Tennis Time!

I had a great night last night. I drove up to Bellevue to play tennis with my buddy Greg. He plays guitar in my 80's band. It sounds like he was a standout player in High School back in SoCal, but, like me, he doesn't get out to play near enough these days. He is turning 50 next weekend, so I do have an age advantage, but we are pretty evenly matched because he has a great swing and great technique. He has a lot of variety to his shots, such as a powerful forehand, powerful backhand, but also a lot of great slices and touch shots. It is fun playing with someone who challenges you but is still near your level of play. I scored a sweet deal on a new tennisracquet this week. It had an MSRP of $249.99, but I got it for $60. I was very excited to try it out. The last racquet I bought was "the aggressor" and it served me well for many years. I bought it in 1995 at a Rite Aid in Coos Bay, Oregon. This new racquet will take some getting used to though. For one, it is super light compared to what I'm used to; secondly, it is a head heavy stiff frame with the strings strung very tightly. What this does is create LOADS of power. So much power that it can be uncontrollable if you don't hit the ball PERFECTLY every time.

So this is how it went down last night: We hit the ball around for about 45 minutes of our alotted 75 minute court reservation. I was really loving the new arm cannon. I would just swing lightly at the ball and generate the same ball speed I used to have to really put a lot of muscle into to get. So I was liking it. Then I tried some serves. I had a really hard time controlling the serve, but when I did hit it right, it was unbelievable. The speed was wicked. But the control just wasn't cutting it. My second serve (slower and more accurate usually), kept going long or wide. We decided we better play a set before our time ran out, so I let Greg serve first and he won the game. I was finding it hard to find confidence with my new racquet so I was a bit gun shy on my ground strokes causing a lot of errors. This trend continued until I found myself down 4-1. At this point I decided to throw the racquet in the river (not really) and grabbed my old Fox racquet that is a weaker racquet but a lot more controllable. The tide started to turn and eventually I evened things up at 5-5. He won the next game and then I evened it up again at 6 games a piece. We decided to play a tie breaker because time was running down. First one to 7 points wins, have to win by 2. I got down early again, this time finding myself down 4-1. I rallied back and won 7-5. I even scored about 1/2 dozen aces throughout the match. It was a lot of fun. It felt great to play again. Tennis is so much more than a physical game. A lot of it is mental and staying focused under pressure. I love it. I can't wait to play again. I just need to spend a little time with the new racquet and I'm sure I will really love it. It is just so much different than what I'm used to.

I also had a blast on the drive up and back as I put my racquets and gear in a big duffel bag and strapped them to the back seat of my Honda CBR and drove that up to Bellevue and back. It was fun to ride again. I hadn't been on a long ride like that in a while. That bike is a blast to ride. I still need to get the front brake issue fixed though. It pulsates pretty bad under hard braking.