COURT REPORT WINTER 2014

February only has 28 days !                 

Countdown Clocks
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2014 Mid Hudson Tennis League             Sign ups start       March 1                         

We have kept the rules and regs to a minimum this year. Thank you all for giving us your feedback regarding how you want the League structured.                                                                                          
1. Sign ups start March 1st  and ends March 20th.                                                                                      
2. Play begins April 1st and ends November 1st                                                                                          
3.Events are men's/women's A/B/C singles/doubles/mixed                                                                           
and New Super senior division ( 55 years and above)                                                                                                                                                4. A draw will be made and you will have 2 weeks to finish  your match. 
( Exceptions can be made if your opponent agrees-and you need to finish all your matches by November)                                                   
5. You will still be able to challenge 10 places above your level for bonus points                                           
6. Matches are best of 3 tie-break sets with a super tie-break in lieu of 3rd set                                            
7. Points: 
 2 for winner/1 for STB loser/1 for challenging or accepting challenge                                                                 Finally:                                                                                                
   8. Registration fees : $ 20.00    sent to                                                                                                                       
Mid Hudson Valley Tennis Association                                    
 48, Dewitt Mills Road, Hurley,
 NY 12443                                             

( As per views expressed by many of you: in the past several people have signed up for free and then not played any matches.Therefore many of you felt that a fee  attached 'value' to signing up. You will  be placed in the draw after payment is received by MHVTA)

 
Hope to see you on the courts !!                    

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Anyone for tennis ?                                 

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 5 tennis stretches before you play
Stretching before,after and during play prevents injuries and maximizes  muscle efficiency. Though some stretches are individual specific,here are the 5 commonest ones you should do before playing. It is also better to hit gently for a few minutes or jog around the court before you stretch since warmer muscles stretch better than colder ones.
1. Quads:

Bringing your heel to as close to your body stretches the front of your thigh

 2. Hamstrings :

Stretching the fback of your thigh can be done either sitting (below) or on the net cord

 
3. Calves:

Pushing against a wall or fence with your hips will stretch the calves and the Achilles' tendons

 4. Shoulders:
   
Shoulders can be vulnerable in tennis and are an mportant muscle to be stretched even during play
  
5. Trunk:

The trunk is used in the serve and ground strokes and is very easy to stretch due to its bulk.

 

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Love is......................                                        

....going out to play indoor tennis when it's snowing 2" an hour and there is a foot of snow on the ground                             

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Our favorite Super Bowl XLVIII commercial     

While the country went all teary eyed about a horse's puppy love,we felt the commercial below had the most relevance to League Players. Metaphorically, it shows how League Players gather together on empty tennis courts and enjoy the music of tennis. Whether it be an early chilly morning or playing till the sun sets,League Players have shown their passion for the game in many ways. This gathering of League Players is what we are looking forward to as the 2014 Mid Hudson Tennis League starts March 15th. ( Sign ups begin March 1st)

             

 

OK,OK...just to prove animals are not excluded from the League,here is the commercial voted by audiences as the best 2014 Super Bowl commercial...

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Lessons for League Players from Russell Wilson:

Seattle Seahawks' Russell Wilson

 Russell Wilson is Super Bowl 2014 champions Seattle Seahawks' quarterback.
1. Self belief:

“My dad used to always tell me, ‘Russ, why not you?’ ” Wilson said. “And what that meant was believe in yourself,  even though you are 5 foot 11 ". Before the game Russell told this to his team mates about winning the Super Bowl:

 " Why not us ?"

2. In the end you play the ball not your opponent :

He was pitted against MVP Peyton Manning who was 12 years his senior and a bigger star.

"At the end of the day, I wasn’t playing Peyton Manning,” Wilson said. “I was doing my job and doing all the things I needed to do to help the offense move the ball down the field.”

Don't get intimidated by who is on the other side of the net. Ultimately it is you against the ball. Get it over the net and in the court.

3. It ain't over till it's over and it still ain't over:

 One of his team mates remarked after the game :"There were three minutes on the clock, still ticking, and Russell was still telling us ‘Stay ready.’ And we’re like, ‘Man, the game’s pretty much over.’". As League Players know very well: there is no finish line. Never get complacent toward the end of the match. Finish the job. 

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SIX MORE WEEKS.............................................

