WTA and ATP Tour schedule

You can now see what's on tap for the men's and women's tour each day by clicking a date in the calendar in the right sidebar.

Technorati Tags: tennis

The Great Kiss-Off

I'm getting to this point too.

If there is an honest domain in Korea, I'd like to know about it. I stopped counting at 30 crooked sites from there ripping me off! So, why bother blocking a site? Why not just be done with it and block the whole country?

Typical abuse of American generosity: American works butt off to give away quality free content to the world. So, the ingrate parasites not only steal your work, and for profit, they make YOU pay for the bandwidth to host it to their customers for them.

How's that for a you-know-what from behind?

Just keep it up, parasites. We are comparing notes and making lists. You soon will get the Great Kiss-Off = you soon will have access to very few websites. You'll have nothing left to do business with but our "Access Forbidden" pages.

Maybe people there won't like what you've done to block their whole nation out so its people can no longer visit sites like this. But that's YOUR problem, not mine.

Success!

The problem with the newsletter was that Kathy can't spell "OperationDoubles.com" without stuttering to "OperationDDoubles.com".

But "The Operation Doubles Connection" has finally been sent.

PS
I wonder where email like that goes. To some home for homeless email in the sky?

The Operation Doubles Connection - March issue

I am having problems sending out the The Operation Doubles Connection newsletter.

Working on it...

In the meantime, subscribers can view the online copy here.

The Operation Doubles Connection - March issue

The March issue of The Operation Doubles Connection (the free Operation Doubles monthly newsletter) is now online. For information about this newsletter and how to subscribe, see here.

Contents

• What's New at Operation Doubles
• Featured Tennis Website of the Month
• This Month's Doubles Quiz
• This Month's Q & A
• This Month's Shot-Making Tip
• Tennis News & Upcoming Tournaments

Technorati Tags: tennis tennis instruction tennis doubles

Daniela Hantuchova Wins the Pacific Life Open Tennis Tournament

Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia won the Pacific Life Open yesterday, defeating second-seeded Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3, 6-4 in the women's final. This is Daniela's second career title, her other one being the same title in 2002.

Congratulations to her, but I bet (or at least hope) she wishes the field had been stronger. The absence of three of the top five women robs players like Daniela of the chance to really get a lot of credit by winning a big tournament like this. For, everyone thinks, "Sure, Daniela won only because Henin, Williams, Mauresmo, and other top women players didn't show up."

The statistics support that notion, because Hantuchova had but a 3-25 record against top-5 players before yesterday's final, only the sixth of her career. And, to win the title she needed only to beat Martina Hingis and one of the only two Grand-Slam winners seeded at Indian Wells. The other one, Sharapova, was eliminated in the prelims.

Like the ATP, the WTA had better start taking care of the tournaments that take care of them. Indian Wells is part of the Masters Series in the ATP, and the WTA should institute a similar program.

But beating Kuznetsova ain't nothing. She said:

She [Hantuchova] was playing very well. To beat her today, I had to play key moments better than I did and I forced a little bit more than I had to in the first set. When she was on the roll, it was pretty hard to stop her.

Hantuchova joins Mary Joe Fernandez, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Lindsay Davenport, Serena Williams, and Kim Clijsters as the only players to have won the Pacific Life Open twice.

She seems to think she had some kind of premonition about yesterday's match (tennis players aren't superstitious!):

I had exactly the same feeling like I had against Martina in 2002. I just knew that I was gonna enjoy myself out there, and not for one second I didn't believe in myself. I was just so confident from the first point, and I didn't really think about the score. I just went out there and tried to play my game and really just enjoying every moment on the court.

Come on. This wasn't a bit of a Sunday afternoon hit.

You can find interesting bits of information and comments on the match at On the Baseline and Peter Bodo's blog. In fact, I think he nailed it:

I decided to give it one more shot on the psychology angle later in the presser, asking her to name the biggest psychological difference in her perception of herself or her game these days. She said:

I learned not to try -- I mean, of course you always want to be perfect, but if you're not perfect all the time. It's okay. And I realized that, you know, there are always going to be some difficult times that you have to get through. But as long as you enjoy what you're doing, I think that's the most important thing.

