An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
I am living in fear that at some point in the near future the management at my new tennis club will wake up to the fact that giving me 24×7 access to indoor courts and unlimited ball machine usage is a bad idea. Until then, I will continue to haunt the facility in the wee hours of the morning working on my technique and consistency. This brings us to the topic of Billie Jean King’s Eye Coach.
Tennis players who pay any attention to current news are inundated with frequent articles touting the health benefits of playing the sport. The fact that tennis players have more positive health measures is backed up by reputable independent research data. A couple of weeks ago, the USTA issued a press release that illustrates that point. It pointed to “one of the largest tennis-specific studies performed to date.” Today we are taking a look at the report summarizing that research.
The story of the Fiend at Court Spousal Unit chipping ice off courts in order to get a league match played last weekend inadvertently set off a cavalcade of similarly themed photos. As it turns out, there are a lot of players in our orbit who essentially did the same thing. Many went out to their local courts armed with lawn tools last weekend.
Yesterday I shared a photo that illustrated that some players in the DFW area chipped ice off a court at Hurst Tennis Center in order to get some USTA League matches played as scheduled. Today I am sharing another photo from earlier in the week that shows that the courts a couple of miles away at Richland Tennis Center were fully playable. This photo was provided courtesy of Bobby Reeves who is the Head Tennis Pro at that facility.
Many years ago I once chipped ice off a tennis court before playing a junior match in the Cotton Bowl tennis tournament. That event is an indelible part of our family lore. To add insult to injury, I lost the ensuing match. The Umpire who Gave Birth To Me watched me play from the cozy confines of the pro shop. She was less than impressed with my level of energy during the match as evidenced by the fact that I never took my sweats off. It was c-c-c-c-old.
When mapping out books to cover during Black History month this year, Zina: My Life in Women’s Tennis was an immediate selection. Zina Garrison emerged from a public park’s program in Houston, which makes her book an obvious choice for a tennis blog sourced from Texas. Additionally, she was my Dad’s favorite player. It was a foregone conclusion that this book would come up pretty quickly in the rotation.
There are a handful of adaptations in the Rules of Wheelchair tennis regarding the serve. Most notable of these is that that the service motion starts from a stationary position. However, the player delivering the service is permitted one push to build momentum before striking the ball.
The recent spate of arctic weather makes this the perfect time to discuss the inflatable tennis bubble. Desmond Margetson, a black American tennis player and engineer is the inventor of the structure that enables seasonal indoor tennis. Since February is designated as Black History month AND the week of February 21-27 is designated as “Engineers Week” it is the perfect time to discuss the tennis bubble.
“Tennis is the perfect social-distancing sport—and the numbers continue to prove it.” That is the first line from a USTA news article last week touting an increase in tennis participation in the United States. The headline of the same press release is “U.S. tennis participation surges in 2020, Physical Activity Council (PAC) report finds.” So what exactly is the PAC and what is in that report?
When I came across a couple of 80’s era tennis outfits featured in “The 80’s Called: Vintage Elesse Tennis Clothes,” I was wondering if the house of the Umpire Who Gave Birth to me would eventually surrender a picture of me wearing those ensembles from my playing days. I had a lot of time to sift through boxes of old photos last week as Texas endured 3rd world country performance of the power grid amidst winter storms. Fun times.