News

Last Wednesday the club heard some wonderful jazz from Soundcloud. We had a goodly crowd and the night was wicked fun.

The newsroom staff has been off, larking about in D.C. where the weather was more amiable than in Cambridge, we hear. We'd like to hear more of what went on at the club. Oh reporters, please report. Check in with news so's we can spread the word. (We always invite input. Criticisms, comments, observations, jokes, issues, questions, answers, etc.)

Maintenance? We see that lately, here and there, a court is closed for a good part of the day for maintenance. What's up with that?

Well, our beautiful Har-Tru courts get worn down a bit with heavy play, and we've had plenty heavy play of late. So clay, or rather, Har-Tru is judiciously added to low spots to level the courts. The new clay has to "become court," in the words of a The Court Rat. It has to bind to the court. The Har-Tru is spread with a lute, then brushed and watered and rolled and brushed and watered and rolled. All this takes some time. And it is helpful if the court and the new material can bake for a while, you know, set up. We've had very hot weather and the courts have baked nicely so we've been able to open 'patched courts in the afternoon. The courts are pretty level and true, and we hope, worth the wait.

We have some sort of reciprocity with the Mt. Auburn Club. What is the deal?

Level 5

Level 4 Liz Herbert,

Level 3 Jessica Young, Faith Moore, Margo Dhaliwal, Mary Tittmann, Jennifer Sunkle, Sharon Black,

Level 2 Carol Streit, Lindsay Frazier, Donna Gordon, Katherine Radeljic, Julia Moore, ShiSheng Chow, Nancy Sinsabaugh,

Level 1 Vicki Volz, Margie Bride, Becky Boyd, Leslie Homans, Sue Matkoski, Jeannette McInnes, Mary Akerson, ,

Men's Ladder

Level 5

Level 4 Peter Urban, Csaba Pazmany,

Level 3 Dan Hogan, Slater Anderson, Stephen Kendall, Kevin Cummings, Pierce Harman, Jackson Hall,

Level 2 Eric Aronson, Art O’ Keeffe, Tim Bancroft, Tony Shull, Charlie Ackerman, Modestino Conte, Peter Levitt, Stuart Taylor, Blake Allison, Stu Richards, Craig Lambert, Duncan Reece

Level 1 Tom Ames, Jaime Dalmeida, Bill Winkler, Wick Sloane, Joe Barbieri, Chris Jeffrey, Chris Kimball

Pierce Harman took zillions of pictures at the Memorial Day party, most of which can be found at:

Pierce Harman.zenfolio. com/ctc_memorial.

The club book should be in your hands always. In the case of some misfortune whereby the book is not, the website has all of the year's activities and other info up-to-date.

We have another flavorful contribution from one of our tennis gurus, Craig Lambert:

Tennis Ball Management

1. When rallying with three tennis balls on the court, when one player holds two while the other has one, the person with TWO balls starts the rally. This gives a way to decide who hits the first ball.

2. After a point or rally is over, do not return balls to the other player by raining them at his or her back as s/he walks to the baseline. Wait until the player faces you to return balls. The exclamation “Coming!” should never, or almost never, be heard on the tennis court. (Not, at least, not during a tennis match.)

3. In general, wait until you get to the baseline before requesting the return of balls for the next point. Don’t stand at the net and raise your hand to receive balls. It’s more difficult for the other player to hit a catchable ball to you there, and it’s harder to catch one on the fly than on the bounce.

4. When someone’s first serve is a let, call out: “Let! First serve!” Or, if the ball hits the net cord and goes over, but is a fault, call, “Second serve!” Do not exclaim, “Two!” to mean “First serve!” or “One!” to mean “Second serve!”

5. If the server has two balls in hand, start the point. Don’t waste time throwing balls around the court—i.e., by providing the server an unnecessary third ball Usually you only have one hour on the tennis court: use those minutes for playing tennis, not throwing balls around.

6. Similarly, in doubles, start the point when the server has two balls. If, on the receiving team, you have the third ball, put it in your pocket or under your skirt and receive serve. Don’t waste time throwing the third ball to the server’s partner— there is no need of a middleman. When the server needs another ball, take it out and hit it to him or her directly.

7. When a ball of yours travels onto an adjoining court, the standard way to request its return is to yell, “Thank you!” in the direction of that court. That performs double duty by making a request while simultaneously giving thanks for its fulfillment. Please wait until the other players have finished their point, if they are playing one, before yelling this.

