An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
Sometimes a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Information gleaned from books on tennis can be used to make you a better player. Alternatively it can be used to highlight deficiencies in your game that will never be corrected. Sometimes you just have to be who you are.
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I suspect that many tennis players frequently use search engines to locate the answers to their tennis questions. I have to admit that it is always going to be faster to consult the internet for tennis information as opposed to reading a book. That statement is true even when there is an ebook available for instant download. However, I firmly believe that tennis players who never read books about the sport are stunting their own tennis development.
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Heading into New Year’s Eve last year, I shared 12 “Gifts” that people can give themselves to improve the quality of their tennis life. Each of these items is a tennis related life hack shamelessly adapted from a career development webinar gave a while back for cybersecurity professionals. In 2022, I am taking an in-depth look at each one of those items on first Friday of each month. The “Gift” for May is to read a new tennis book.
I am guessing that most recreational tennis players are already familiar with Ian Westerman through his online site, Essential Tennis. He is a prolific producer of instructional videos, blog posts, and podcasts. Soon there will be another offering to add to the list. I recently received an advance copy of Essential Tennis: Improve Faster, Play Smarter, and Win More Matches. Based on that first look it may be the best packaging of Westerman’s message yet.
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Last weekend in a semi-final match in Estoril, a ball struck one of the on-court sensors used by the FoxTenn line calling system. Sebastian Korda hit a ball that tipped the net cord and went almost straight up. Before the ball struck the ground it came into contact with one of the black boxes installed at the bottom of the net that houses the sensors/cameras. That unlikely occurrence presents an interesting case study of the rules.
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I’m not going to lie. My life was better before ice massage became an essential part of my daily routine. Between the injury to my foot and chronic tenderness in my elbow, I am starting to develop personal preferences and opinions in the best form factors to use for ice massage. This is what my life has come to.
The NCAA Division I Championships gets underway in May with free live and on-demand streaming opportunities. Boris Becker is in jail after being convicted of hiding assets to avoid paying debts. The Citi-Open gets a shocking new sponsor.
The USTA’s point-per-round philosophy is readily apparent when examining the ranking points tables for single group round robin tournaments. The fact that tables is plural isn’t a typo. Two tables were in effect for different time periods in 2021. Both the original tables and the changes that were made reflects a misguided dedication to a points-per-round philosophy. The USTA is making the problem much harder to solve than it needs to be.
The very last rankings point table in the USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System document is for Team Tennis events. In the Adult context, I am guessing that people generally associate Team Tennis with USTA League play, but that isn’t what we are talking about here. I suspect that most Adult Tournament players are not even aware that Team Tennis is a valid tournament format and that it is actively used.
A couple of years ago, the USTA unveiled a new unified adult tournament framework. One of the breathless exhortations about it touted “ONE nationwide points-per-round ranking system.” It is a perplexing statement because neither the current nor any of the legacy ranking systems are in actuality points-per-round systems. The misnomer may be at the root of misunderstanding on how an effective ranking system should be structured within the USTA.
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