 |
Passing
Shots
The Cupertino Tennis Club Newsletter
March/April 2009 Volume 3, Issue
2
My Spin On Things - Marilee Adams, President
The biggest activity this season has been preparing for the upcoming
lighting improvement project. The
project will start in April and the contractors hope to be finished in
July. The construction will
reduce available courts for USTA matches and casual evening playing as
a couple of courts will be taken off-line at a time.
For those of you playing the upcoming Adult USTA season, we have
made a few changes to accommodate the lighting project. Each team will be given 3 hours
and 3 courts to finish their 5 matches.
The exception to this will be weekend matches that begin after
6:00 pm. These matches will have 5 concurrent courts for 2 hours. With this system, we will need to adhere
to a 5-minute warm up, and match tiebreaks will be mandatory in lieu of
a full third set.
In the last newsletter, we asked if there was any interest in building
up the ladder program. We
only received 2 responses from individuals who said they were interested
in Ladder play. Due to the
general lack of interest, the CTC Board has decided to disband the program.
See page 7 for information on a new tennis program that the Board is introducing.
We will update you via email as we get more information on the
lighting project. We ask
for your patience during the lighting upgrade. Keep in mind that this will improve everyone's tennis experience
at the Sports Center.
Thanks,
-Marilee Adams,
CTC President
Tennis Tip of the Month by Dana Gill,
Exec, Director, Lifetime Tennis
When serving...........it's all about location, location, location!
Players at all levels (2.5 to professional) put too much
emphasis on power over location.
Andy Roddick may be able to hit through some players, but he would
hold serve more against Roger Federer if he hit more serves closer to
the lines.
Practice tip! Place a target
6 inches inside each service box sideline and practice trying to knock
them down/over. Serves that
land closer to the sideline cause EVERY player to move 1-3 steps laterally
to hit the ball. This takes
time and creates player imbalance leading to more misses or inaccurate
returns of serve. Plus, players
that practice with targets tend to perform well under pressure as they
can better visualize the target in their minds.
Crime at CSC
Three ball machines were stolen from the ball machine court
shed on Saturday, March 21st.
Apparently, the thieves entered through the Stelling Street side
fence of the ball machine court, cut the shed lock and proceeded to take
3 Playmate ball machines. A
police report has been filed and this offense has been classified as breaking
and entering grand theft. A
$500 reward is being offered for any information leading the retrieval
of the machines or conviction of the crime.
USTA News by Bob Larocca,
USTA Coordinator
Three of our Senior League teams will be going to Sacramento in
April to participate in the NorCal District Playoffs.
Our two 3.0 women's teams, one captained by Debbie Argabright and the
other by Diane Detig, finished 1-2 in the league. Both teams won very close first round
playoff matches and advanced as champion and wild card.
The Adult season starts April 6th and we have a record number
of teams participating. We've
grown from 13 teams in 2007 to 17 teams in 2008 to 20 teams this year.
That's at, or maybe above, the maximum number of teams that we
can handle. While it's great that we have a high level of participation,
it does cause some court allocation challenges. General court time will be especially scarce this spring because
of the heavy USTA schedule and the planned lighting upgrade.
Our ten Mixed teams survived the winter rains and, if the weather stays
clear, will be finishing up their season by the end of March.
We have teams at all 3 levels (6.0 through 8.0) with chances of
getting into the local league playoffs.
Reminder: You must be a 2009 CTC
member to play on a USTA team. If you have any questions, please email membership@cupertinotennisclub.org.
Congratulations CTC member Wendy Chow for being chosen USTA League Volunteer of the Year.
"In recognition of an individual who has volunteered time to enhance
the section's USTA league tennis programs.
APRIL Pro Shop Special:
Buy 1 tennis item, receive 2nd one at 50%
off,
Buy 2 tennis items, receive a 3rd item FREE.
Win 40 Cans of Tennis
Balls OR a new Tennis Racquet!
Dana Gill is turning 40 on April 1st. To celebrate his birthday, Dana will play
9 point singles tiebreakers against any interested Cupertino Sport Center
pass holder.
In this format, the 1st player to reach 5 points wins.
If the score reaches 4-4, the pass holder will serve the final
point. Each point won by he pass holder is worth 1 free can of tennis
balls. Any pass holder that wins a tiebreaker will win 40 cans of tennis
balls or a new tennis racquet!
The challenge will take place on Tuesday, March 31st from 4:30-6:30
PM on Court #1.