 Famed groundhog weather prognosticator Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, foretelling six more weeks of winter.                                         
Here is how to spend those 6 weeks:
Week 1. Start a work out program to strengthen muscles for tennis.
Week 2. Start a stretching program as muscles tend to get rigid in cold weather.                                                                              
Week 3. Join a 'indoor tennis party' at HVIT or Total Tennis for some tennis play.                                                                         
Week 4.Get your racquets restrung.                                               
Week 5. Take a lesson or two.                                                            
Week 6. Sign up for the 2014 League.                                                

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Mixed Troubles: (Or playing mixed doubles with your significant other...and surviving to tell the tale)

"Cripes!  You don't think I double-faulted
on the final point of the tie breaker on purpose, do you?"

 

They say marriages are made in Heaven and undone on the tennis court. "Stop invading my half of the court-I know how to hit the ball" is probably said with the same vitriolic intensity as "Stop pulling the blanket to your side-I need to keep warm too ". The real factor to consider is that real life partners are comfortable on an personal level and  take that level of no-holds barred intimacy to the tennis court.                                                                                                                                                  
But the tennis court offers a slightly different 'surface' for interaction. First of all it is no longer private. Secondly there are opponents to contend with and thirdly tennis is result oriented and only one team can win.It are these dynamics that make even a minor comment blow things out of             proportion on the drive home.                                                                                                                

Here are some tips from sports psychologists, for married couples and those with significant others, and who play together:                                                                                                                          

1. Have realistic expectations:

Tennis is an imperfect sport. We all make errors. Normally real life partners feel they have found their perfect match. On the tennis court, flaws just tend to get a magnified self perception-more so   in a competitive setting.                                                                                                                              
If one half of the team is an intermediate player and the other a beginner,schedule more matches with weaker teams rather than 'play up'.                                                                                                          

2. He/she is still your doubles partner:


Familiarity breeds contempt. But on the tennis court you need to treat your spouse partner like a non-spouse partner.Instead of berating him or her for making a bad shot, encourage them. If they make a good shot be positively congratulatory.
Do whatever it takes to reduce the pressure on your weaker  partner.
3. Communication:
 

You may know your significant other well enough  not to see the need to be overly verbal. Once again the tennis court is a different playing field. Make sure to talk often during games and on changeovers, to strategize or  to encourage. The best non-married partners do this. So why not do the same with your soul mate ?                                                                                                                  



4. Play against your spouse:                                                    

Playing against your spouse adds another dynamic

Sometimes mixing it up and playing with another couple switching partners can be a lot of  fun.This is especially true if  spouses are of different playing levels. You will probably find yourself laughing more in this setting and having more fun which brings us to the most important piece of advice:

5.Have fun !                                                                      

Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi-mixed doubles life partners

The most important thing about playing tennis is to have fun. Tennis can be overly intense and some couples take it too seriously. That can be disastrous when playing mixed doubles with your S.O.
Sometimes  one negative experience is all it takes to give up the game.  Since tennis is a game of a lifetime and your S.O is  your partner for a lifetime,it makes sense that you keep playing !
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2014 Australian Open Finals lessons 
for League Players
     1. Never say never:
 
While the star-struck tennis pundits were opining and raving about the Federers/Nadals/Sharapova/Williams winning the Australian Open, two well qualified, but hardly household names, grabbed the honors. Li Na ( who actually is a household name in China) and
Stanislas Wawrinka ( Federer's doubles partner) won in the finals. League Players should believe in themselves and continue to practice and strive to improve their game constantly.

2.First serves :
 
 Here is one stat during the Men's Finals. Wawrinka had a first serve percentage of 38 % but his points won on first serves was 100% ! As soon as he started getting more first serves in,the match turned decidedly in his favor. League players should strive for a 1st serve percentage of at least 50%. It does not mean you will win everyone of those points  but at the end of a victorious match,try and recollect and  you will realize you did get a lot of first serves in.

3. Focus :

This was  the sign Wawrinka gave as he was struggling to close out the match. It was a monumentally stressful occasion: his potential  first Grand Slam win against the fearsome Nadal-an opponent whom he had never beaten,and the fact that the win would propel him to # 3 in the world rankings. This is where,even on a League level,you need to focus hard,shut out all thoughts of the consequence of defeat/victory and focus on the ball.

4. Ego is your enemy:

 

Li Na serves against Cibulkova in the Women's finals

A few times in the Finals,the server came up with a great serve only to find the returner coming up with a good return or mis-hit a good return. Most of the time,  the server then proceeded to hit a low percentage shot or an impossible angle and lost the point. League Players,like the pros,cannot believe it when their crushing serves/shots get returned. 

 "It just isn't fair ",your ego thinks,"I don't deserve to lose this point after that great serve". 

So you try to end the point quickly with an impossible shot. This is the time to just laugh at the irony and accept that your serve has been neutralized.You should proceed to play out the point rather than try to quickly end the point.