So there you have it, once again: perfection is the quest that leads a player to transcend the pack and become a successful pro, at which point the quest for perfection becomes a lethal obstacle to achieving the highest of goals. It haunts and taunts a player who isn’t willing to roll with the punches of fate and recognize that, at the end of the day, it’s not about perfection at all it’s just about beating the person on the other side of the net.

Amen.

Technorati Tags: tennis Daniela Hantuchova

The lizard_of_od

Congratulations to June and Bill Bush for finding the lizard_of_od almost immediatey, in Both-Up Strategy Keys to Success.

Unfortuantely, she has escaped again. So, the offer still stands ;-)

Technorati Tags: tennis tennis instruction tennis doubles

The lizard_of_od

If you are visiting the Main Site and see her, don't be afraid. Dame Lizzy, the lizard_of_od, is harmless.

But she got loose on OperationDoubles.com, and I can't find her. She must be hungry by now.

So, if you spot her, let me know where she is. (Click my profile to send email.)

If you are the first to locate her, I will send you a free copy of...



Wherever you are, Lizzy, hang in there. I'm a-comin'.

Technorati Tags: tennis

Psychology of Tennis

Here's some food for thought on current ideas in sports psychology. In fact, we see the same ideas in general mental self-help practices.

Addressing the psychology of the game is clearly important and should be helpful. I am a big fan of Tim Gallwey's The Inner Game of Tennis and Tomaz Mencinger's Tennis Mind Game, among others.

But I say, "Woah!" at what sounds like self brainwashing to self delusion from some. It's easy to see where I'm coming from on this. For, if you check out my other sites, you will see that I have had experience with people who - shall we say - have a very positive attitude about themselves.

People who pass for normal but, when you get to know them, prove to be pathological.

What I'm getting at here is the idea that you should train your mind to think a certain way. To force your thinking a certain direction. The opposite direction.

The idea is that, to cure yourself of feeling that you're inadequate, just convince yourself that you're super-adequate. To get rid of the feeling that you can't do something, just convince yourself that you can.

But I ask, "Where does this stop?" Answer: nowhere short of believing that you can do anything. Anything you set your mind to.

Sorry, that is a fairy tale.

It's called "believing" in yourself. As usual, the word believe no longer means "be faithful to;" it has been switched into meaning "subscribing to a list of doctrines about something," in this case, about yourself.

You are to believe that errors are CAUSED by wrong thinking = you are capable of flawless play, because all you need to do is think right. The assumption here is that believing your shot will go in makes it go in. Rather like "faith healing."

It reminds me of the old bartender's trick: when the drinker is drunk, you can change water into wine by filling a glass with dishwater and handing it to him as though it IS wine.

You are to train your mind to psych yourself up into "the zone."

Now, the zone is real. But the proponents of self delusion/brainwashing don't describe it as merely a quiet, non-judgemental, and properly focused state of mind. They describe it as a state of mind in which you have NO fear, have NO doubt, and feel that you can do NO wrong - so whale away recklessly: the ball will go in.

Let's call that what it is - make-believing that you have virtually magical powers. Whether you acknowledge that or not, that's what it amounts to.

How is the mind manipulated to control thinking? Through visualization, hypnosis, sleeping with motivational tapes injecting in-formation (in the form of subliminal suggestion) through your ears. If I were an artist, I'd call these methods "waving a magic wand" to put someone under a spell in which they think they're a frog or the greatest tennis player in the world.

Now all those methods do have legitimate uses for legitimate objectives and can be helpful. But all too often they are applied toward illegitimate ones. Why should information have to be snuck into your head? Common sense dictates a healthy suspicion of that.

I'm not saying this psych job won't work. In fact, I have an uneasy feeling that we might be seeing it working in some players at the top of the game, especially some who have been a flash in the pan.

But what good does it do you if it makes you the No. 1 tennis player in the world but ruins your life? Your inner life? Your relationship with your (true) self? And the other personal relationships in your private life? All ruined, because this brainwashing has removed you from reality and put you in a fantasy where you are some kind of tennis god.

It's nothing but an adult reverting to childhood and playing 'Pretend.'

It isn't "positive" thinking at all. It's negative thinking, because it negates reality.

