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Tennis Club News

Sunday, September 24, 2006

"for when lenity* and cruelty play for a kingdom, the
gentler gamester is the soonest winner."

-KING HENRY V
King Henry V
Act 3, Scene 6

Mike Wiggins and Dave Hemenway

Tournament Note: The Men's Singles Finals, a match between David Hemenway and Mike Wiggins, was played at 3:00 p.m. on Friday, September 22. Dave won a tough match and is the Men's Singles Champ for 2006. Congratulations to Dave, and Mike. (You might take a look at the website's Champions page. David Hemenway wins and wins.)

We are having yet another wild weekend here at the club. The Men's Singles final took place on Friday afternoon and we had a crowd not entirely unlike Fenway's, but more quiet, more...Cambridge Tennis Club intense.

The Men's Doubles Tournament is going on today. Finals are scheduled for 1:00. The newsroom staff is rushing to finish up here and watch the match. Anyone betting against the top seeds?

The Women's Singles Tournament will be held next weekend.

Prime time play is limited by loss of light. The back courts are as dark as the hollow core of the earth by, say, 6:30. On Friday, all three back courts were full at 7:00. Do we worry about darkness? cores of earths? metaphorical darkness? Nah, we're tennis players.

*lenity?

NOUN: 1. Kind, forgiving, or compassionate treatment of or disposition toward others: charity, clemency, grace, lenience, leniency, mercifulness, mercy. See FORGIVENESS. 2. Forbearing or lenient treatment: charitableness, charity, forbearance, indulgence, lenience, leniency, tolerance, toleration. See ACCEPT.

Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition. 1995.

We like the idea sent in by a summer member and we've had some responses. More are promised.

Dear Webmaster, Over past winters, I have fed a dormant trout fishing habit with titles devoted to the subject. The tradition of angling literature is vast, so finding enjoyable reads has not been a problem. That said, the past few months as a summer member at CTC have resulted in a desire to read about tennis as well. So far, I have enjoyed John McPhee's Levels Of The Game and selected tennis pieces from George Plimpton On Sports quite a bit. Would the CTC website readership be able to suggest further titles for a reader who's interested in "reading between the lines"?

Many thanks,
Summer Member

Many people prepare lists of the best tennis books. I have not read widely enough in the genre to attempt it, but I will mention two that while very different, span the spectrum.

Bill Tilden's How to Play Better Tennis is old, but has the virtue of being written by one of the games greats, who thought very carefully about shotmaking, grips, tactics, fitness, and psychology. Tilden writes with great economy of style and clear, descriptive expression. The book is not an autobiography, but one can grasp something of Tilden's approach to the game by the instruction he gives. I have read this book several times and often return to it because of the analytical approach it takes. All in all, well worth the effort to find it.

For a vivid contrast, try John McEnroe's You Cannot be Serious. It is light and quick reading, but it reflects some self-examination of the voyage a wildly gifted teenager took from the amateur ranks, to Stanford, to the professional game. Clearly he was immature when he was exposed to all the headturning celebrity and too indulgent waiver of decent behavior which we grant our youthful athletic prodigies. McEnroe speculates whether his behavior might have been better controlled if he had been defaulted early in his career for his loss of control on the court. Little tennis instruction can be derived from this book and that was not the author's intent, but it does reflect the changes in the game with the rise of fitness as a necessary element of champion's training, and the coming of the power game with the new racquets. While a modest veil of discretion surrounds the discussion of the life on the tour, one can infer a fair amount about what it was like in McEnroe's day, and to some extent, about what it must still be like today.

-Ishmael

(And we heard from a reader who recommends a tennis website:)

Tennis Week is a weekly magazine that is published online as well as in paper copy. Gene Scott was its first editor-in-chief, and Neil Amdur has succeeded him. Amdur was a wonderful tennis writer and sports editor for the New York Times for many years and Editor-in-Chief at World Tennis. The website is Tennis Week.

Tennis Week covers the latest tennis news, it has fine writers such as Richard Evans and Neil Amdur, and it has many interesting interviews of all kinds of people.

I'll send some book titles in the next few days.

-A Player

Joe Cortes says, it's tournament time:

As our president, Phil Crutchfield, noted in a recent e-mail, the Tennis Committee and Board of Governors voted to re-schedule the rained out Men's and Women's Doubles tournaments from June for this coming September. We have also scheduled rain dates for all the tournaments for this coming early fall. You will find below the fall tournament schedule and play format.

