Greensboro Indoor Tennis Championships at Barber Park

For the first time in almost 15 years, I am playing United States Tennis Association tournaments. There are some major differences between now and then though.

Major Difference #1 - 15 years ago I was playing in the junior divisions. Kids are jerks...and cocky little bastards. 45% of the good players thought their shit didn't stink. Snootiness and bad attitudes everywhere in the juniors! Very little of that crap exists in the adult ranks.

Major Differnece #2 - The adult division I play in now, NTRP 3.5 singles & doubles, contains very few phenominal players. Most players are around the same skill level. If someone is clearly better than everyone else in the division, the rankings computer will automatically bump them up to a higher division and I won't have to worry about them. Makes for better competition and faster improvement in my own game.


This past weekend I learned how truly out of shape I am. My first round match was one of the first matches of the tournament. I played a native Russian, who now lives in Johnson City, Tennessee, Vitaly Nazarov. I really should have beaten this guy. He beat me 12-10 in a tiebreaker.

My 1st round consolation match pitted me against one of the seeded players, Dave McGee, of Mebane, NC. Dave is a good buddy of mine and we have played singles and doubles against each other on numerous occasions. We're fairly evenly matched, but I was able to beat him in a 3rd set tiebreaker, 10-1.

Next came my first round doubles match (partner - Brian Reder.) Brian hadn't played in 8 weeks and it showed in our match. I wasn't playing spectacular myself, but Brian was struggling with his serve and the rust was extremely evident.

Soon I was in the semi-finals of the consolation round. I had to play at 8:00 AM on Sunday morning. I had played 2 long matches the day before and was worn out. I also knew I had to play doubles after about a 30 minute rest when my singles was over. My singles match could have gone either way, but I ended up losing.

Time for my doubles match rolls around and Brian is nowhere to be found. Turns out he got pulled for speeding on the way to Barber Park, but he managed to make it before the director defaulted us. Due to there only being 6 teams in our doubles division, were playing for the 3.5 Consolation Championship. We were better players than our opponents and outplayed them as well. We won handily, 6-3, 6-0. Brian's serve had apparently healed itself over the course of the night. My net-play was just ON. It was brutal.

I came home and napped for the rest of Sunday. I woke up around time to watch the Colts-Patriots game, then fell back asleep. I slept like a baby this weekend every night. I am still worn out from playing so much frikkin' tennis.

Oh yeah, I leave for Vegas next Tuesday....WOOT!!!