If you have the problem of negating your self worth by thinking you're a loser, there are two ways you can stop it.

One is by truly positive thinking: shoving those irrelevant, distracting, negative thoughts aside by replacing them with thinking about your tactics and strategy for the next point. That's positive. That's thinking what you can do to win.

The other way is by negating your negative thinking with negative thinking in the opposite direction: erase the thought that you are loser by repeating to yourself, "I'm a winner, I'm a winner, I'm a winner, I'm a winner, I'm a winner...."

You doom yourself when you brainwash yourself into thinking that, if you only believe in yourself strongly enough, you can whale away with reckless abandon and have the ball go in.

Inherent in that mental virus is the notion that you CAN make every shot. So, ideally you really SHOULD make every shot. Result: every error is a moral failure.

Tiny, perhaps, but they add up.

Make a few too many in any given match and - CRASH - your game evaporates. That is, the spell evaporates. Your magic is gone. You are dismayed.

It's rather like what happens to a big, swaggering dude with a gun...who is informed that it ain't loaded. Woops, he's suddenly Mr.-Meek-and-Wouldn't-Hurt-a-Fly.

It is better and healthier to face facts: Tennis is a game of errors, because it challenges the limits of perception, timing, speed, balance, and judgement that the human brain and body are capable of. Every nice shot is somewhat of a miracle. So, errors are part of the game. Nobody can make every shot. So, nobody SHOULD make every shot. Your errors are just errors, not moral failings to believe something strongly enough.

Now you have a healthy and sensible attitude. You view your errors as simple matters of fact, not something to condemn yourself for. You pay attention to them, correcting for them on the next shot. You surely don't whale away with reckless abandon. You formulate a game to minimize the effect of your errors on the outcome. To do this, you blend the right amount of aggression and error inducing tactics with the right amount of tactics to reduce your frequency of error.

The mind is our most precious possession. It's best not to play games with it. People who do believe in themselves, who are faithful to themselves, who are true to themselves, never lie to themselves. Because friends don't lie to friends.

Technorati Tags: tennis tennis instruction

Bjorkman and Mirnyi Advance at Indian Wells Over Henman and Murray

Top seeds Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden and Max Mirnyi of Belarus defeated Tim Henman and Andy Murray's of Great Britain in the quarterfinals at Indian Wells today.

The first set wasn't really close, but then Henman and Murray broke twice in the second before disappearing again to lose five straight games and the match, 6-3 6-4.

Murray returns to action on Friday when he faces Tommy Haas in the quarterfinals of the singles competition.

Technorati Tags: tennis

What's the Tennis Buzz

Well, you know what the buzz is about - Roger Federer's loss to Argentinian Guillermo Canas yesterday at Indian Wells.

It was a shame to see the Fed stopped just 5 matches short of setting a new open-era record for the longest winning streak. Especially to someone just back after a two year suspension for cheating by doping. (Shame on me for not trusting Canas anymore!)

But I just don't see what's so stunning about the result. What did people think Roger Federer is?

Wherever they got that idea, Roger didn't give it to them.

He sees opponent after opponent "go away" at the crucial point in the match just because he's "the Fed." In their hearts they don't believe they can beat the mythological deity. All he has to do is hang tight, keep calm, and wait for it to happen...then say, "Thank you very much" as he makes off with the match that they won't win.

But here he is dealing with a guy who has discovered how tenuous life is, how quickly his dream of playing on the tour can be taken away. Like the kid who returns after flunking out of college, he is all business about it now.

He's thinking too straight and clearly to get caught up and fogged in all the hype. Federer was ripe to be beaten by someone like Canas.

But now we must view this as earth-shaking. Perhaps a sign of the End Times? Roger tries to put it in perspective:

He played very well. I missed my chances, and I'll pay the price later on. I think he played very well and I didn't think I was playing poorly at all. So it's okay.

In other words, it ain't magic and all gone.

Read more here and here, and don't miss this arresting mixed metaphor at Tennis Diary:

Speaking of running, the officials probably sprinted to administer urine tests to Canas the minute he walked off the court. Just to make sure. Maybe they made Federer cough up too....

