Monday, June 25, 2007

Doubles' Finals - Feast to the senses!

There are good men, and there are too good men! And,when they meet on court to battle out with four rackets and a shining yellow-felted ball, there will be only one thing common among all of them - goodness! For Heaven's sake, let it be there, coexisting with the kindness of the game! Oh! What a feast was that! When Prem/Praveen (PP) and Nitin/Jeffrey (NJ) met for the first time in the tournament for the Balle de Battle 2007, it SHOULD be a match! And it was!

The power of tennis was manifested in the powerful serves of Prem, good partnering support from Praveen with his slow but deep shots, long rallies from Nitin and fantastic smashes at the net from Jeffrey! The winner was the Game of Tennis! Prem shouted when the match score was evened out 2-6,6-3. And the airs listened to that ruffling the leaves in the distant trees! Finally, the devastating smashes won over the demolishing serves. NJ went away with the crown and ranked with the top honors with the match swaying in their way, 6-2,3-6,6-4.

The awards were presented after the match by Srinivas, Ramesh and Narendran. Emcee Sanjay was at his best compeering the program in his own style. Apart from the second runners-up, first runners-up and winners awards, an award for most promising player was presented to Harveen and two tokens of appreciation were presented to me and Kavitha for helping Murugan organizing the event. I was peeved at receiving this trophy primarily because I did all the help for Murugan just to help and did not expect any thing in return. I really did not expect this trophy or something else. The prime motivation for helping him was to induce an element of professional sense of thinking to the entire process. If it had succeeded then it was the most wonderful award for me!

Lunch was good after a grueling day of hard tennis. (Of course, I did not have any matches for myself, but was feeling double hungry just serving as line umpire in the warm sun! :-)) The beers were thrown and Satish, Gopal, Ben, Hari and Vigyan seemed to enjoy the drinks more than any one else! Gopal was at dancing on the court after his initial taste of beers! I saw Satish feeling shy walking across court; the innocuous smile reminiscent of a mischievous child doing the undoable! :-) With the background of Ilayaraja's classic old hits booming from Murugan's music system, the entire aura seemed to be filled with the incredible tennis machines! The soul of tennis was too conspicuous to be missed out among the many souls that were parched in the warm afternoon! Great was the day. And, great was the feeling. Great was the zest. I left the courts for home with a satisfied sense of doing something and having something that meant so much to me than anything to anyone in this anybody's world of everyone!


Saturday, June 23, 2007

Matches are made on court!

All the quarterfinal matches were played today amid soaring doubts on the possibility of the play with the incessant drizzling. But, the zeal of the players won over the hearts of the rain-gods and the court was made available to the players in time, thanks to Murugan and the ball-boys.

We had our tough opponent, Prem and Praveen. Mahesh could only hold one serve and I lost my first two serves. When we trailed the match 1-6, we lost all the hopes in the Heaven! :-) I had lots of fun struggling to put the new balls in play with the enormous bounce they had on the wet surface. The speed and the spin of the returns from Prem was difficult to deal with though occasionally my parter was able to attack the superb forehand of Prem. But, I think Prem/Praveen are beatable if the shots are controlled and percentage play is in play. :-)

Two of the other quarterfinal matches were pretty close and gave a nail-biting thrill to the spectators :) One, Gopal/Harveen against Mitra/Vigyan and two, Aravind/Balliga against Sagar/Srinivas. The former had to be decided with the tiebreak and the latter was a win for skills and consistency. Mitra/Vigyan seemed initially lost their fervor with Gopal fighting alone mostly for each point! Finally, he succumbed to the aggressive games of the former. Result: Mitra/Vigyan won 10-9! Aravind/Balliga too showed that they were the potential candidates for the finals with Balliga's powerful smashes at the net and Aravind's serves and slices!

Finally, on-court histrionics made the matches! :D

Friday, June 22, 2007

Up'set' and interesting matches!

In a match dominated by mental toughness and unexpected skill flaunting, Aravind/Balliga (AB) team routed the Jeffrey/Nitin (JN) team by eight games to four. This was the most surprising upset in the tournament until now, since every one was expecting JN to win the match given their synergistic strengths! But what is a world without any surprises!

In another close encounter, Gopal/Harveen (GH) beat Neel/Suyog (NS) in a tiebreak, 8-7(4). I had never seen Gopal relaxing on the court while his partner was allowed to run through the corners of the court! Something dawns, and Gopal wakes up and the ball listens to him! :-) That just happened when the match score reached 7-7 and there was a loud announcement for a tiebreak from the umpire. That's it! The ball just listened to Gopal and the rest was history! :-)

Now that the battles lines for the quarterfinals are almost drawn, let us look at the players in the group:

Prem/Praveen

Consistent and powerful serves and a fierce forehand combines is the Prem's game! Winner of the 2005 championship, he is undoubtedly one of the finest players in the academy and lends himself to any kind of game, whether partner's or opponent's.

Praveen is one of those few players who act fast in reaching the ball on the court. Though a slow server for himself, his forehand sometimes bangs the opponents and catch them in the corners!

