There’s a 5:30am game that I got into. It’s higher level players so the tennis is good, but holy shit is it early.
I enjoy starting the day with a workout but the early hour blows my day up pretty good.
Early Morning Sesh
Category Archives: sports
6.5 Season Swan Song
With one match left (and I’ve already played so much I may not make it in the lineup), I took my first L of the 6.5 Mixed Combo season this weekend, 5-7, 3-6. I took a nasty bite from the double-fault bug in some inopportune moments in the first set and then we just stunk it up in the 2nd.
Adding insult to injury, the match was on hardcourt so I was starting to get sore before I got back to the house. Playing on clay is so forgiving to these old bones.
In Memoriam
I had to say goodbye to a favorite pair of socks this week.
This early Fat Cyclist/Twin Six collaboration was a stalwart through my cycling and running and lifting eras.
They will be missed.
More tennis
A couple of Saturday matches of various effort levels, and a Sunday match with good tennis but the same fun levels. It’s almost always fun.
The morning session was a chill affair with some friends. My normal doubles partner is moving up a level, so I’m trying to get some reps with another pal who I think would make a good partner. We did okay against some guys at a higher level, and there is always room to improve.
Saturday afternoon’s match was a 6.5 mixed doubles bloodbath that we won in, like, 45 minutes. Afterward, my partner suggested we hit some singles since she “wanted to try to return that serve”. We ended up playing a full set of singles that I eked out 7-5. You can see all of that Zone 4 time was when she was running my big ass all over the court.
I’m not a fan of playing singles. There is a great deal of physics at work when I’m starting and stopping all of this body, and I tend to suffer.
Sunday’s match was my second run at the 7.5 mixed combo league where I’m playing with a 4.5 lady. Most of the teams in this league are a combo of a 4.0 and 3.5 player, but since my partner is a 4.5 she had to find a 3.0 to play with.
She’s explained to me that I was picked mostly for vibes, and also because I’m okay at the net. We won a fun match in a 3rd set tiebreak against a couple of good players.
I enjoy playing mixed doubles. And these combo leagues are a lot of fun because I get to hit with people that are, mathematically, better than me. We have a couple of weeks left in the season, which is fine, because we play outside and it’s starting to get cold.
I guess the Mets are still in it.
It was another insane finish to an important ballgame last night. Lindor is a bad, bad man. Alonso had a clutch hit (while in the middle of an awful slump). And starting pitcher David Peterson got the save?!?!
Not sorry, sad Brewers fans.
Now it’s on to the hated Phillies.
What a win!
These damn Mets pulled off a wild one yesterday to make the postseason for the first time since 2016 (and that was a super-stinker of a time).
Francisco Lindor hit a 2-run home run in the top of the 9th to put the Mets ahead after they gave up a 3-run lead in the bottom of the 8th. It was tremendous, as he has been this whole darn season.
The Mets had to go from Atlanta to Milwaukee after the doubleheader where they’ll start their series tonight. It would be wild to see them get past the Brewers.
On mute.
In Chicago. Found a spot to watch Liverpool at lunch. Walk in, ask for a table and the match on one of the 12 tvs.
“You can sit anywhere. We’ll put it on that tv, but we’re an Arsenal bar so you won’t get any sound.”
lol
Club Challenge Wrap
I played well in my two Club Challenge matches this weekend with my pal Peter. We always laugh at how nervous we get at the start of these things. Like, legit Waco Kid shaky hands. We did some line shuffling as a team to lock in a favorable lineup so Peter and I were matched against a weaker line from a better team. It didn’t really matter, because we’ve been nice this year and we won the first match 6-4, 6-2.
The nerves and little too much coffee had me bouncing between zones 3 and 4, but we eventually settled down and handled things.
The format for the weekend is two days of play to determine the top 6 (of 12) teams, and then scores reset for Sunday where the top 6 play for the trophy. Our Sunday match was against a better team’s 1st line, and it was a tougher match. It didn’t help that I rolled my ankle pretty badly in the middle of the 2nd set, so I spent the next three games waiting for a pop or a crunch to end my match and season. We won the match 6-4, 5-7, 1-0 in a 3rd set tiebreak.
Once I was confident enough that my ankle wasn’t going to implode things settled down. It was a bit of a marathon match, though, and I’m still sore and tired.
Big Zone 3 energy out there, which is nice. That deep HR dip around 10am was the ankle roll. I had to take a minute to assess the damage and retie my shoe. I was sweating it.
As a first Club Challenge experience, it was a really good time. Probably because I played well and won my matches, but the whole thing was wall-to-wall tennis and watching/laughing/cheering with my tennis friends for 3 straight days. I’m unlikely to move up to 3.5 after this season so I should be in a good spot to make the team again next year. If i don’t make the team, I will 100% make time to go watch as much as I can.
4 stars.
2024 Club Challenge
Big, big doings this weekend. I made it on the Westwood Club Challenge team, so I’ve got a bunch of tennis to play and watch this weekend.
A big draw for me is watching the 4.0 and higher players hit. The pace they put on the ball and the smart way they position themselves bounces back and forth between inspiring and discouraging. They’re playing a different game than I am, it seems. This’ll be fun.
Suffering some tennis fatigue
End of summering aside, I have been playing a ton of tennis lately and it’s starting to wear a bit. We’ve got a big tournament this coming weekend and the urge to get as much practice in has started to backfire. I’m tried and playing lazily, which is not a recipe for confidence building.
You see my zones up there. Living in Zone 1 is not evidence of a player getting after it on the court. I’ve got one last mixed doubles match tonight to play as a tune up, and then I’m on hold until the weekend. I don’t usually have to be the guy “making a conscious effort to stay upbeat and positive”, but that’s where I am today.
Fingers crossed.