Campus Showdowns

Campus Showdown at MSU? A must-do for any player serious about their game.

I attended one of many campus showdowns run by colleges to provide the community and local juniors access to their programs and provide their own players with an opportunity for competition during the off-season.

I chose to do the MSU campus showdown because of the proximity to home and because it was listed as a coed event. I thought I would get to watch some really exciting men's tennis when I wasn't on court. So I was surprised to find that a coed event meant that guys were in the draw with the women. (A little intimidating at first, but as the day went on, the person on the other side of the net was just any other competitor.)

Play started at 8 am Sunday morning. We were told to check in 30 minutes prior to the start of the round-robin tournament. I convinced my friend, Sue, to sign up for the tournament. So we spent fifteen nervous minutes warming up. At least, I was nervous. I sent routine balls flying on the courts adjacent to us, surely annoying the college players on either side of us who never seemed to miss a ball. There was a certain quiet rhythm to the early morning warm-up around us and I was painfully aware that I was disrupting that beat.

But warm-up is not about working kinks out of the strokes. It's about getting the body moving, waking the blood flow.

My first match was against a very nice 18 year old girl from a small area near Lansing. She was a very good player with consistent strokes. She beat me 2-6. (Each match in the campus showdown was a one-setter, the first to 6, with a tie-breaker at 5-5 instead of 6-6.)

I knew that I would probably be outmatched in all of my matches, but I didn't want to lose any match without at least getting one game. I also didn't want to play a match where the entire contest was me playing at the mercy of my opponent. I wanted to play my game. Even though I thought my first opponent was much better than I was, I didn't feel like I played my best game. I am not one to make excuses, but knowing your tendencies is very important in sports and I TEND to not be a morning competitor! It takes me a while to physically wake up and even when I am moving, there TENDS to be lag time before my brain joins my body at the breakfast table.

I made dumb mistakes; hitting a shallow ball to the girl's forehand so I could watch her rip winners by me. Instead of mixing up my shots, something that has made me an effective player this summer, I pounded the ball with this girl. Although I hit hard, if I continue to do it, it often lets my opponents fall into a comfortable rhythm. I should have mixed it up, but in a match as short as these were, I realized this too late.

My second match was against one of the MSU women's tennis team members. She was an excellent player who was dismissing her opponents in very short patches of time. I'd watched her play a few minutes of her first match, witnessing return winners, services aces and two ball rallies that ended in her winning the point. So before I took the court, I inhaled and then exhaled and reminded myself of my goal, don't get blown away.

It took her all of eleven minutes to get a 5-0 lead on me. And as I picked up the balls to serve the sixth game, I began to rethink the validity of having a game plan. I took a moment to sort out what was happening. Usually in a match at this point, the brain tells you that you have another set to sort it out, but I was running out of time.

I was being rushed. I was allowing her to use my pace to kill my swiftly. And, "not losing horribly" is not a game plan.

So, Plan B

Take pace off of the ball.

I hit with Sue a lot and albeit sarcastically, she often says to me, "When all else fails, here comes the moonball." Hitting with topspin is something that I do fairly well and even though I've come to embrace my style of play, in match situations, I find myself shying away from it.

At any cost, I resorted to hitting the moonball, high loopy shots that landed deep in her court and prevented her from ripping winners from such a pushed-back position. I won a game. In the next game, I did the same thing, a little tougher with her serving, dictating the start of play, but I managed to hang on for another game. Again I lost the set 2-6, but played better and entered my third match with renewed confidence.

I won my third match 6-2, but dictated play from the start. I was in control. My mind had finally awaken and joined my body at the party!

The rest of the day was a mix of quick losses, including one to a man in the draw who had at least a foot on me in height. He hit down on the ball and although I did manage to get one game, it was while feeling like I was holding onto a defective life jacket in a hurricane! He aced me four times in two quick games, aces that I barely saw come over the net and only heard hit the tarp behind me.

But the eight hours of tennis was fun and exhausting. And I was inspired to play better, to compete more fiercely and to return next year.

The rest of the year's schedule includes very focused practices and intense strength and conditioning training.

Stay tuned,

KS