Hose-down after flood

Liquid Sunshine, bah humbug.  Flooding was actually the cleanest, least muddy one in quite some time, and even though the moat overflowed the south wall, the total depth never got to the level of the floor in the new shed.  Crew did great job, and thanks to Marian for the home-baked biscuts.  If this rain ends, should have dry courts mid-Sunday.

4 Guys, 2 Jacks plus serve Slo-Mo video

Mike, Brian, Kevin, Jim

Kevin & Jim won it!

Hey have you ever seen this play?  Server tries serve-volley, receiver lobs over server's partner for the point.  Hmm who's supposed to be standing where, and when?

Doubles strategy Brent Able

Here's a 5 min video discussing unforced errors from the deep player trying to make put-away shots, ie the setup vs put-away teamwork.  Well worth thinking about, IMO, YMMV.
http://www.webtennis.com/players/whats-the-right-shot-36-doubles-who-are-you-out-there/

Making your own post to the blog

Right now, anyone with a free google account (including a gmail account) can post or comment.  I've not yet set up a membership list, which will restrict it to Towerpoint members, but that may come in time.  Click Login and New Post in the top right corner, or just comment any given post (but those comments have to be clicked to be seen.  You can click the envelope icon, and then whenever there's a new post, you'll get an email notice.  You can also post without going to the blog, by email, I'll post how to shortly.  You can post a request to get a 3rd or 4th player for some reserve court time, to share a lesson with Hurley, a good instructional video,or anything else Tennis.  No corny jokes, chain-emails, or other off topic stuff, please.  Ideas, suggestions, tournament postings, all welcome.

Lynn after a summer off

Yep, there's lots of moving parts in a serve, getting them all stitched back together takes work and concentration...and maybe a little extra insight from watching yourself.  Lets see what a week or so can do to get those first serves working like they did last season.

Bob W serving, Klein at net

Click the icon for full screen.
I thought I'd need a tripod to pan and cover court action between serves, but now I think not.  Better positioning (baseline, directly behind, and from receiver's position) would help, but it's still only one camera position at a time.
If I can just get the editing vs portrait/landscape mode thing to work, this would be much better.
Suggestions and other ideas welcome.  Rus

Klein serving, Dick at Net

OK, another Slo-Mo service study.  Click the icon at the bottom right to go full-screen.  Soon as I find a better and more dependable way to get these uploaded, and after editing out the between-the-serve footage, fixing formatting hassles, and improving the camera angles, these will hopefully become a feature useful to everyone who's interested in improving their game.  Rus

Bigger Serves With A Fluid Motion

Bigger Serves With A Fluid Motion

Lots of us have a serve motion that starts out looking like a Japanese bow at the waist to our opponent,followed by straightening up and tossing the ball at the same time, followed by a quick swat at the ball .  That's one reason I started taking slo-mo's of our players serving.  Karla mentioned this video, which plays for about 5 minutes, from a pro who shows how to get the hang of a smooth toss-swing action.  Thanks Karla!  Great stuff.

Brian Slo-Mo Serve 10/12/13

What would you like to work on in your game?
Would some slow-motion clips help?
I know I've always wondered if what I thought I was doing right/wrong was ANYWHERE near my actual performance.
With slo-mo I can begin to see what I'm actually doing and work on improvements.
Now for TowerPoint Tennis, we can do both slo-mo (this is 1/8x), and relatively high-speed stop action photos for a frame-by-frame action slide show.
Just for the asking.  (And sometimes without)
Here's Brian, just a couple days back from a summer off, looking pretty good. (click the icon for full-screen)
Then scroll down to see more taken over the summer.  Let me know if you want to try it out! Rus

So here we have it, nifty, roomy, and electrified equipment shed, concrete ramp in place and ready for action.  As long as the new anti-flooded court pump wiring, newly plugged holes in the wall, and some reasonable weather holds, we're golden!

Pearly Gates, yes, it's them Pearly Gates for TowerPoint Tennis Players (and guests, too!)

