Tennis Club News
Saturday, September 1, 2007 (Tournament update, 9-5-07)
"Blood hath bought blood and blows have answered blows;
Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted power:
Both are alike; and both alike we like."
-First Citizen
King John
Act 2, Scene 1
"And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus..."
-Maurice Sendak
Alex returns. (She's going to school, but she's working some shifts.)
Welcome back, Alex. The club has missed you.
Rumpii: Players are streaming back from the Vineyard even as we speak. (Although this weekend doesn't reflect the stream. The courts are, er, kinda quiet this weekend.) We expect a full house on Monday for the party. We are expecting a goodly crowd, eager to play, hungry for sociability and frolicsome comity and tennis. We're going to party and play and then play some tournaments. And we'll have one more round robin in September.
The club's fabled Labor Day Party is close at hand. Labor Day is, maybe, the biggest party of the year, a most rambunctious, social, crowded, jolly affair. No fretting, no vexations. Just tennis and eating and drinking and carrying on.
The Labor Day Party consists of pick-up doubles, barbecue, and pot-luck. It is way fun.
For the potluck part of the party, if your name begins with the letters:
- A-P, please bring some fruit or salad, especially salad;
- Q-Z, please bring some desserts.
A contribution would be nice, but it is not mandatory. Carrying on is mandatory. Bring your kids. Bring guests. (A prime time guest fee will be applied, but your guests can stay the day, play all day, eat as much as possible: a deal, we say, a deal.)
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Joe Cortes, co-chair of the Tennis Committee, writes:
Greetings! Come join the excellent tennis and enjoyable atmosphere! Do not miss the fun:
THE 2007 CAMBRIDGE TENNIS CLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS WILL BE HELD IN SEPTEMBER AFTER LABOR DAY (Please note the new official schedule below).
Last year, the Club was electric for 3 weekends as both full and summer members came out in droves to participate in the Club championships. We limited the draws to 16 entrants for all events last year and Club spirit was so high that half the events achieved the full limit of 16 players/teams! The porch was full to capacity for most of the weekends in September as playing and non-playing spectators came to view the exciting matches and partake in the delicious food and refreshments provided by the Tennis Committee. The combatants did not disappoint as numerous matches came down to the wire in tiebreakers and 3 setters.
The format will be the same as last year. Round of 16 and Quarterfinals will be 10 game pro-sets (first one to 10 games wins), with a 12 point tiebreaker at 9-all. Semifinals and Finals will be best 2 out of 3 sets. Consolation draws will be made from first round losers, so everyone is guaranteed two matches. Awards for champions, runners-up and consolation winners. All play will start 8:00am Saturday and finals will be held on Sunday at 11:00 am, 12:30 pm and 2:00 pm. Obviously, all is weather permitting.
Sign up sheets will be posted on the porch bulletin board. Please sign up early as we had to close off a couple of draws days before the deadline last year. Preference will be given to Adult Teams. If you need a partner for doubles, please call Joe Cortes at 617-283-5387. Teams we made up reached the semifinals or won the consolation last year.
The schedule is as follows:
- Saturday and Sunday Sept 8 and 9:
Mixed Doubles Championship
- Saturday and Sunday Sept 15 and 16: Men's Doubles and Women's Singles
- Saturday and Sunday Sept 22 and 23: Women's Doubles and Men's Singles Championships
- Saturday and Sunday October 6 and 7: Rain Date for (in order of priority): Mixed Doubles, Men's Doubles, Women's Doubles, Men's Singles, Women's Singles
- Saturday and Sunday October 13 and 14: Rain Date if necessary
We look forward to seeing you all in September!!
Cambridge Tennis Club Tennis Committee
Mike and Ron have played here a bit lately,
but now they're off to the Open.
The notation, 'Maint,' is appearing on the schedule of late, taking a court out of play for a day here and there. The courts are being leveled by the discreet addition of more clay. The new clay takes a while to set up, to bond, to harden. The tapes are also being tuned. The 'Maint' courts will be very good very soon, in time, we hope for September's heavy play and the tournaments. (Dave DeBassio says that our courts should be models for the clay courts of the world.)
Alert: If you park your car on Mt. Auburn St. in the evening or, even worse, overnight, you risk having your windshield smashed and your car looted. A CTC member, playing in the last round robin, was a recent victim. And we notice, of a morning, some shattered windshields. The street there is between parks. (No one can hear your windshield shatter, and, at night, there are few passers-by.)
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The next Round Robin is scheduled for Wednesday, September 12. The meal will be pizza.
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The staff kindly requests that members observe the rules regarding advance reservations.
(Advance reservations may be made from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and again from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.)
Please don't try to trick the staff, or cajole, confuse, or conjure the staff into giving you an advance reservation at, say, 7:59.99999. No heart breaking stories, please. (My llama is sick. I have to rush her to... I can't wait 'til eight. My Volvo just blew up. I have to save my children. My Golden Retriever just...)
The old house clock was triangulated to the mighty atomic clock in Berne and the Great Cartesian Grid Clock in Oblivia, but now in 2007, we are even more accurate: we use our cell phones and Lennie Singer's cell phone. Lennie's is state of the art. It is something to behold. It just radiates precision. Reservations are not taken until the 8:00 a.m. flashes across the face of what are possibly the most precise timepieces on the planet (and perhaps beyond).
The 'dedicated' court? The club is trying something new this year: a court dedicated all day for the use of the pros. Court 3, usually. The idea is that you members can come to the club any old time and find a pro or a hitting partner and a court and perfect your tennis. The dedicated court is released if no pro has reserved it by 8:00 a.m. the day before. Capiche? (You want a court for 6:00 on Tuesday and they're all booked except for the dedicated court? Call at 8:00 a.m. on Monday. Be happy.)
Please take a look at the new schedule of clinics. This year the club is offering a number of clinics that we haven't had before, some with our new assistant pros.
William Gibson, of Neuromancer fame, said that the future is already here, but that it isn't evenly distributed. CTC has its share: a wireless router. So, if you have a wireless card on your laptop and you want to go somewhere, check with the staff about our password and send your avatar off on adventures.
In case you haven't noticed, we've added some features to the website. Check 'em out.
The club book should be in your hands by now. Much of the information in the book is updated and available on the website.
Some useful links:
Here's a link to the the U.S Open official site. (We read something in the Times about the cost of advertising for the Open: $91 million. Also, the site reminds a person of Times Square, no? A whole lot of commotion. We mean that in a good sense: we like Times Square. And we like commotion.)
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.)
Take a look
at what was happening at this time last year.
Yearbook
link will take you to the last newspage from 2006. 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.
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 said clicker can read the news pages for the whole year (2006). The less-than link (<) next to the honeycomb icon will take clickers to the previous issue of this year's newspage. (Skywriter is for Initiates.)