5. Ultimately you are playing the ball and not your opponent:

 

Cibulkova knew she was outranked by Li Na and was the underdog to win the finals. Yet she did not show any signs of nervousness and played her best tennis in the finals. League Players should adopt the same attitude. It does not matter who is on the other side of the net. The common denominator is the ball and who keeps it in play longer.

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League Player Mike Jones starts tennis website !

Mike Jones was one of the top point leaders in the Circle of Life League

Mike Jones,presently the tennis coach at Johns Hopkins University,recently created his own tennis web site : www.MichaelJonestennis.com
Take a look. Some very good articles !!
Good luck,Mike and hope to see you compete in the 2014 League!
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Plant Air Purifier Open House Announcement 

Remove toxins in your home/office with this simple device

League Player,Wayne Schaffer is having an Open House at his factory located at 138 Maple Hill Drive,Kingston,NY, to showcase this unique air purifier which uses plants,soil and microbes to purify the air you breathe and which will also improve your tennis !
All League Players are invited to this event  at Usheco Inc on Wednesday Jan 22 from 6-7 p.m.
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Sex,exercise and tennis                          

"Tennis is not like boxing. I remember a former world heavyweight whose trainer banned him from having sex six weeks before a fight. We play every week, so with a boxer's mentality we'd always be saying no."
-Andy Murray, World's  # 2 ranked male player

"For a woman, sex before a match is not only allowed, it is fantastic. It raises your hormone levels and brings advantages to all of your                                                                             points."                                                                                               
-Francesca Schiavone,Italy's #1 female tennis player                                       

Humankind's second favorite past time ( tennis being the most favorite) came under the scanner recently when,

on a presumably slow research day, Antony D. Karelis, a professor of exercise science at the University of Quebec  recruited 21 local couples,connected them with monitors and sent them  home, instructing them to complete at least one sex act a week for a month while wearing the monitors, and to fill out questionnaires about how each session made them feel, physically and psychologically compared with exercising .
When the researchers analyzed all of the resulting data, it was clear that sex qualified as “moderate exercise,”  the equivalent  of playing doubles tennis.   The sex also burned four calories per minute for men and three per minute for women, during sessions that lasted up to an hour (equivalent to 2 sets or more of fun doubles).  
Over all, the data revealed that “sex can be considered, at times, a significant exercise,” Karelis said," worth encouraging in people who otherwise balk at working out".  Ninety-eight percent of Karelis’s volunteers reported that sex felt more fun than jogging
 ( but what about compared to tennis ?)
                                                                             We strongly  condemn this study especially since tennis players were not used as subjects in the study. Besides,doubles tennis players know they can expend more than 4 calories/minute in a good doubles game. 
 (Why, we've even seen players expending more energy just questioning line calls!)                                                                                                                                     
                                        Furthermore,  League Players   know that comparing tennis to sex is invalid.They know that,unlike sex, tennis is  a game fraught with physical discomfort,  mental stress and performance anguish.                                                                
Wait a minute,that sounds very much like.........never mind !!

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Zen Tennis :a series of articles to help League Players reach tennis Nirvana

This week on Zen Tennis: Pre-match visualization 
 
Pre match visualization( How to):
 Before a match go to a quiet place and play out a couple of imaginary games in your mind visualizing  in detail  a service game and ground strokes. Try to paint the picture as perfect as you can (e.g.  the serve going to the corner or the ground stroke landing in or you hitting a clean winner to finish the point ). What this does is program your brain to send the right signals to the body to help you bio-mechanically. Try it at your next match and you will get off the gates with a lead!                                                                             
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Another close one  !!                                                                                                              
Viertel's Vanquishers squeaked past Wizner's WizeAsses by one point 29-28 at last week's WTT event.   

Men's Singles: Larry Arvidson d  Bruce McPherson                                                   

Men's Doubles: Jeff Knipe and Bruce McPherson 4-6 lost to Bruce Sumber and Larry Arvidson 

Mixed Doubles: Melissa Germano and Jeff Knipe 5-5 tied with Bruce Sumber and        Donna Viertel 

Mixed Doubles: Magda Toro and Bruce McPherson 6-5 tiebreak win over Bonnie Wagner and Larry Arvidson

Another decisive win for the Cutten Cougars  (33-20! ) Lisa Cutten's Cougars d Madonna's Mustangs with Sharon Crego subbing in 

• Karla/Lisa lost 3-6
• Tom/Franz won 6-3...so they were tied at this point
• Lisa won singles in a tie break (6-5) against Sharon with Elissa subbing in at 2-2
• Tom & Franz both played singles winning 6-0 against both Bob & Rusty (also subbing in)
• Lisa/Franz won in a tie break (6-5) against Sharon/Bob
• Karla/Tom won 6-1 against Elissa/Rusty

Great playing everyone!!!        **********************************************************************

                                     
                                                                                                                                              

Franchise name change !                           
Francine Wizner's Warriors has requested a name change  and will be known as Wizner's WizeAsses, their captain announced today.
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League Players shine in tournament play !

