Monday Night Team Tennis Opening Night 2012

Exactly 40 players came out to play Monday Night Team Tennis (MNTT) on a beautiful Monday night. For those of you who are new to the club, the MNTT is a competitive event between Larry and Magnus, who draft players to their respective team. Once the rosters are determined, about 6:05 PM, the battle begins. We play 3 rounds of tennis: doubles, mixed doubles, doubles. The format is no add scoring, and a total of 8 games. A reason why many members are so enthusiastic about Monday night is that there is no sign up in advance, just show up and play. Sign up is at the club outside of the Pro Shop, starting around 5:30. The idea is that the matches starts as close to 6:00 as possible. If you are arriving at the club at 6:15 the matches are already in progress.

On this first MNTT of the year, it turned out that the first round was key to victory. Coach Magnus' team came out to a jump start and took a comanding 20 points lead, and from there didn't look back. Although the round of Mixed Doubles was dead even, 40-40 points, Magnus's team rolled on to win the third round 45-35, and was declared winners of the event.

 

The winning team gets to enjoy a free drink afterwards on behalf of the runner ups. The players on the losing team are charged for 2 drinks: 1 for themselves, and one for an opponent. Wine and beer is charged a minimal price equal to a soda. Tony also provides some delicious finger food afterwards. If you haven't participated in the MNTT yet, come down next Monday and play!

 

Final Score: Team Larry 103, Team Magnus 137

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!