23-June-2007 Report of the morning session

I got to the court at about nine am. I saw two boys were warming, Darren Lee (the old boy who is F7 in HSSC) and Calvin( or Nicholas, I forgot). Then, Marco and I came. Clement, who is F4 now if he's in wahyan, but he left Hong Kong a year ago and went to Canada. Also, Joseph came with Matthew.

We had few boys.
So, we decided to have a match.
I was paired with Joseph, Darren with Marco.
We had good time. Joseph, your volley is good which I learnt a lot. We won 6-2 at last.

At about ten, Raymond, Ernest, Tony Ko , Chris all came. (I forgot one of the old boys' name><)
They joined us for matches. Luckily, we had totally ten boys to have doubles.

In the second match, I paired with Chris, versus Joseph and Ernest.
We were tough this time. I know more about Chris in the doubles, just like playing in the HKFC last thursday. However, I doubted that Chris was too nervous and he's really couldn't concentrate or focus during the match. Maybe, he felt Ernest is too strong who we can't beat him! Chris, I would like to tell you my story...

When I was about F2 or F3, I behaves like you. I really can't concentrate in the match all the time. In those days, there were singles match for secondary school boys held by the Hong Kong Schools Sports Federation( just like the doubles match we play every year, but only two boys of each school can take part in). I once took part in the competition with an enthusiastic boy named Martin( Covan's partner, who had served four double fault in one game!). I went in to the semi-final at the competiton. In the match of the semi, I played with a La Salle boy who I knew him before. I was leading 4-1, but lastly lost the match (4-6). I was really upset because I can't concentrate or focus all the time at the match, that is, when I had too much unforced error or I were down, I can't face the difficulties. In other words, we can't lead the set all the times, there were ups and downs in our match. We have to face it. We can't just say we were tired so we can't win the points. There is no excuse! If you go in the court, you should or you ought to focus all the time and play a good match, even if you are likely to lose the match.

Matches is not only depends on winning or losing, but the joy you have during it.
Lastly, I lost to the La Salle boy and had another match for the 2nd and 2rd runner-up. I played with another La Salle boy called Gary Yam( Absolutely, some may know him as he is Hong Kong's player). I know that guy, we were friends now. Sometimes, I saw him praticing in the Hong Kong Tennis Centre. I lost the match as the previous one. I was leading 4-2( if I remembered it right..), but I lost 4-6 AGAIN! I was doomed. I can't believe it and I nearly sobbed after the match. I'm elder than the two La Salle boys.. I was leading...but I lost all the two match. At the end, I only got the 3rd runner-up of the competitioin. This is the last year of the inter-school single competition..

Going back to wahyan, my teammates didn't blame me, also the coach. They were proud of me, as I was prized. However, I was not feeling good as I can't believe the truth. I regret myself, if I win two more games in 4-2 at the semi-final, I would go to the final and may be the champion(but, it was just an assumption, you know, the winner of the match was Martin Sayer, a powerful server!).

Chris, what I want to tell you is we can't win all the time, even the ranked no.1 Federer. He lost to Nadal at the clay court. What we can do in the adverse circumstances is to hit all the ball in the court. If we return the ball to the court, we can stay longer in the court and hope that our opponents will hit an unforced error. But if we can't return the ball to the court, we would lose a point, a game and of course a match.

Work hard Chris and have more pratice. Play more games so you would be experienced to face the difficulties in the court. We can learnt from Nadal: he seldoms hits winner shot, but he can put all the balls to the court---he waits his enemy to hit an error.

Playing against Ernest and Joseph was tough, but we can learnt a lot.
One thing, we seldoms play with two net game players in doubles. You know, in division 2, not too many students like approach to the net or stay at the service box for volleys. Boys, work hard on the volleys, it would a benefit if we had good volley player in the team. Like Simon said last thursday, volley is important in the doubles. I think Simon had an extremely crispy volley, which the boys should learn from him.

Lastly, I had the third match. Marco and I, Chris and Matthew.
I'm sorry to say that you two have too much unforced errors. Marco and I was not really good as he didn't play for a very long time. We didn't hit too much winner shots, but we can put the balls in the court. What we do is to wait Matthew and Chris to hit the ball to the net and outside the court. Consistency is important.

Playing in Division 2 is not the same as Division 1.
Not many powerful server, volley-killer, forehand passing shot hitter in D2. If you can be consistent, you would win points. Don't try to hit some winner shots( you know, you may hit the ball to the NET!).

Be consistent and work hard!