Oh, the sun never shines in Cambridge, MA.
Johanne and Rick dry hoppers of balls before the fan.
"rain, n. 1 water that is condensed from the aqueous vapor in the atmosphere and falls to earth in drops more than 0.5 mm in diameter."
-Webster's Unabridged
"such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry
The affliction nor the fear"
-Kent
King Lear
Act 3, Scene 2
Puddles, algae, moss, mushrooms, scum, snails, slugs, blechhh. That's our story.
"The Tropics are drier during the rainy season."
"Wimbledon is drier."
"Blotters, we need giant blotters."
"How about pipes under the courts? crisscrossed every which way?"
(How about it just stops? How about how long oh lord, how long?)
When the courts are open, the club is packed. Keep your eye to the sky.
Wimbledon is upon us. Here's a link to the official site.
...and to the Rogers Cup in Montreal (Aug. 8-16)
...and to the Campbell's Hall of Fame Tennis Championships, in Newport, scheduled for July 6-12, 2009.
(Thanks to Ishmael for the alerts and for the links.)
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SPECIAL EVENTS: Don't miss out! ROUND ROBIN, Thursday, June 18th, from 6-8 p.m. JUNIORS' PIZZA night, Friday, June 19th, 6-8p.m. MIXED DOUBLES night, Thursday, June 25th, 6-8 p.m. MIX AND MATCH, every Monday, noon to 2 p.m. You will find sign-up sheets for all those events on the bulletin board at the club. Please sign up early because spaces are limited. JUNE CALENDAR: Participate! Women's Doubles, Monday nights, 6-8 p.m. Men's Doubles, Tuesday nights, 6-8 p.m. Tuesday Group Lesson, advanced beginners to intermediate, 10 a.m. to noon Friday Group Lessons, intermediate to advanced players:
Sunday Juniors Group Lessons, (sign-up sheet on the bulletin board at the club)
-Johanne |
And thanks to Lennie Singer and Joe Cortes, the club played host to two tournaments on one weekend. ( Blow-by-blow and pics below.)
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A Recap of Spring Tournaments Weekend: May 30 and 31 2009 Member-Guest Tournament This year’s tournament overcame overnight rain to finish in glorious sunshine and even more glorious tennis. Twelve teams were divided into 4 round robin groups for early round action. It is always difficult to “handicap” the Member-Guest as some members, notably one from last year, take very seriously the tournament’s “welcome all ringers” mantra. This cry was mitigated in this year’s version by the Tennis Tournament’s explicit forbiddance of pros and coaches. There were a number of “mini-upsets” in round robin action as two teams consisting of tennis member with squash racquets guest won their round robin groups: Cela Hobbs-Mark Panarese and Susanna Greenup-John Brazilian. The winners of the other round robin groups consisted of members who looked like they were playing squash partnered with guests who were real tennis players: Joe Cortes-Cornelia Deeg and Sam Fleming-Callie Roberts. A notable match in the round robins was a 4-3 (13-11 tiebreaker) match won by Margie and Chris Bride, whose future in-law is a noted squash player, over longtime squash player, Matthew Curtis, with guest Jennifer Donaldson. In the quarterfinals, pre-tournament favorites Alex Pang (two-time defending Club men’s doubles champion) and Kim Khoury (whom is what a real “ringer” should look like) finally woke up to defeat Susanna and John, as John could no longer suppress his squash strokes. The solid veteran team of Cela and Mark beat the surprising Virginia Coleman and Jackson Hall. The last minute pairing of Sam and Callie (this is how one should enter a “ringer:” hours before the draw is made) upset long time Club stalwart Jim Baldwin and partner Lindsey Frazier. And, Joe and Cornelia overcame touch player Margie and hard hitting Chris. In the semifinals, Alex and Kim overcame a 2-4 deficit to defeat Joe and Cornelia 6-4, as Joe moved on from tournament to daughter’s prom responsibilities (a more interesting excuse than sun, wind….). Sam and Callie surprised (I think they graduate from ringer to hustler at this point) Cela and Mark. The finals were very fitting for this tournament: a close match pitting hard hitting vs. consistency. Sam and Callie’s consistency prevailed over Alex and Kim, 7-6 (8-6). 2009 Parent-Child Tournament This year’s tournament was so well subscribed, that the teams were divided into two Flights: A and B. The “A” flight featured very strong teams with serious, large tennis players posing as children. The B flight featured real tennis children. In Flight A Round Robin Group I, Jeff and rising star, Willie, Peoples defeated Margie and Chris Bride, who returned from the previous days’ Member-Guest “training” with high expectations because of the absence of ringers. As she walked off the court, Margie exclaimed: this tournament is tougher than yesterday’s! Tournament Director, Joe Cortes, winked as he himself withdrew from the tournament the night before, feeling none of his large brood of racquet sports children would be a match for this tournament’s competition. Jeff and Willie then beat defending Parent-Child champs, Marty and Zack Miller. Flight A Group II featured two college varsity athletes playing with former Club champions, Joe and Nick Green and Alex and Noah Pang, plus the wily Nancy Sinsabaugh and experienced son. The Greens won this Group as Noah, who normally wakes up at 4:00 pm, couldn’t shake off his sleepies at 2:00 pm and Dad, Alex, was ordered to take a Valium to alleviate his stress. In the Flight A semifinals, The Greens sent defending champions. The Millers, home 8-5, while the Pangs rebounded to take the tiring Peoples, 8-4. The finals were rain shortened at 1-1 between the Greens and Pangs. It was therefore decided that each team’s longtime sponsors, Dads Joe Green and Alex Pang, will have their names on the Special Events Plaque for 2009! Flight B was dominated by the Dong family as the Bierers and Cabots were eliminated in round robin play. Murray Wheeler and adopted “son,” Rafael Nadal Gomez were upset in the semifinals by Mitchell and Mei Lan Dong. But the championship ended up with sister Cieu Lan and her adoptive father, Jasper Larsen. Kids, get your parents out there to start training for next year! -Joe Cortes |
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:
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."
Inside Urban Charter Schools: Promising Practices and Strategies in Five High-Performing Schools by Kay Merseth "an inspirational and practical how-to guide for school reformers."
"Never mind the time theorists, the cesium devices that measure the life and death of the smallest silvery trillionth of a second."
-Don DeLlllo
Underworld
Let's talk about reservations. Let's talk about 8:00, the gunshot that starts the blitzing hour.
We don't have the banks of friendly operators waiting to take your call. We don't have the cesium clock. We have two lines on one phone that, when the hour strikes, is too hot to handle. It burns; it cooks the ear.
Folks want to complain that they called right at 8:00, right on the hour, and their court was already booked. Well, if 10 people call right on the hour, some caller is going to be first, some caller second, and so on.
Let's laugh a little bit here, shall we? One joker dials all the numbers but one and then on the stroke of the hour, hits the last digit. Another dials 30 seconds early and works the answering machine, chatting about the accuracy of his clocks and how eager he is to play until the hour strikes and the staff member picks up the phone. (We are thwarting this joker by turning off the answering machine at 7:55.) We have folks who set their cell phone alarms and speed dial from court 2. We have jokers with automatic continuous re-dial, jokers with secretaries, jokers with tricks, strategies, pleadings, scoldings, tantrums, vituperations.
No one has ever tried a bribe.
The club directory for 2009 should always be at your hand or in your hand. Other than membership listings, all of the information in the book is 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
The Yearbook link will take you to the last newspage from 2008. 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 (2009). The less-than link (<) next to the honeycomb icon will take clickers to the previous issue of this year's newspage.
This version is archived at: https://www.cambridgetennisclub.com/News/News2009.11.en.html
