Snatching away Victory

I so wanted to chronicle this match to reread it for the later years of my life.
Played on 10/18/2011, Tuesday Worldgate.
This has been one of my best wins in recent memory
I had never played with Gina as partner infact I met her for the first time before the match. Considering this was a first together I was happy with how well we played together,pushed each other when it was needed.

We were playing at Worldgate where the courts are really fast. Talking about fast the 1st set was over quickly, our opponents winning it 6-1.
It is hard to believe we came back from there to win the 2nd set 6-2!

The 3rd set 10 point tiebreak was also closely contested until 5-5. Then we ran away with it to 9-5. At this point I start thinking "is this really happening" but I am glad that I was able to quieten my thoughts about victory and focus on the point at hand.
We won 10-7 phew! what a match. hop , skip, hug, shakehands

At times like these I wish I could take a slice of my mindset(how shall I describe it, calm, focussed,positive and relishing the competition) and set it aside for reference in real life :)

Another Day Another Happy Match

*Memorable matches are not the ones that you win but really the ones that you earn.
*I realise during a match "right now all my problems are defined in this tiny 36 * 78 box as against the entire realm of problems in life"..how nice!.
*As I add years to my life I realise how much I enjoy playing a tennis match. I have a new found love for singles tennis. I relish the hardwork that goes into winning a tennis match.
*I am happy to have found a good team to be a part of
Happy Weekend Everyone!

Maria Sharapova

photo courtesy:tennis.com


This is such a beautiful photo.It sums up Sharapova's personality.Never Say Die.
French Open is the only grand slam that Maria is yet to win. It would have been easy for her
to give up and say, hey its clay, not my surface; like many players tend to think.
Not Maria, not even when she is pitted against the veteran Justine Henin. Henin did win but Sharapova went down ...well fighting.

Good Tennis Player vs Good Match Player

I always used to wonder is playing good tennis enough to win a match?
Over the years I have realised it is not necessarily true.
A good tennis player hits deep shots, takes the ball early, hits winners of loose balls, has a very good serve.
Now a good match player:
Thinks a little in between points
1)Is the opponent a lefty? then serve to the forehand
2)Can your opponent not run very fast? then instead of smashing the ball, just place the ball far from the opponent.
3)Is your A game not working?
then at least keep the ball in play, sometimes you have to win with "not your best tennis"
Today I felt a little more complete as a player when I won a singles match 6-3,6-2.
Sometimes using the brain helps :)

Some of the Best things in life are Free

I had been playing tennis for about 4 months, almost 4-5 days a week, and I was ready to graduate from my 60$ wilson racquet for beginners to a more advanced one. The best way to go about doing this was to get a demo racquet from one of the sports stores(Dicks sports in this case). A demo program as the name suggests is where they let you try out some racquets for a nominal fee before buying one. I picked a few demo racquets and left my existing one with them for restringing(all the racquets lose their tension over time and you have to restring them).
Of all the racquets I had picked I liked the Prince O3 Red the best. It was head heavy(throwing in some techie terms to up the cool factor) and seemed to give a lot of power to my shots. But at 220$ it begged the question, "was it worth it?". Still undecided a week later I went back to return the demo pieces and get my restrung racquet back. But we had another thing coming, the restringer informed us that he had misplaced my racquet and that I should try coming back another time. He seemed really sorry and he let me keep the demo racquet for another week. Only I knew how happy that made me. The next day Vinay and I were going on our first tennis vacation to a tennis camp in the beautiful Catskills mountains in Upstate New York. I was thrilled to go to the camp with the Prince racquet.
The camp was fun and I returned to Dicks with the demo racquet and a 220$ question mark on my head. The stringer, during this time, had managed to find my original and guess what he tells me.... "Since you guys were so nice even though I misplaced your racquet, I am going to let you keep this Prince racquet for free". I couldn't believe what I had just heard. Vinay and I actually ran away lest he would change his mind.
The Prince racquet has served me well over the last 4 years, its been my best weapon on the court :)
I have tried several other racquets with the quest of more power or more control but this "Prince" is the one and the fact that it was free makes me wanna jump with Joy

One more

Yesterday was another one of those nights when I was really thankful that I play tennis.
This match was against Ed and Susan(mixed doubles). I know Ed as a very good player so I was little surprised when we broke his serve right away in the first game. My partner Steven so rightly said hey just because we broke him doesnt mean anything, he is one of those guys who just won't go away.
We managed to stay on top the first set and win it 6-4. But sometimes winning a set against good players drains you so much mentally that you tend to take a breather and if in the following set your opponent is first to serve, it could mean trouble. They are eager to make a statement and you are still riding on the high; not a good combination. We lost the 2nd set 6-0 :( !@#$.
The third set was going to be an uphill battle and what with these being timed matches(2 hours for mixed doubles) the odds were stacked pretty high against us.
I played some really agressive tennis in the 3rd of which I am proud. I felt I had really grown up in the last 2 years or so. If this were a match I played about 3 years ago I would have surely given up, pacified myself saying "I will practise more off court" , "Will take more lessons" etc etc but this time I fought, I told myself everything lies here and now.
We were tied up 4-all in the 3rd set when the buzzer went off signaling end of the match. The tie made the 3rd set invalid and they won by virtue of more number of games in their pocket.
It sucks to lose but the battle we put up there did something good for my spirit :)

Australian Open 2010 Notebook

It was heartwarming to see the women's side have a good number of strong players.
~although Sharapova was out in the 1st round, Maria Kirilenko has entered my list of watchable players, good luck new Maria!
~It was sad that Dementieva had to go out in the 2nd round but I would take Justine Henin any day :)
~Kim Clijsters was beaten throughly in the 3rd round; well fairy tales do come to an end baby .... the real Kim it is time for you to make a return.
~I pray and I haven't prayed so hard for anything...please somebody oust Venus Williams; Commando Venus Williams now that is nightmarish stuff. I feel like screaming everytime I see her on TV with that skimpy outfit which she is actually proud of having designed....aaaaghhhhh

~Federer is his usual "lets get over with the first few rounds" self after that tight 1st round match. Looks like he is well on his way to his 16th....Go Roger.