Run for your life!

16 members showed up this morning for a Cardio Tennis workout, a record number. Aaron and Hanna kept everyone buys on the two teaching courts, forcing Director Wolf to move up to the Rt. 9 courts for his lesson.

Cardio Tennis is pure workout. If you want to work on your quickness by running down balls left and right, this is for you. If you prefer to do a few drills and play doubles at the end, Cardio is not for you. If you want to get on the list for the next Cardio Tennis, call the Pro Shop.

Women's Saturday Clinic

For those women who are able to play during the day, we have been offering many different women's clinics over the years. This season we are introducing a Saturday afternoon clinic for the players on or close to the 4.0 rating.

Last Saturday Coach Larry ran 4 women through different drills on one of the teaching courts. Instruction included court positioning for doubles as well as stroke production (volleys, groundstrokes, down the line, cross court, etc.).

Captains dilemma

Being a team captain for a Spring League team can be easy when everything is moving along smoothly. Especially if nobody on the team is injured and the weather forecast says sun and blue sky. Everyone just shows up and plays. No big deal. But then there is the Longwood Green team that has to play TCC this week, which typically is our toughest opponent every spring. Combined with a weather forecast that predicts rain for the next 3 days, it is a tough job for Captain Liz to set the line up. Some of todays practice time was spent figuring out who should play together. "Maybe X could play with Y, but X plays better with Z, so mabye X should play with Z, and I could play with Y". As we are playing at TCC, we know that the surface will be clay indoors. As for our line up, only the Captain knows what the final line up will look like. And you can be sure that we will not announce it on this blog prior to the game, as you don't know where the enemy will gather information about our team.

Great practice today with the Green team. Lots of volleys and groundstrokes. On my station the net players isolated a baseline player on either the deuce or the add side. The baseline player at the same time had to hit low balls, trying not to give the net players easy high balls. Lobs were banned in this drill.

The team goofing around at the water cooler.

What do you think? Should X play with Z?

Mens Drill Clinic

Saturday was a busy day with the new member reception, Wilson demo day, and the Men's Drill Clinic. Seven guys showed up to the first of the weekly Drill Clinics. We had a late cancellation, otherwise it would have been a full house of 8 players.

Coach Wolf and Nicklasson ran the players through some volley drills, approach drills, and court positioning drills, until the group warmed up serves and finished with some doubles.

This Men's Drill Clinic targets players in the 3.5 - 4.0 range. The time is 1:30-3:00 on Saturdays. Weekly sign up, by calling the pro shop. The ratio is 4:1, so no more than 4 players on each court. Call the pro shop now to sign up for next week!

Happy, tired men and Coaches

New Member RR and Wilson Demo Day

The club house was filled this morning with new and old members. It was the new member reception and round robin. Buks, Larry, Fred, and Larry again shared information about the club and upcoming events this summer. Then the fun started when everyone went on the courts for some tennis. Paul did a good job getting everyone involved on a limited number of available courts. New member Pablo was out there playing non stop from 10:45 to 4:15 when I left the club. He's probably still playing as you read this. Snacks had been advertised, but I didn't see any. Tony?? But maybe snacks were served when I had my lesson at 12 noon. Below some pictures from the RR. Although not sunny, the conditions were excellent, and great tennis was played by all.

Tennis Director and Tennis Host

 Wilson was on site to let everyone try out the new Wilson rackets. The Wilson line has some popular models out now, as for instance the Juice. I play with the Pro Staff Six.One BLX 100.  Most Wilson models are available in the pro shop.

Longwood member and Wilson rep.

Bags full of rackets

Wilson demo day on Saturday May 5th

On Saturday, May 5th, you can demo the new Wilson rackets at the club. The Wilson rep is on site and can answer any questions you may have, and can provide you with a variety of rackets to try out. Why not try Federer's Pro Staff Six.One 90 BLX? It comes with a leather grip!

Div. 1 A Pink Longwood Green Homegame

Testing, testing... OK! Dear readers, once again we are blogging live from the Longwood Cricket Club. In the blogger booth is Magnus. It's the Longwood Green team that is playing against Lincoln. The LCC 1 A Pink team is captained by Liz O'Connell. The weather is a little iffy here at Chestnut Hill. We had some rain this morning but now it's just misty. It actually just stopped raining. The court is a little damp and the balls are a little heavier. The grounds did a good job getting the courts ready for this battle.

The teams are spinning a racket and it seems as if Jean and Katrina on the Longwood team won the toss. Yes, they did win the toss and they will start out serving. Great! The Longwood team is hitting from left to right across your computer screen.

Katrina is serving first. She bounces the ball, takes aim, and there she fires the first serve to the wide corner. Return goes cross court and Katrina has moved in and volleys back cross court to the Lincoln player Chance. The ball comes back to Katrina and it's a low volley, she just puts it back deep cross court. Good point here the first point in the match. Lincoln hits another cross court and Katrina puts her backhand volley in the middle between the two players. 15 - 0. Nice point.

From this first point I think we can see that the Longwood team is going to play agressively and take the net. Here comes the next point. Katrina bounces the ball. She's still bouncing it. Must be some odd service routine she learned from Dave. Not sure. Anyway, here comes the serve. It's going to the T, the inside return goes back to the middle and Jean is movig for it. Can she get it? Yes! She gets to the ball and the ball just dies on the other side of the net. The soft court took away the bounce. 30 - 0.

Next serve. She's bouncing the ball again.... A good serve that goes wide to the T. She hasn't missed a first serve yet. The return goes back cross court in front of Katrina, and she pops it up high. Here comes Laura from Lincoln and she hits a high volley down the line for a winner. Good point. 30 - 15.

Strategy meeting

A good serve

Now serving to the add side. Chance returns down the line. It's a good solid return but Jean is watching the alley and she volleys the ball back to the Lincoln player. Another bomb from the baseline, Chance hits to the middle. Katrina closes in very well and she volleys back cross court. Watch out for the lob now ladies. And there it is! The Lincoln player lobs the ball - didn't I just say that? - and Jean is going back for the over head. A lefty, Jean should be in a good position to put away the over head, and she does. 40 - 15.

We are up two game points and it looks as if we will take a lead here in the first set. Katrina is ready to serve. I guess not. Jean is walking back to Katrina, they have a little talk here. Who knows. Maybe they want to do a planned poach or play an Australian formation. Jean is moving back to her ready position. I don't see anything different here, ladies and gentlemen. Not sure what they were talking about. Anyway, here comes the serve. The return goes into the net. A soft return, and Longwood closes out this first game. 1 - 0.

You can find the score from todays matches at the Spring League Website.