There will be food and refreshments throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday of tournament weekends. The Board of Governors has voted to reduce entry fee per player to $20. Players may enter by signing up on sheets posted on the bulletin board and in the clubhouse, or by asking Club staff to add their names to the sign up sheets. Sign up deadlines will be the Monday prior to the weekend the tournament is to be held.

Summer members are allowed to enter the tournaments. Players who wish to play in the doubles tournaments but have trouble finding a partner, please inform Joe Cortes (617-283-5387) or Lenny Singer (617-593-5400) so they can pair you up.

We have designed the tournament weekends to be special Club events for all. Please sign up, participate and meet/play with other Club members. If you are not able to play, please stop by and enjoy viewing the action.

In spite of continued inquiries by members, we will not be able to re-schedule the previously rained out Parent Child Tournament this season as there is no room on the schedule.

Thank you.

The Tennis Committee
Cambridge Tennis Club

Cambridge Tennis Club

Tournaments Schedule and Format

Sep 9 and 10
Draw A: Mixed Doubles

Sep 16 and 17
Draw A: Women's Doubles
Draw B: Men's Singles

Sep 23 and 24
Draw A: Men's Doubles
Draw B: Rain Date for the Mixed Doubles

Sep 30 and Oct 1
Draw A: Women's Singles
Draw B: Rain Date for the Men's Doubles

Oct 8 and Oct 9
Draw A: Rain Date for the Women's Singles
Draw B: Rain Date for the Men's Singles
Draw C: Rain Date for the Women's Doubles

The Tennis Committee reserves the right to amend the following weekend tournament schedule in the event of uncertain weather or larger or smaller draws. The schedule for each weekend shall be:

Round of 16
For draws larger than 8 entrants, all matches prior to the Quarterfinals shall be played by the Friday night before the Saturday quarterfinals.

Saturday:
8:30 AM -- Draw A Quarterfinals
11:00 AM -- Draw B Quarterfinals
1:30 PM -- Draw A and Draw B Semifinals

Sunday:
10:30AM -- Draw A and Draw B Finals

Consolation
Consolation draws for losers of their first matches will be held for the following draws:

Mixed Doubles
Men’s Doubles, if the Mixed Doubles is not rained out on Sep 9 and 10
Women’s Singles, if the Men’s Doubles is not rained out Sep 23 and 24

Consolation match schedules will be set the Friday of the weekend the event is held.

The schedule for Oct 8 and 9 shall be determined based on how many tournaments are rained out for play on that date.

Match format for all rounds prior to the finals shall be a 10 game pro set with no ad scoring. All Finals shall be best 2 out of 3 sets with 12 point tiebreaker at 6-all in the set.

Joseph Cortes
(617) 283-5387

The club book should be in your hands always. Meanwhile, much of the book's information is now available on the website. (Thanks to Sheila and Ann for getting the info to us in a timely fashion.) Events, Rules, Governors and Committees are all updated, as is the New Members List. When is the next Round Robin?

The Waiting List for membership is posted online. You can find it, in chronological order, of course, in the FAQ section of the website.

The website has a long overdue new feature: a Champions Page (recently updated). Check it out.

The website has another new and important feature, the President's Corner. Check it out.

And we've added new info on the membership process. Check out MEMBERSHIP.

Some useful links:

Here's a link to the espn site, with pro ranking.

And a club member (let's call him Sol) suggested a link to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I. The site is rich.

We still have the tournament draws (from 2001 to 2004) available on-line (including all of the results), thanks to the Java Kid. We are re-locating the links, however.

"On the court, tennis players exchange not only ground strokes but lots of information. It's a richly interactive sport, both verbally and non-verbally. If players communicate clearly, simply, and consistently, the game will proceed more quickly, and with less fuss and misunderstanding. Here are a few guidelines that can make the game more fun, friendly, and fair for all...."

We've had some requests to run Craig Lambert's piece, sampled above, on Tennis Communication. (We'd better leave this link up on the newspage permanently.)

Website note: The website does have all of the information available in the club book on-line except the membership directory.

'Timelines' is for adepts.

Yearbook link will take you to the last newspage from 2005. From there you can see the whole of the Persistent Archive of last year's news.

Website Note: The time and temperature icon below is a link to a Boston weather site.

Joe DeBassio, Webmaster

Website Note II: The honey-comb icon is also a link. It takes the clicker to an archive of all the past news pages so that you can read the news pages for the whole year (2006). The less-than link (<) next to the honeycomb icon will take you to the previous issue of this year's newspage.

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