maternity leave with our first, I've been out maybe twice in the last three years. I need to correct that.

Posted
26 minutes ago, hookem2010 said:

I've never played on anything but a hardcourt. Playing on clay or grass would be incredible. And after my initial surge of play during my wife's maternity leave with our first, I've been out maybe twice in the last three years. I need to correct that.

We’ve played clay in Colorado and now Mexico it’s great. There’s a def grind to it in competitive tennis and the ball can bounce funny for sure but I’d play clay exclusively if our club had it. 

Westwood has a handful of clay courts, Austin tennis academy too (Spanish oaks). Don’t know about Austin country club, but no public courts. 

We are going to check out the bougie courts just outside of town tomorrow. 

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