'Er, please don't do that to our imaginations ;-)

Technorati Tags:
tennis roger federer

Indian Wells

The Pacific Life Open at Indian Wells, California (near Palm Springs) is an ATP Masters Series and Sony Ericsson WTA Tier 1 tour event.

It is the 5th largest event in attendance next to the four Grand Slam tournaments.

Men's qualifying finishes today, and women's action begins. The tournament runs to March 18.

Draws (PDF):
Men's Singles
Women's Singles
Women's Doubles

This is a major event, one that takes a back seat only to the four "majors" - the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. But the women's tour doesn't require players to enter a "masters" series of such prestigious events. So all the top 30 men are playing at Indian Wells, but only two of the top five women are.

The WTA lets its players refuse to play in these major events, thus allowing other upstart tournaments to bribe top players away with huge purses, like Doha and Dubai have done.

My, how international, how good for tennis...which rides on the back of the American market.

Whether Americans are at the top of the game or not. (Compare the ATP profits from Germany when Boris Becker was playing to what they are now.)

You can see where this policy will lead - to chaos. Instead of a stable backbone of tournaments that perennially bring in money from an audience that is there even when the top players are not from the home country, we will have constantly undercutting competition for the top players by here-today/gone-tomorrow operations.

No it's not good for tennis. It's good for current players who want to cash in on a fast buck and for companies who couldn't care less about the future of tennis, companies who just want a foot in the door of foreign markets for their advertising campaigns.

Venus and Serena Williams boycott the tournament because of an ugly incident they were involved in there a few years ago. That, I understand, though what they did to precipitate it - defaulting a late-round match against your sister - was wrong and proves there is something wrong with their attitude toward their opponents. It's a game - SPORTING competetition - not a war, so you should be able to play it against your sister without any breech of faith.

But Belgium's Justine Henin has no excuse other than greed. God knows why France's Amelie Mauresmo isn't in the United States today. Or Belgium's Kim Clijsters.

Technorati Tags:
tennis serena williams venus williams amelie mauresmo justine henin kim clijsters

Federer Fifth in Total Weeks at No.1

Though Roger Federer now holds the record for the most consecutive weeks ranked as the world No. 1 (161), he still has far to go for the record for the most weeks at that position. Currently, that 161 is also his total number of weeks at the No.1 spot.

In Rome, in early May, he will probably pass John McEnroe, fourth on the list, with a total of 170 weeks at No.1.

But Jimmy Conners held the spot for a total of 268 weeks during his career; Ivan Lendl held it for 270 weeks; and Pete Sampras held it for 286 weeks.

Technorati Tags:
tennis roger federer

ATP redoubles its promotion of doubles

This may come as a shock to you (so make sure you're sitting down), but the ATP's great effort to promote doubles has had no effect.

But, this news comes prefaced with an assurance that this doesn't mean the folks doing the job weren't effective:

"We've been very effective in terms of delivering what we set out to achieve in getting doubles on the show courts and more attention from the media," says ATP chief marketing director Phil Anderton.

Now, as I read English, that says that they have been "very effective" in getting "more media attention" for doubles. So, what planet does this next sentence come from?

"People are not aware enough of the doubles players, and we haven't given them reasons to go watch doubles," he said.

Not if what he'd just said out of the other side of his mouth was true. Media attention = public awareness.

The paradox is that enormous numbers of recreational players, especially age 40 and older, play primarily doubles at clubs and public courts.

That's no paradox. That just means that there is something lacking in professional doubles. For, most tennis players play mostly doubles and therefore like doubles. So why won't they watch it?

Let's just call it a "paradox" or a "mystery," as if there is no answer to that question. Then we won't have to acknowledge the answer.

This isn't rocket science. The fans won't come, because the best players aren't there. So this "attracting fans" approach is an an exercise in futility.

Frankly, excepting the few top doubles teams, the level of play is NOT what it should be. There. I said it. It's true, and everyone knows it.

Who wants to spend their ticket on watching that when they can spend it on watching great tennis?

You simply have to attract singles players into the doubles, playing both events as they used to before the advent of open (big money, media driven) tennis.

In other words, you need to go back to a system in which tennis players are tennis players, who play both games of tennis.

