Big Bangers

It is not two and a half weeks until I leave for Sacramento for the National 30s Indoor Tournament. The last month, I have been going back and forth between being excited and being super nervous. I think now that the plane tickets are purchased, the hotel and car (the responsibility of travel partner) hopefully is or is being taken care of, I think I can relax a little more.

All I have left to do is play. With the Michigan weather finally somewhat warm enough for me to get outside, I have been playing more with practice partners I call Big Bangers because of how hard they hit the ball and most of them use the Luxilon brand of "Big Banger" string typical for guys who hit as hard as they do.

After what seems like millionth hour of playing tennis with some of these guys, I began to feel a little discouraged last week. For awhile, I had a good mix of hitting with them and they hitting with people more around my level of play. Mentally this was good; get my butt kicked for two hours and then go be competitive later in my own skill class.

Most of March, however, I almost exclusively hit with the Big Bangers and at some point, I really began to hate them!

Well, maybe not hate...

I did hate that I seemed to be getting aced three times a game!

I did hate that my best serves were getting blasted back at me with NO regard to my sensitive feelings.

I did hate that whenever I went to the net behind a lackluster approach shot, some of the Big Bangers tried to make me pee my pants my taking aim at my head.

I did hate that one of this Big Bangers pointed out that I was only winning about 0.3 games a set.

But then I resumed hitting with my normal practice partners and I began to see the light. It was like that church moment in the Blues Brothers where Elroy realizes the answer is "The Band".

I found myself reading the court better. Without the ball coming back at me at 170 mph, I could see weakness in my opponents game and pick them apart. I was able to dictate play more. Playing with the Big Bangers made me take advantage of every opportunity to win a point, knowing there wouldn't be many chances. And that carried over to other tennis and I found myself more dominant.

I am so looking forward to nationals now.

I have racquets to string in the next week, a couple of mixed doubles matches to play, and some clinics to attend.

This week I lay I start laying off of the weight training, but continuing with the cardio and most importantly, PLAYING, PLAYING, PLAYING!

Incidentally, I played a mxd doubles match on Saturday against a 68 year old woman that I think I am going to have to honorarily dub a Big Banger.

This lady is everything I want to be as a tennis player when I am that age. She was ripping returns back our way like she was demonstrating "How to Burn Someone With a Return".

That's it for now,

Stay tuned,

KS