Safe As Milk

I’ve been catching an earlier game on Thursdays, instead of playing in the standard 8pm start. It generally gets me home earlier, unless I stick around to watch the 8 o’clock guys play (and then meet them for a beers afterward)

I need to figure out how to translate my indie service game to outside. I was smashing the ball again, and I can’t seem to do the same outdoors.

We lost, which was kind of a bummer, but one of the other players was a 3.5, so I’m not taking it too hard. I fell into some old, dumb habits. I’d like to play a match where most (but certainly not all) of my shots are the “smart” play.

I had some plans fall through so I was a late add into a game with some 3.5 players looking to tune up for our club’s member/guest tournament in a few weeks.

My partner was another 3.0 who I only just met but we had complimentary games so we clobbered our opponents, 6-2, 6-4, and the we played a 10-point set to use the rest of our time and we beat them 10-5.

We played inside and my serve was hot. I need to find a way to transfer my inside serving to outside play. I’d be a real tennis player if I could get that going.

Broke the seal on the spring USTA season with a reasonably comfortable win, 6-2, 6-3, playing line 2 doubles. I’ve learned a lot about my doubles game over the last couple of years.

I’m good at the net but slow as hell, so if I can partner with someone who has decent ground strokes and can run, I trend toward success. That was the recipe this weekend.

Playing outside this week was also a huge help. There’s a big adjustment from the brightly-lit and windless indoor courts.

Easter Sunday morning was a great time for tennis. Some inside doubles with a couple of the guys.

Service game was streaky, like always. Ground strokes are still a mess from the re-tape of my racquet handle. I’ll try to fix that before I play again this week.

Spring USTA starts next week and it’s time to start playing outside again.

The temperature was perfect, but the 20mph gusts made it kind of silly.

It’s going to be a long spring and summer of battling the sun.