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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...

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...

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

  • 2 years later...

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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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.

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. 

Onion Creek had clay in the 90’s (won a few junior titles there), but I doubt they still have them. Barton Creek use to have grass! I miss tennis, need to get back to playing and introduce my 8 yr daughter to the sport. 

17 hours ago, 3adays said:

Onion Creek had clay in the 90’s (won a few junior titles there), but I doubt they still have them. Barton Creek use to have grass! I miss tennis, need to get back to playing and introduce my 8 yr daughter to the sport. 

Yeah you do. 

I played on high school...a long time ago LOL, 1979-81

Started playing again in 2023, now playing 3.0 doubles twice a week and loving it.

  • 5 months later...

This is wild. The Egyptian lady looks like she may have picked up her first racket 10 minutes before the match.

It could easily have been a tennis match that nobody really noticed. Instead, it became instantly viral online.

The first round of the International Tennis Federation’s W35 tournament, played on a clay court in Nairobi, Kenya, wouldn’t normally make much of a splash in the tennis world, but millions of people have now seen what transpired over 37 excruciating minutes in the capital.

The score of the match wasn’t unusual, a 6-0, 6-0 win for Germany’s Lorena Schaedel; what was conspicuous was the performance of her opponent, 21-year-old Egyptian Hajar Abdelkader, on what seems to have been her professional debut. But as some observers on social media have pointed out, it looked like it may have been the first time she had ever stood on a tennis court.

New details are now emerging about how Abdelkader found herself to be hopelessly out of her depth in a professional tournament and at the mercy of tennis commentators everywhere. In a statement to CNN Sports, Tennis Kenya said that Abdelkader had been admitted to the tournament as a wild card – essentially a tournament invitation that bypasses the need to qualify for the main draw of a tournament or earn a place through the rankings system.

The organization said she submitted a formal request for the wild card and had flown into Nairobi on Tuesday morning. A tournament slot became available when another player withdrew on short notice and opted into the qualifying draw.

“At the time, Ms. Abdelkader was the only other player who had requested a wild card,” the statement explained.

According to the limited details on her ITF player profile, Abdelkader has been playing tennis for seven years, since she was 14, but many found that hard to believe as she resembled a fish out of water on the court. In a highly technical game, you stand out if you barely know how to hold a racket and Abdelkader often struggled to get the ball over the net.

She made 20 double faults, and she only won three points – all of which were gifted errors from her opponent. At times, it seemed as though Abdelkader didn’t even know where to stand for her serve.

The Egyptian Tennis Federation told CNN Sports that Abdelkader isn’t registered with them, nor is she part of their official player lists.

“Based on the information available to us, the player is currently residing in Kenya,” read their statement. “The Egyptian Tennis Federation had no role whatsoever directly or indirectly in the nomination, approval, or issuance of this wildcard, and we were not involved in the player’s entry into the tournament in any capacity.”

The reaction to her performance from online commentators ranged from bemusement to ridicule, with some observers stating that her opportunity would have come at the expense of a genuinely professional player. ITF tournaments are the lowest tier of the professional game – the victorious Schaedel is ranked No. 1,026 in the world – but they are very much professional events, with important ranking points on the line and the tournament champion in Nairobi will bank $25,000.

Tennis Kenya said that the decision to usher Abdelkader into the main draw was “taken on the information provided and in the interest of maintaining a full and balanced draw while supporting the development of tennis in Africa.”

However, they admit that such a farcical match is something they’d prefer to avoid in the future.

“In hindsight,” they said, “Tennis Kenya acknowledges that this wild card should not have been granted given the level. The federation has taken note of this experience and will ensure that such an extremely rare occurrence never happen again. Tennis Kenya remains committed to fairness, transparency and the integrity of the competition, as well as to the continued development of tennis in Kenya, East Africa and across Africa.”

The match was available to view in full on the ITF website, but it has since been taken offline, without explanation. Tennis Kenya also acknowledged the personal toll that subsequent exposure might have on a young woman, noting that it and the ITF had reached out to Abdelkader and Schaedel to offer support.

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