This week we got a start on the long-awaited gates at the back of the courts.  I'm tempted to say "What a boring topic" but I'll resist, and simply acknowledge that Joe and I had all the fun we could have drilling holes for the gateposts for all 5 courts.  DJ's current plans are to have gates in courts 1 and 2 by the start of the season, and hopefully more, if not the rest, later in the season.  Coupled with some of the other improvements (shed with ramp, re-wired pumps, and a night-light (soon), plus new visiting signage and score board, the to-do list is making headway for sure.

Two sights winter-season players seldom see: the palm trees after they get their annual haircut, and an approaching dust storm, headed in from the south.  By the time league starts, both will be distant memories for those of us here through the summer.

Who wants to see their serve in slo-mo?  It will be available to all who want it this season, along with stop-action photos.  Here are a couple early tests to show some Summer Season Round Robin,

Then a Slo-Mo of Marty's Serve & Slice

And one of 3 positions for Ron, new to TowerPoint this season.

All you winter season folks miss out on the big summer event: palm trees get a haircut.  Here you see it near completion, the boom truck working away to the left.  Shortly after this DJ throws a big gala bash at the center.  They drain the exercise pool, fill it with all the dried palm fronds, douse them in kerosene, and we have our version of Man on Fire here in the desert.  Everyone gets double Eskimo Pies, and we hum in unison, "How Dry I Am" while the summer league tennis players from around the valley accompany us with the EVSTL kazoo band.

Well, there's some things about the template I'm using that make things harder.  For example, to post, you have to have signed in first.  And you have to find the small print at the top right that says "New Post" and finally, I misremembered how to get email notice of a new post, it apparently is not the small envelope icon, but I'll change that some day soon.

We got haboobed

Fairly sudden wind and minor dust storm out of the south this afternoon
brought cooler weather but upset the bleachers and bulletin boards.  Damage appears minor.
Rus

Tennis Ladder Software

From http://www.tennisengine.com 

Please be advised that this system depends on a reasonable amount of match data. A player or doubles team needs to have at least 3 matches logged before an accurate ranking can be calculated.

The Tennis Engine computes player rankings based upon a proprietary algorithm that evaluates every match played for the life of the league or conference. The system is designed to rank each player based upon a combination of performance (derived from match results) and activity (how many matches played and against whom).

When a new match is entered, the Tennis Engine adjusts your ranking based on the following factors:

1. Current match win or loss
2. Current match performance (% of games won)
3. The strength of each of your past opponents
4. Your overall match winning percentage
5. Your overall game winning percentage

Furthermore, the ranking of every player who has played you or your opponent will be affected by the outcome of your match.

Winning or losing a close match with a highly rated player could boost your ranking, whereas a close match with a lower rated player could reduce your ranking. Decisive wins over lower rated players could be less rewarding than close wins over higher rated players. Confused? Simply put... winning matters the most, but after that it's all about whom you play and how close you play them.

Strength Rating

The rankings are based on each player's current Index value (i.e. the third ranked player has the third highest Index). Each player's Index is a combination of his Strength Rating and the number of wins. Each player's Strength Rating is viewable in his player profile.

Your Strength Rating (SR) is the measure of your ability to:

1. win matches against the field of participants
2. win a high percentage of games in all matches
3. perform well against higher rated players

Your Strength Rating will improve with more matches won and a better percentage of games won. The strength (SR) of the opponents you play is also factored into the calculation (Each player's SR is located inside his profile along with other information).

Your SR will fluctuate as other participants compete. It might rise as players whom you have defeated accumulate wins over other players. Inversely, your SR might dip if players who have beaten you suffer losses.

The online league is updated every time a match is entered. Any method and combination of scoring can be used.

Doubles

Margin of victory, opponent strength, and wins and losses are factored just as in singles - plus the Strength Rating (SR) of your chosen partner. A win or close loss with a weak partner will help build a healthy Strength Rating.

Tennis Serve Racquet Path - Linear vs Circular

Test to see how post without title appears.
To Do List: Find way to make "New Post" more prominnent.
Hmm spell checker a bit sketchy, did not pick up extra "n" in prominnent.   Maybe does at save or publish? will see.
well.  spell checker only checks.  yellow highlight of misspell, but no correction offered. bummer