8. When you are done playing, pick up all the balls and ball cans (and anything else you have brought onto the court) and take them away with you. To leave such items behind for others to take care of is to be a litterbug. Instead, be an adult and clean up after yourself.

The club has a new member named Pierce Harman who is, aside from being last year's Singles Champ, a professional photographer. Pierce seems to be mighty good at action shots. You can take a look at a slide show of Pierce's action shots of club members: 2012 slideshow. You might also follow the link to the section of Pierce's website to see a whole gallery of CTC pictures.

Some links of interest:

ATP World Tour

WTA Tennis

The club is booking courtson-line through a program some of you might know from the Mt. Auburn Club, Bookings Plus. What fun, what excruciating fun! Yup, no more painful dialing and re-dialing and hoping against hope that you can get that prime-time court. You will still be able to call the clubhouse between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. and talk to a friendly, playful staff-person who can enter your on-line reservation for you, but doing it yourself will be so much more gratifying and easier. And did we say fun? The on-line reservation system, as well as our regular phone reservations, will go live when the courts are open. Please note the link to our reservation system over there on the left in the table of contents. The link will also give you a brief tutorial on how to use on-line reservations and thereby increase your fun.

Much to our surprise and de-light, folks seem to be availing themselves of on-line reservations. As we get busier, you might try to click on at 8:00 a.m. exactly.

Note that your passwords have changed. Read the Bookings Plus blurb about the change. It is still easy and wicked fun.

Craig Lambert wrote a must-read article for Harvard Magazine about Bruce Wright's take on the 'high set' stance and movement in tennis. Take a look: High Set The article is accompanied by a separate video demonstrating the technique. High Set Video Thanks, Craig, for sending this nifty technical riff along to us.

The book? Membership for the coming year hasn't been settled, so the book will be a while in the making. In the meantime, the website will be updated as data dribbles in.

We are going to try out a new feature on the newspage. Let's call it The Book Blurb. The Blurb will note books not necessarily about tennis, but authored by CTC members. So, if you members have recently, or maybe not so recently, written a book that you'd like blurbed, please let us know.

Let's start with:

"The fundamental question of information philosophy is cosmological and ultimately metaphysical. What is the process that creates information structures in the universe?" Heady stuff, no?Well, the club's own Bob Doyle who works much magic here behind the scenes tackled this little issue in his book, Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy. And the club's own Craig Lambert wrote a nifty, readable article for Harvard Magazine on Bob and his place in the free will issue. Take a look at Craig's article,
Two Steps to Free Will.
In the midst of renovating garages and ruling vast sectors of cyberspace, Bob Doyle wrote a bit of a magnum opus: Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy by Bob Doyle. "The fundamental question of information philosophy is cosmological and ultimately metaphysical. What is the process that creates information structures in the universe?"

We have a new book by a club member, Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women's Sports, by club member, Susan Ware. The book is: A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Sports Book.

We have some new books from club member, Julie Baer:

Love Me Later

Julie Baer presents us with a unique book. Her fantastic artwork depicts nature and people in a special way. -- Bookreviewcafe.com

I Only Like What I Like

"CHILDREN BEWARE –will have you trying the untried, 'cause it's FUN! The collages fill you up to the eyeballs."

Take a look at: William P. Homans, Jr., A Life in Court, by Mark S. Brodin. Bill Homans was a long time member of the club with "a storied legal career." A lot of folks at the club knew and liked Bill. He could tell a story or two, couldn't he?

We want to mention New Classic American Houses, a book by Dan Cooper about the architecture of Albert, Righter, and our own John Tittmann. "New Classic American Houses is an architectural page-turner brimming with creative interpretations of traditional forms."

Hot off the presses, a new book by Faith Moore, Celebrating a Life, Planning Memorial Services and Other Creative Remembrances. "Celebrating a Life" provides the ideas, inspiration, and how-to advice needed for creating a meaningful memorial service. Light-hearted but sensitive, this thoughtful guide covers it all."
While We Were Sleeping by David Hemenway.

"This book powerfully illuminates how public health works with more than sixty success stories drawn from the area of injury and violence prevention."

The Parents We Mean To Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development by Rick Weissbourd.

The New Yorker review said, "In this ardent and persuasive inquiry, Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist, warns that 'happiness-besotted' parents do children a disservice by emphasizing personal fulfillment over empathy."

The club directory should be in your hands always. The website has all of the information in the book except 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.

"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.

The Yearbook link will take you to the last newspage from 2012. 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.

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 (2013). The less-than link (<) next to the honeycomb icon will take clickers to the previous issue of this year's newspage.

Tennis Club News

Wednesday, July 31, 2013