Tennis Club News
Sunday, September 16, 2007
...."let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot"
-King Henry V
Act 3, Scene 1
Peter Maggs and RoAnn Costin with tournament winners,
Michelle Schaffer and David Hemenway.
Tournament Frenzy:
The tournaments are all crammed into a couple of weekends. Stamina is needed to march through different rounds and make it to the finals. This weekend we have the Women's Doubles Tournament and the Men's Singles Tournament. Fans are welcome.
Men's Doubles Tournament Winners, Joe Cortes and Alex Pang
and runners-up, David Hemenway and Jim Baldwin.
Thanks to Joe Cortes and Lennie Singer for working hard to make the tournaments go.
Here's Len with coffee and bagels to inspire and energize.
Let's hear from some members:
"As far as we know, this is a CTC first: a game of mixed doubles played at 7 AM. The historic milestone was recorded on Friday, September 14, when Faith Moore, Kate Canfield, Tim Bancroft, and Craig Lambert played a set of mixed at 7 AM. Moore and Lambert prevailed—barely—6-4. Or, does anyone out there know of a previous occasion?"
-Craig Lambert
"(Our tournament opponents) are beatable. (X) has really lost a step. We could have beaten them. We should have beaten them. What we have to do is practice and play and practice and play as a team for the next 11 months and then take them on again."
-Anon, with permission to quote.
-Hello, Tennis Club here, how may I help you?
-I'd like to make a reservation for Tues....
-Sorry, it's not 8:00 a.m. yet. It's only 7:56. You're not even close.
-I have 8:00 on my watch.
-It's not 8. Check your cellphone.
-My watch is a Rolex.
-Anon, with permission to quote.
The weather is balmy: players are flocking to the club. Darkness eats the back courts at what? 7:00.
Note: Johanne is teaching a doubles clinic on Thursday evening, from 5:30 to 7:00. Advance sign-up is required so that the court can be released if there is not enough interest.
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
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.)
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. (Last year's tournaments.)
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.)