But the media rule the world. They changed everything. They superstitiously cling to marketing the cult of personality. When they have a sport ready-made for that, like tennis singles, forget the media. They don't have to sell their product with two hours of gossip about personalities before the game: in tennis they can do that much cheaper right during the game. They get all kinds of neat close-up shots of the sweating face of one lone gladiator in the area out there. High drama. Better than fiction. So, you won't get them to pay any attention to doubles except at gunpoint.

The change has to come from within tennis itself. You have to take away the disincentives that keep singles players from entering the doubles. But one might as well try to do away with legislative earmarks in Congress, because someone is profiting from all those disincentives.

And you have to increase the prize money for doubles duh.

Technorati Tags:
tennis tennis doubles

Some Tips for High School Coaches

In singles, great skill generally is worth more than great strategy and smarts. In doubles, it's the other way around. Which is why good training of your doubles players can make a real difference in the team's overall success.

1. Training them to proper eyework at net. No head turning to watch their partner hit the ball. Just learning where they should be looking as the ball goes back and forth raises the level of their game, as they start winning truckloads of points they used to lose.

2. Training them to proper footwork at net. Most players just park, never moving unless a shot comes to them. Teach your players to widen their partner's hitting lane and to narrow the opposing baseliner's hitting lane. That alone is a big help, but your players then see that doubles is a game of maneuvering and positioning, and they now notice and discover the finer points of it on their own.

3. Way too many players need to be taught not to run backwards when they are at net and an opposing net player is about to wham the ball. They need it drilled into their heads that while they are backpedaling, they are incapacitated, that they must STEP back and SET themselves for the shot. Or, if they feel endangered, the way out of harm's way is to the SIDE, not back. That is, they must be taught the Move - a pivot turning your back to the net with a step toward your alley.

4. Many high school players always volley crosscourt. You can't do that in doubles. When the opposing team is in the Up-and-Back Formation, be death on you volleyers hitting through the angular Hole between them. Even when they must angle the volley the other way. It isn't that hard to learn. It just takes a little practice. If they have to choke up on the racket a bit to do that, fine. Whatever it takes. If they know you won't take "But I can't" as an answer, they will learn in a day or two.

5. Switching for lobs over your net player is generally thought to be a good idea, the thing to do. The Switch Trick is the first bit of true strategy I teach young players. They need to know the perils of switching and that it usually isn't necessary. They need to know how to switch safely when it is necessary. And, once they know the Switch Trick, they can play it on most opponents all day long.

For some reason, becoming an initiate into the mysteries of the Switch Trick seems to open players' eyes to the game. They suddenly get it and start noticing a lot things, learning a lot about the game on their own. You might say that this is the day they become real doubles players.

In drilling, don't forget reverse-crosscourt shots. Kids should practice them as much as they do crosscourts and down-the-lines.

Doubles players need a reliable overhead. A great many shaky overheads can be helped tremendously by this simple tip on how to move back under a lob to hit an overhead.

None of these things takes a big investment of practice time. And they all pay off in spades.

Technorati Tags:
tennis tennis instruction tennis doubles

Forehand Grips: Eastern Forehand, Continental, Semi-Western

Confused about the different racket grips? This new lesson explains and demonstrates and will help you understand what other other players and pros mean when they talk about grips.

Technorati Tags:
tennis tennis instruction

Tennis in a Bucket of Crabs

"Ah," she wondered, "What shall I write about today?"

Serendipity, of course!

What a pleasure in this little piece I stumbled upon. I guess it would take a New Zealander to come up with the perfect analogy - "a bucket of crabs." But I was already interested in the subject. And Tomaz Mencinger has written about the same thing.

Chris Lewis:

Anyone familiar with the behaviour of a bunch of crabs trapped at the bottom of a bucket will know what happens when one of them tries to climb to the top; instead of attempting the climb themselves, those left at the bottom of the bucket will do all in their collective power to drag the climber back down. And although crab behaviour should not in any way be analogous to human behaviour, I can think of many instances where it is.

Take what is commonly called "The Tall Poppy Syndrome." This is where anyone who is brazen enough to strive for success — or, god forbid, to achieve it — immediately becomes a target for the "crab bucket mentalities" who, rather than strive for success themselves, derive enormous pleasure from attempting to cut the tall poppy back down.

