We entered this season knowing we were among the better high school teams in Kentucky and that the defending champions were the strongest team in the state on paper. We and they love that sports are not played on paper. We lost two spirited dual matches to them in the regular season (including one singles…
Author: tennisabides
2024 KHSAA Kentucky Boys Team State Championship Day 1 in the Books
The Newish Format For the first time in several years, Kentucky has separated its high school singles and doubles state tournaments from the team championship. I’ve been fortunate enough to be an assistant coach at a school that has won its past 4 regional titles. In recent previous seasons, regional and state titles were awarded…
Quick Hits: Kentucky State High School Championships
I made the picturesque* drive from Louisville to Lexington to help coach my school’s entrants in the KHSAA state singles and doubles tournaments hosted by the University of Kentucky. UK has enjoyed a lot of success recently in NCAA tennis losing to the eventual NCAA champions each of the past 3 seasons in the 2022…
Roland Garros 2024: Roddick on Rafa
This video gives a lot of insight into what facing Rafael Nadal is like and how Rafa developed his game over the years. The 3-minute point in the video begins a multiple-minute discussion of what trading groundstrokes with Rafa feels like if you wish to skip ahead. I want to add that Novak Djokovic having…
Roland Garros 2024: How to Coach Rafa ahead of His Final French Open?
How to Prepare the Ultimate Overdog on Clay for One Last Stand as an Underdog? This was not an easy topic even before Nadal drew the 2024 Masters Rome champion and #4 seed Alexander “Sascha” Zverev. Rafa appeared likely to hit a unique 15-Love in Paris when he won his 14th French Open title in…
Upsets in Tennis are Easier with No-Ad Scoring & Match Tiebreaks
March Madness in the United States is a beloved sporting event crowning the end of the NCAA basketball season. It is marked by upsets. Tennis upsets are harder to come by due to the sheer number of points needed to win a single game let alone a set or match in tennis. For good or…
Novak Djokovic’s Mind and the Under 30 ATP Crowd
How did Novak muster the self-confidence to change the Big 2 into the Big 3 despite having a combined 2-9 record versus Federer and Nadal in majors?
French Open 2021: Men’s Singles Final Prediction – Djokovic vs. Tsitsipas
I pretty much agree with both my tweet (shocking!) and with Howard Bryant. On Friday, I told someone, “If Tsitsipas serves well, hits spots that set him up well. He has a 40-45% chance of winning. If he doesn’t serve well, I think he has less than a 10% chance of winning.” I would add…
Chess and Tennis: Chess Can Be Good for Your Tennis Game
David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest spends a few pages describing tennis as a hybrid of chess and boxing. Reading this led me to thinking about Ivan Ljubicic being a strong chess player and Boris Becker complimenting world #1 Novak Djokovic’s chess acumen. This might deserve more investigation. Uniquely Qualified? I’ve been playing tennis since 1985…
Tennis Abides: Dan Martin on Tennis and Life 