Today, all the courts were filled with frolicsome doubles players. Frolicsome.
"...momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion."
Lysander
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Act 1, Scene 1
Darkness falls all right. Sunlight hits only the tops of the tall trees at 7:00 a.m. and daylight leaves the back courts at about 7:00 p.m., making them unplayable in that 7-8 hour. But between 7 and 7, the courts are great, the days are sparkling, and tennis is a wondrous activity. Come play.
Tournaments: The tournaments scheduled for last weekend, let's see, the Women's Doubles and the Men's Singles have been re-scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 27 and 28. This weekend, Saturday and Sunday, we have Men's Doubles and Women's Singles. The Men's tournament has 10 teams, and some of them are, um, interesting combos. All women players start at 8:00 a.m. and all men's teams at 9:30. (We are a-waiting the draw-sheets with great anticipation, but Joe Cortes says, don't worry about who your opponent is. Just show up and play.)
All of the courts are reserved for tournament play from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
We heard some new (?) tennis terminology regarding line calls: a 'widey,' and a 'longy.'
| The next Round Robin is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 17.The meal will be catered, in spite of what the club book tells us. Tennis starts at 6:00. |
Note: September is, usually, our second busiest month. September also brings us, sadly, darkness at prime time. Sorry, but the back courts are too dark to be used beyond, say, 7:00. The competition for the lighted front courts becomes intense. Thousands and thousands of members try to call at exactly 8:00 a.m. The club does not have banks of phones manned by idealistic volunteers, ready to take your calls. Some caller is going to be answered first, at exactly 8:00 a.m., and some are going to be ninth or fiftieth. And by 8:03, many courts are going to be reserved.
Let's post Joe Cortes' email about the tournaments so's we have an easy to find reference:
THE 2007 CAMBRIDGE TENNIS CLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS WILL BE HELD IN SEPTEMBER AFTER LABOR DAY (Please note the official schedule below).
The last 2 years, the Club has been 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 and Club spirit was so high that many of 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 including two of the finals.
The format will be the same. Round of 16 and Quarterfinals will be 10 game pro-sets (first one to 10 games wins, ad scoring), 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 are posted on the porch bulletin board. Please sign up early as we had to close off a couple of draws days before the deadline. Preference will be given to Adult Teams. If you need a partner for doubles, please call Joe Cortes at 617-283-5387 or Lenny Singer at 617-593-5400. Teams we made up have reached the semifinals or won the consolations.
The schedule is as follows:We look forward to seeing you all in September!!
- Saturday and Sunday Sept 6 and 7: Women's Doubles and Men's Singles
- Saturday and Sunday Sept 13 and 14: Men's Doubles and Women's Singles
- Saturday and Sunday Sept 20 and 21: Mixed Doubles
- Saturday and Sunday September 27 and 28: 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 4 and 5: Rain Date if necessary
Cambridge Tennis Club Tennis Committee
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 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
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.
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 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.)
This version is archived at: https://www.cambridgetennisclub.com/News/News2008.22.en.html
