Tennis season is firing up again in Colorado. We’ve been out practicing for about 6 weeks now, and the rust is finally letting go. You can follow the team this year at the brand new BTARed.com (complete with RSS and email feeds, and all!).

Man, my life is exciting.

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Just finished an hour “workout” over at Ben Casnocha’s place. I think we played 6 games of ping pong, and somehow I managed to split with him, including one clutch comeback (down 17-20). I like to think that he didn’t let up, either, but maybe he did. I had predicted “shock and awe” in a late night email flurry last night, but it turns out that Ben is mentally tough.

After I saw his post about another epic ping pong battle, I asked if I could come give it a shot. I play alot of tennis so I naturally “get” racquet/paddle sports, but don’t get to the ping pong table very much. But when you’re playing somebody else who’s good, it’s pretty fun.

Playing against Ben is tough, because he can reach literally anything. If you challenge him, my advice is twofold. First, hit into his body and let his wingspan work against him as much as you can. Second, when you really need a point, float an easy serve to his forehand once in a while and he’ll sometimes overhit. His backhand is too good, and he’s expecting it on most serves.

Thanks Ben. Sorry to give away your secrets.

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I played on two mens tennis leagues this summer. Both leagues are in the 4.5 level, which is generally full of x-college tennis players in their twenties, thirties or forties.

The main league is the USTA adult league. There are about 12 guys on a team, and for each match you have to win 3 out of 5 matches (which consist of two singles and 3 doubles) to win the overall team match. We went undefeated this year (8-0) in our division (north metro Denver) and lost a heartbreaker in the state championships (3-2) in the final, finishing second in the state. We won at this level in 2004 and traveled to sectionals in Utah where six state champions compete to go to nationals (often in Hawaii).

The secondary league is called CTA Twilight. Twilight has smaller teams (8 guys or so) and each team match is two singles and one doubles, in a best two out of three match format. Our team won our divison and played in the state finals just this past Friday and Saturday. We went 3-0 and won the state championship for the twilight league.

I also played on two mixed doubles teams this summer, but neither of them advanced to the state championship.

Finally, I played in four tournaments, and won one of them.

I was pretty happy with my personal overall “competitive” match record this year, which was 18 wins and 9 losses (18-9).

At the end of each year, the state adjusts players ratings based on their results. I’ve been rated at 5.0 in the past, and I really don’t like playing at that level because there are not as many players, the tournaments are smaller, etc. This year, based on my record, I shouldn’t have much to worry about.

All of the major tournaments and league play are over at this point, so it’s time once again to put the gear away until late March. Oh well, let’s go skiing. Wait, it’s still 80 degrees. Hmmm…

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