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
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
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!
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! :-)
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!
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
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