Come out and cheer or jeer for your "favorite" player.
Lifetime Tennis Employees
of the Month
Cyril Macasero and Michael Leopold are two of Lifetime's best instructors.
During the week, they work to improve the skills of young tournament
players and adult class participants.
On he weekends, they serve as our program supervisors.
They are doing a great job of helping player's games and we thought
you should know.
Meteorological Musings
– More Than Just an Icon – by
Jan Null
Not only are people watching the skies for rain to fill our
reservoirs, but also almost as important they want to know if they can
play tennis the coming weekend.
These days most people seem to watch their local television weathercaster
or go to an Internet site (i.e., weather.com, wunderground.com or The
Weather Channel) for the forecast.
And what they get for next Saturday is usually just a single icon
with a cloud and some rain drops.
Does this give you enough information to know if you'll be able
to play that 11 AM match on Saturday?
But there are other resources to help you make a more informed decision. The source of most of the weather information
and forecasts that you see, read and hear is actually from the National
Weather Service (NWS). This
can be in the form of a local forecast for the Santa Clara Valley, radar
and satellite images showing the current conditions or computer models
that show what the weather will be like next weekend.
These forecasts are made locally (Monterey) and are actually produced
by real people and not just an icon-producing computer program.
And to make it easy to get to the best forecast, here are a few good sources
to link to:
á
Golden Gate Weather
Services,
http://ggweather.com/4cast.htm
á
NWS Santa
Clara Valley forecast, http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr/getzfpzone.php?sid=mtr&zone=caz513
á
Cupertino
Sports center (current weather), http://weather.weatherbug.com/CA/Cupertino-weather/local-observations.html?stat=DACSC
(weather
station right across the street at De Anza College)
While none of this will help add topspin to your backhand, it will
hopefully ease the frustration of knowing when to get to the courts!
(Ed. Note--Jan is a Certified Consulting
Meteorologist with Golden
Gate Weather Services, and often serves
as an expert witness in weather related litigation. He's an Adjunct Professor
of Meteorology at San Francisco State University and former National Weather
Service Lead Forecaster. You
can also check out his home page and subscribe to his fact-filled daily
weather column on Examiner.com. Send question
or comments to jnull@ggweather.com.
The Rules Corner by Jean Hassoun
QUESTION #1: One of our own balls rolls back in the playing area. Could I request a let?
RESPONSE: NO. You are expected
to ensure that all balls are accounted for and at a safe location.
This includes a ball that is pushed back in by the wind.
Of course, this could become a safety issue and while you cannot
request a let for the ball on your side, your opponent would be expected
to allow a let in most such situations. This is a situation where the
rule is defined to prevent abuses, but good sense and safety should guide
your actions. Just be aware that your opponent can deny
you a let.
WHAT TO
DO: Be proactive and always
check that a ball in your opponents' area could not become a danger to
them.
**************************************
Question
#2: In a tiebreak, in doubles,
when the server serves out of turn, what should we do?
RESPONSE:
(team A&B vs. team C&D) If
player A served one point out of turn, the point stands as played, and
player B serves the next point.
If player A served a complete turn (either the first point of the
tiebreaker or a turn of 2 points) then the service sequence is now altered
and player B will serve when the serve comes back to the team.
Remember:
In tennis, any point played in good faith stands and never gets replayed.
***************************************
QUESTION
#3: While serving, what
are "let" and "net"calls and when should you use them?
RESPONSE:
A "net"call is
used to indicate that the served ball has touched the net. If the ball subsequently lands out, it should be also
called "out". A
"let"call stands for "Let's play"and in this situation
indicates that the ball touched the net and then touched the ground in
the proper area--an "in"ball.
A "net"call doesn't tell us what to do
next until we learn if the ball is in or out so that call alone is confusing
and doesn't give any real information. To keep things simple, just call
the "let"in or out.
Remember that it's called
the Game of Tennis, so have fun playing it!
Jean Hassoun
USTA NorCal 2008
Referee of the Year
About
this column: This is your
opportunity to ask questions about rules and/or court situations and get
reliable, up-to-date answers. Please send your questions to Rules@Cupertinotennisclub.org.
Please note: The
CTC Ladders Program has been canceled. See the Ladders page on the website for a description of the
new tennis program that will take its place.
This month's recipe is Belinda's Super
Moist Lemon Cake. If you want
the recipe, go to the .pdf version of the March/April newsletter online
or email
Send us your suggestions and feedback if you see any opportunities for improvement.