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Lighten Up: The Happiness Project Courting: A Tennis Memoir A Case Against NTRP Ratings Expiration Putting It All Together: My Daily Plantar Fasciitis Prevention Routine Tennis Beyond the Headlines: March 31, 2025 A Mother’s Day and Father’s Day Gift Idea A Great Gift for Grads… and Tennis Players

Best of Five and the WTA

I was sitting at a computer in my local public library when realized that this project had transformed from a casual hobby into borderline obsession. For the first time I was compelled to step up the research beyond materials that I either owned or could access directly on the internet. “Best of Five” set matches for women was the topic that precipitated that transformation.

Tie-Break Games and Bag Tags

As I continue my walk down memory lane of this site’s posts in 2020, I am confronted by the Fiend at Court bag tags. These tags were printed with the relevant rules for how to start a new set following the conclusion of a tie-break game. I designed and ordered the bag tags in anticipation that I would use them as a business card for anyone who showed an interest in this site. I would have anticipated that all of the bag tags would be gone by now.

Separate (But Unequal) Balls

One of my favorite discoveries from 2020 was the fact that the US Open uses different balls for the men and women’s events. That fact was casually mentioned in this site’s discussion of the manufacture and construction of the tennis ball. In retrospect, that topic is worthy of a post devoted entirely to that fact. Today I am correcting that oversight.

Tennis Net Tension, Pickleball, and Wrenches

In the earliest days of this site, I posed the rhetorical question, “How do I not routinely carry a socket wrench in my bag to adjust net tension?” That quote came from “I just can’t handle the tension!” which was published on January 9, 2020 and discussed the rules around the proper tension for the net. At the time, I lamented that I had never seen a USTA umpire check the tension of the net prior to the match.