Senior Tennis and Fitness

Watch out for this young American! Some of us saw him at Newk’s Camp a few years back, when he played with his younger brother and now, at age 17, he is winning ATP tour matches. (Continue reading…)

Even though I got blasted by the unknown Stewart Jackson in the Pelican Bay singles round robin, I had given some thoughts to how you should play a short format match. (Continue reading…)

Marc VanDam writes: “Yesterday I got to play in the singles final of the club championship. In the open division there were not that many entries, so on Saturday they played a type of round robin set up, with the winners of the most games meeting in the finals on Sunday. (Continue reading…)

This weekend was the singles section of the Pelican Bay Club tournament; and I entered the “Open” Division. There were six entries; so the tournament committee divided us into two groups of three players, seeding Marc VanDam in one group and me in the other. (Continue reading…)

After a practice session yesterday with Tom McCune, we walked by a court with a ball machine session going on. But the thing that struck me was the guy who was hitting balls was about 5’ 2” and looked to be in his 80s! (Continue reading…)

This past weekend was the Pelican Bay Club doubles competition. There were MANY men’s and women’s divisions; so the tournament format was a round-robin on Saturday and the finals on Sunday. But this ended up being tricky… and tough to play. (Continue reading…)

During a doubles match this week, we got into a conversation on WHEN and WHAT you are allowed to say during a tennis point. We talked; but didn’t agree… (Continue reading…)

This is not the “soft serve” you get in the frozen yogurt shop, but INTENTIONALLY serving

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I may have just had a game-changing tennis epiphany.

Although I am an extremely optimistic person and always “see the glass half full,” I just reread a chapter in my favorite little tennis book, The Best Tennis of Your Life. It says “don’t fall into the negative filtering trap.” By that the author Jeff Greenwald says too many players focus on the shots they missed and not the ones they made. (Continue reading…)

In thinking (too much) about this match against a guy who plays head games, I resolved “to make it about tennis and not about line calls.” My brother’s advice was to look at his potential antics as “entertainment” and not get upset by them. (Continue reading…)

Well, I thought I was “all tournamented out”; but talking with Hank Irvine, one of the top players, after the Naples Bath Cat II… he convinced me to enter another one in Sarasota this week. He said, “George, you are right on the edge of it! You need to enter one of these small tournaments, win it, and then get seeded in future tournaments.” (Continue reading…)

During my singles match against Big David Nash at Naples Bath, I called a baseline shot OUT and then looked at the mark and reversed my call to IN. Without really thinking much about it, I then gave the point to my opponent (who really didn’t need it, the way he was beating me). But I was wrong. (Continue reading…)

After losing to Parker/Nash, Tom and I entered the “backdraw” (consolation dubs) to see if we could take the good form and do something more with it. (Continue reading…)

Today, Tom and I played the #1 seeded team of big Dave Nash (who just beat me in singles) and Jimmy Parker from Santa Fe (seeded #2 in singles) on the Naples Bath & Tennis “show court.” (Continue reading…)

Today’s match was against David Nash, the #4 seed – only because he hasn’t played a tournament in 18 months (since injuring his elbow while representing the U.S. at the WORLD’S in Turkey!). But he was still plenty tough. (Continue reading…)