Jeffrey/Nitin

Jeffrey has one the greatest smashes I have ever seen, though he might at times be inconsistent with the forehand shots. Note to his opponents: Never ever lob for him, because whether it is a deep lob or a shallow one, he jumps with his racket talking the rest! :-)

Nitin is one of the best players in the academy and has powerful ground strokes. Watch his first serve which would definitely be a feast to the lovers of the game.

Gopal/Harveen

When I saw Gopal for the first time, I had not expected him to be a wonderful player of the game! It was one of the rarest moments when my subjective mind deceived me! :-) He is perceived as the best player in the academy with his variety of shots and top-spin serves!

Harveen, though started the game late, picked it up so fast to leave the opponents in distress with her sudden attack on the length of the court! Guys, please take note of the sweet spots on her racket which gives her shots a superb aura of beauty.

Aravind/Balliga

The slicing master, Aravind, though a powerful baseline hitter, is often inconsistent with his serves. Don't ever allow him to meet the ball in the correct action for his forehand!

Balliga has a very good movement in the court and has very good serves. Given that serves wins the matches, he is the potent winner!

Abhishek/Satish

Abhishek is one of the good players given his control on the shots and the spinning and powerful serves! He seems to be quite emotional at times during the games, but nothing stops him to turn the game from disaster!

Satish has a unique forehand action and his consistent and continuous returns, wherever the ball is, makes opponents sometimes frustrating, thus forcing them to make unforced errors.

(By providence or incidence, these two good players are now out of the tournament, since they lost matches in the times of mutual inconsistencies! I wish you guys a better luck next time!)

Neel/Suyog

Neel is high on mental toughness and self-motivation. I think, because of his unmatched unforced errors, coupled with slow coverage of the court, he started losing his points. But, given his fighting spirit, I am sure, he will make it to a better result next time!

Suyog reaches the ball in the court irrespective of its pitch in the court. One of the things his opponents need to note and act is his sudden change in the angle of forehand and lobs!

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Buckle up players!

There were two predictable matches today in Group B: Sagar/Srinivas vs Tilak/Rex and Mahesh/Me vs Tilak/Rex. In each of the matches Tilak/Rex were vanquished with 8-0!

Group B has had the most flux in terms of the partners. Consider this: Virendra/Ben formed a team. After playing a match, Ben walked away! Then Virendra teamed up with Tilak and they played a match too! But, after losing that match, Virendra lost his heart and he too walked away! Tilak had to team up with Rex finally! Though Tilak individually is a good baseline player, I think, teaming up with relatively a beginner is like inviting a disaster! And that proved costly for him! Finally, there are not eliminated from the tournament!

Let us see how the other teams in the Group B stand:

Sagar / Srinivas

Sagar has been of late fantastic with his forceful forehand, and given his height and raw power that he could generate, the opponents should really worry about the shots deep down the baseline! Srinivas is very consistent in his serves and picking up the open courts in the opponents. His percentage game is a real worry to the opponents.

Mitra / Vigyan

Mitra has a good game technical. Add to this his control and selection of shots and consistency in serves. People, beware of this guy! Vigyan is a very consistent player given that he has a variety of shots to choose from. His forehand shots on a low pitched balls is a treat to the eyes!

Jagdeep / Sanjay

Net! And you should remember Jagdeep! Or, he will make you remember for the rest of the day! :-) Watch the powerful volleys and smashes from him at the net! Sanjay's fierce forehand sometimes troubles the opponents! Of course, it is not his mistake! :-D

Mahesh / Mohan

I was amazed by the spin that Mahesh' forehand generates on the ball! Couple it with his amazing first serve which is a flat and fast one! Let me not talk about myself! Outrageous! Blasphemous, it would be to talk about myself here! Opponents have to just wait and see what Mohan can do! He he he! :D


Embrace the technology for the tournament!

The Doubles' Tournament is HAPPENING now! Literally! :-) Group A has a few tough teams which are sweating out to march towards the quarters, while Group B has finished all the matches and the teams are done! I and my partner, Mahesh, finally made it to the quarters winning just one match :-)

Yesterday, I was thinking of an effective approach to make the matches' information available to the players and other stakeholders (whoever are they! :-) ). The motivation for this thought was a moment when some of the players wanted to know the answers to the following questions:

(a) Who are my opponents in the next match?
(b) Where do we stand in our group?
(c) How many matches are yet to be played in my group?
(d) How is the other group faring off?

The papers and the data that Murugan was tracking was not enough to answer these and other questions! So, I decided to enter the fray and help a lending hand to him, of course the technology way. :-)

Once this thought arose in my mind, there were a few options for me: (1) Maintain all the data on the tracking sheets and help answering the players' questions. (2) Post the latest data in the web so as to make it available for any player, any time. Option (1) was obviously to be trashed since it would necessitate multiple copies of the sheets to be maintained - one by me, one by Murugan, etc. Also, the players need to call either Murugan or me to find out the latest information. So, I zeroed-in on the option (2) to embrace the technology to make players information-literate! :-)

Thus, the next question was regarding the location of posting: a blog or online scoring/schedule sheets or website. I don't want my blog to be cluttered with the tournament data! And, to manage the online sheets is a pain since as of now the players are not connected in the web either through networking groups or emails! (This is another thing in my agenda to work on! More on this later! :-) ) Finally, I decided to create a website!