Kevin and Vicki Madonna's teams did well this week in USTA play

1. MHVTA founder Kevin Madonna and his team from Taconic won their local USTA tri-level play offs and are off to the regionals in Montrose. Congratulations,Kevin ! As you can see, ,the MHVTA, (unlike the USTA),is run by 'real' tennis players who not only like to play but are good at it as well !!

2. The new re-vamped and re-structured 2014 World Team Tennis league got underway with a humdinger of a face-off. Undefeated Sharon Crego's Crusaders played Lisa Cutten's Cougars at Hudson Valley Indoor Tennis. The Cougars won 32-18. Nice win !
 

Sharon Crego and Lisa Cutten-friendly rivals !

Crusaders vs Cougars:
Claudia Brown/Sharon Crego d Lisa Cutten/Vivienne Hodges
Tom Turco/Rick Lange d Michael Brown/Bill Coy
Sharon Crego d Lisa Cutten
Hodges/Lange d Crego/Bill
Cutten/Turco d Brown/Brown

3. Not to be outdone,Donna Viertel's Vanquishers and Francine Wizner's WizeAsses clashed in another WTT league match also at HVIT.
This was much closer with the WizeAsses prevailing  28-25

Francine Wizner, skipper of  the WizeAsses

Donna Viertel captains the Vanquishers

Vanquishers vs WizeAsses:
Women's Doubles: Donna Viertel and Cindy Kowalewski d Jane Fischer and Magda Toro
Men's Doubles: Jeff Knipe and Harry Lynch d David Viertel and Bruce Sumber 
 Magda Toro and Jeff Knipe d Cindy Kowalewski and Bruce Sumber 
Jane Fischer and Harry Lynch d David and Donna Viertel

4. Kevin and Vicki Madonna's local HVIT team beat Taconic Club 3-0 in the USTA 8.0 league. (This Kevin guy  is all over the place winning matches and captaining teams !)

Betsy Wise(above) partnered Shawn Holzmann to win her event for the HVIT team.

Team members: Shawn Holzmann/Betsy Wise/Vern Chrisjohn/Jessica Walther/Shannon Mulcahy/Nils Eugene Kenast
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Circle of Life League winners  
get press recognition !

The Saturday 1/4/14 edition of the Kingston Daily Freeman had a sports front page news article on The Circle of Life League and its winners. The League Players who participated  deserve this recognition and we thank each one of you.
You can view the article online:

http://www.dailyfreeman.com/sports/20140103/tennis-ravi-ramaswami-highlights-mid-hudson-league-champions

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                      The Trophy Position
The trophy position has long been advocated by coaches as a ready position for a serve. But most tennis trophies give you the wrong message. The trophy position is not a pose or a pause before hitting a serve. Rather it is the launch position. In a previous article ( scroll down for 'The 2 most important serve tips'),the launch angle was described. The trophy position is the position before launching up to the ball. Unless  you are in the correct position,you will not be able to get the proper lift and forward thrust.

Can you notice the differences between the trophy's trophy position and Roger Federer's trophy position(below) ? Answers at the end of the article

Like a javelin thrower, the trophy position is to get into a launching position to get the 'up' and 'out'

Answers-The trophy vs Federer:
The trophy :
1. Has no knee bend
2. Has no shoulder tilt
3.Racquet not in hitting position 
4.Weight is shifting back instead of forward
5. Most important: Coaches talk about a straight line that can be drawn from the racquet arm elbow to the tip of the tossing fingers.

Roger has all of it right. That's why he  has been # 1 in the world while the trophy is collecting dust in a closet somewhere.
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League Player Scott Taylor (Singles A) shared with us some biblical quotes he uses while coaching his scholastic tennis team. No better way to start the New Year !


TREAT others the way you want to be treated. (Matt. 7:12)

EAT and EXERCISE properly. (I Cor. 6:19-20; I Tim. 4:8)

NO excuses: NO whining; NO complaining. (Luke 14:15-22; Phil. 2:14)

NEVER GIVE UP.  Never, never, never!  (I Cor. 15:58; Galatians 6:7-10;  Philippians 3:12-14)

IGNORE the wrong things and move on from the past. (Col. 3:5-10)

STAY FOCUSED on the right things and what is ahead. (Col. 3:12-17)
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