McFetridge Open

In my quest for tennis excellence, I signed up for a tennis tournament in Chicago at the McFetridge Sports Center. I've been playing tournaments for a few years now and I find that I can usually find good competition in Chicago, whereas; the draws for tennis tournaments for the woman open player in Michigan can be sparse.

I am sure the economy, the blame for everything from unemployment to Dunkin Donut's cutting back on my favorite twelve-pack, is the reason for the recent drop in participation at tournaments. So, it is getting very hard to find tournaments to sign up for where its worth the time, money and effort to play.

There were two tournaments going on in Chicago this past weekend. One was a tournament for adults, 21-over. The stakes were higher, the prize being an expense-paid trip to Georgia to compete at the next level where a win would provide the talented player the opportunity to play in an amateur tournament to be held in Australia during the Open. As much as I desire to one day be competitive enough to compete with the great women who were signed up for that tournament, I know my tennis game is still in the "development" phase.

So I signed up for the McFetridge Open and met a tournament director that will make that stop a recurring stop on my "tour schedule". Scotty was accommodating from the start. With the small draw, he wanted the tournament to happen and to make it worth everyone's time. So, my competition? A couple of twelve-year olds and a fifteen year old!

All of them, wonderful competitors and I thoroughly enjoyed the time on the court we spent together, though I lost to both of the 12-year olds.

A friend of mine was conflicted about which Chicago tournament to sign up for and ended up signing up for the other one. Both tournaments were supposed to be a single elimination, but because of the small draw at McFetridge, the girls and I got to play a round-robin format where we got to play everyone in the draw. Then we capped off the weekend with a doubles match, which I really enjoyed.

It's hard to find consistent competition in Michigan at times. I attend clinics and weekly lessons. I have several hitting partners. But the intensity that I felt this weekend, battling it out with sluggers who could handle their own, is something that can't be re-created at a city park any given afternoon.

I played two matches on Saturday and two on Sunday. The first set of my first match went by very quickly, but I found a rhythm in the second set, and pushed my opponent to a second-set tiebreaker. Though I lost, I loved the fact that I figured out kinks in my game and would play another match were I could quickly implement the changes.

There were a lot of little things that were corrected, but the two major ones was my serve and working the point.

My serve has always been a big weapon. Whenever I play up levels or I play against guys who are stronger, faster and just generally, better than me, my serve is a neutralizer. But it can be erratic. This weekend I watched my opponents serve. I watched how relaxed and easy-going their motion looked compared to my amped up, sometimes spastic one. I tried it in my warm up and oh what a difference.

Thinking it was a fluke, I tried it again and again, but my serve was bigger, my consistent, deeper in the serve box and all without me looking like I am teeing off on the ball!

The second thing was me being patient during the points, looking for winners, but being able to pull back and settle into a rally when the winner wasn't there or the opportunity was missed.

As usual, the tournament, despite win/loss results was a positive one for me. It renewed my passion, my dedication to training and getting better and my belief in my game.

Thank you to the entire staff at the McFetridge Sports Center who was so nice and had good things to say about my game.

Next up for me is the Midwest Indoor Championships in Grand Rapids in a couple of weeks. I hope to play well and I will keep you posted.

Stay tuned...

KS