This is a serious problem among young tennis players aspiring to greatness. Few actually do pursue it because of this negative peer pressure.

But the surprising thing is that I see the same crab-bucket behavior pressuring much older people even in social doubles play. Like it's against some unwritten rule to put the mediocrity of the crowd to shame by trying to learn the tricks of the game.

That's a no-no u know. That would make others look bad and thus force them to (sigh!) strain brain cell or two too.

This is just a continuation of what goes on among teenagers, as noted by Lewis:

You have done really well in your exams, but another one of your less successful peers accuses you of being a "try-hard" — the implication being that effort is bad & non-effort is good. Do you ignore him? Or, next time, do you take pains to show him that you do not try hard?

We know what the usual answer to that question is. But since you're the one who has to live it, common sense dictates that you should be the one in control of your life.

Read the rest of this insightful article.

Technorati Tags:
tennis

What's Buzzin' in the Blogsphere

In the Qatar Open, Belgian Justine Henin defeated fifth seed Patty Schnyder to get into the semi-final against Jelena Jankovic of Serbia. Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia defeated third seed Martina Hingis to get into the semi-final against Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia.

In the Dubai Open, Roger Federer of Switzerland defeated Serbia's Novak Djokovic to reach the semi-finals, where he will face Tommy Haas of Germany.

It looks like Mario Ancic will be out of action for a long time because of mononucleosis.

Dan's post, Brand Ambition, at No Man's Land, is interesting. He quotes from an artcile on TheBrandingChannel.com.

...despite some very good sub-sites with strong imagery and material, things go a little bit awry for Wilson on the web, thanks to the pages loading as slowly as a tennis serve from a 5-year-old, and content quality that fluctuates like the emotions of the Williams sisters.

...For web surfers who actually take the time to persevere with Wilson.com, there are some rewards: free poster downloads of Wilson-sponsored sports personalities and some decent animated content to spice up the experience, including a video of an official Super Bowl game ball being constructed. (Wilson has made footballs for the NFL since 1941.) Be warned, however, that anyone venturing too deep within the site will have as much fun getting home as a baseball player trying to score while the catcher's holding the ball securely in his mitt—none of the Wilson sub-sites open in a new window. This makes cross-navigation impossible and can wear out the patience of a user who has to consistently click the "back" button.

I myself have no opinion on much of this, but I have noticed a similar phenomenon in many of the Old Guard industries. Like the media, the publishing industry, the automakers. I suppose that making piles of money got to be too easy. They seem to think that they're so inherently superior to the competition that they don't have to try just as hard to please the customer and plan for the future. They seem not to take challenges seriously. Take the auto industry. They ignore the writing on the wall and continue to make mostly nothing but gas guzzlers till they're out of room to park all those unsellable vehicles pouring off the lines, weeks after sales have crashed because the cost of oil skyrocketed. Do they all have golden parachutes, or what? The same thing happened in the dead-tree media when the price of paper suddenly wasn't cheap anymore. And the media have barely begun to admit that their competition from electronic publication is not beneath their notice.

You go to these websites, and you wonder what they are thinking. TENNIS Magazine, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX NEWS, do you have any idea how long it takes your freakin' web pages to load over a phone line? Do you have any idea how many visitors you aggravate and lose because of that?

That's the first thing every amateur learns by Googling "How to make my first web page 101" - Don't PO your visitors with pages that take a half hour to load.

And then, when the first thing they see is a ton of image ads and even video ads - when they see that a bushel of this bandwidth hogging advertising is what the long wait is for - they are really ticked off. Not good for business.

A player to watch is Czech player Lucie Safarova, the current featured player of the month at OnTheLine.org.

I really liked this golden oldie by Peter Bodo published while he is on vacation. There's a lot of misplaced sympathy in this world. And I agree with him 100% on this. Cheaters are cheaters. They hurt others. It is the others who deserve our sympathy, not the cheaters. Just because they whine and put on such an angel-face and are so sad when they get caught (sniff, sniff).

I always get a kick out of the shorts at Off the Baseline. Read about Roger's tweener, among other things, today. (See it on video too.)

And at the Tennis Diary, we get some insight into the the game Amelie Maurismo. It seems another case of function fitting form, rather than the other way around.

Technorati Tags:
tennis