Phew! Website! For just the tournament? Or, for the academy? Hmm. I thought it would be a good start to create one for the academy and manage the tournament data within that since this approach would be scalable in future. Otherwise, I need to create a separate website for each of the tournaments! :-)

Ok. Finally, a website for academy! WoW! I searched the web for a free web hosting services and found 50Webs.com and freeshell.in as the viable candidates. But, the former requires no easy way to upload the content, while the latter makes life difficult by forcing me to talk to its administrator first just to create a website! I again came back to Google Page Creator where I had already a sample website of my own! It took just an hour and half to create one for the academy! And here it is: http://truebounceacademy.googlepages.com. I had posted all the latest information to this space. Though this space does not have the Web 2.0 features, it does serve well my requirements! Murugan was quite surprised at this turn of the event! :-)

Next step is to make all the members connected with one another either through a group or a Wiki or a better Web 2.0-enabled web site! They should be able to make comments, edit the content and send notifications to one another on some events!

Monday, June 18, 2007

Doubles' Tournament.

A festive and fanfare atmosphere prevailed when the hands of the members of the True Bounce Tennis Academy clapped on the eve of the much awaited Doubles' Tournament in the Bangalore Games and Fitness Institute (BGFI) on Sunday, June 17th. Banners were erected, the courts were beautifully done and the paraphernalia of the game were made available on time, thanks to Murugan.

Though the draws were made on Friday morning, very few players were available for the matches to start on Saturday. Thus, the matches were started on Sunday.

The following are the teams:

Group A

A1 - Abhshek and Satish
A2 - Praveen and Prem
A3 - Gopal and Harveen
A4 - Jeffrey and Nithin
A5 - Aravind and Dr.Balliga
A6 - Neel and Suyog

Group B

B1 - Mitra and Vigyan
B2 - Sagar and Srinivas
B3 - Jagdeep and Sanjay
B4 - Mahesh and Mohan
B5 - Ben and Narendra
B6 - Hari and Tilak

Though the matches were organized on the first day with all the players being extremely cooperative, I was extremely disappointed at the chaotic mechanism of tracking the results, let alone the match scores. The results were so tracked that at any given point of time, one could not get the glimpse of the matches completed and the overall points tally of the different teams. So,I started thinking the best way to do this and finally recommended Murugan the format that I liked most. :-)

Also, currently, there is no mechanism by which one can know the detailed statistics of a given match, for instance, number of aces, unforced errors(long), etc. I am thinking on this too and suggest Murugan the best possible format to record these statistics at least for the semi-final and final matches. These detailed data would serve as some good measure of the team's abilities and skills. My vision is to have a web-based resource to gather all these information and allow the user to see the glimpse of the matches and also a drill-down views of them depicting all the detailed statistics of the individual matches. The time constraints for this year's tournament, I think, would not allow me to implement all my thoughts. Nonetheless, I would suggest Murugan the more user-friendly and effective way of managing the matches' information from next year, the technology way! :-)

Monday, June 11, 2007

I clapped, rejoiced and revered yesterday evening at the every point that the winner has made or the loser has not made in the True Bounce Academy's tennis tournament for Under-14. But, at the back of my mind, I knew that there were more to be mesmerized with the world's two top rankers fighting it all on the red clay of the Roland Garros! I returned home only to be disappointed to see the first set of the final in favor of Rafael Nadal a.k.a. Rafa.

It is a fact that Nadal is an indisputable champion on the clay. It is also a fact that Federer is an indisputable champion of the game. More than Nadal, for Federer it was not just another Grand Slam final; it was an instrument to create a record as only the third man in the game's history to clinch all Grand Slams in the open era at the same time. (It should be noted that Federer won Wimbledon four times, US Open three times and Australian Open too three times.) I like people breaking or creating the records in any field. Given in that context, Nadal is the Nemesis, for Federer Failed once again!

It is a widespread perception that Nadal is almost always unbeatable on clay. And this simple perception spread like a virus and reached Federer's mind too! Some of the channels for this spreading of this perception are the harping and reinforcing media and now, the enormous amounts of resources on the Web. I wonder whether this perception really intimidated Federer before he started playing the finals at the Roland Garros. Nowadays, the players are not insulated from the often-dangerous (mis)perceptions spreading channels!

Nonethelss, it was disheartening that Federer was an uncharacteristic error-prone player that evening and those errors proved costly to him. He was not in his best minds with his shoulders drooping after losing the first set. It was not because Nadal had played his best tennis that made him have the crown, it was because Federer had made more mistakes in the game. Finally, I feel now, Nadal did not win. Federer only lost! I wish you all the best of Fortunes for the next year, Roger!

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Topspin.

I have found an excellent video on the technique of forehand topspin. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GxYqIyyeW4