Thursday, June 28, 2007

27-June-2007 First day practice after the exam

We gathered at about 3pm.

Ernest and I chatted with the boys first, talking about the tournament on Sat, team spirit, some of their behaviour, etc. Boys lack the experience of the public matches, especially some HKTA's official tournanment which you would meet good performance players. One more horrible thing which appeared in the past few year, our ball baskets were empty or I would say in aother way--we lost too much balls in a short time.

Old boys, how many balls were in the basket last Saturday?
Today, we got only half of the basket. Moreover, the balls were not the new one, I doubted. Unbelievable! I believe the old boys or the fund can't always buy new balls every months because the boys don't pick up the balls in the court. The balls are the property of the tennis team, please be respectful to the team!

Today's children were spoiled.
If the situation comes worse, I suggest the boys should pay for the new balls.
You know, old boys can't always give you the new balls because of the boys behavior.
In my time at wahyan, boys were lucky. We didn't need to pay for the balls. My dad supported the team by giving us many balls every months. My dad knew Gary To, they were friends. Moreover, as I were in the team, that's why my dad support the team in terms of the tennis balls. Maybe, this is my dad's fault! He shouldn't support the team in this way--- it spoiled the boys.

Boys, do you all know that the tennis ball is expensive?
Don't waste the ball! Please pick up every ball after you played in the court.

Then, we did some warm-up. It is a must to have regular warm-up like running and streching at the start of the practice. Next, the boys warm-up at the service boxes. Some even can not rally the balls over 20... I found that almost all the boys didn't have the ready position, some never bend their knee. Work hard!!

The first drill, the most important drill, the serve.
We had serve practice for about three times today. Ernest and I agreed that serve is crucial in the match. Ernest talked about the topspin serve. Boys, don't you know that what you have to do in the match is to hit every shot in the court! Even you have an awful second serve, but once you hit the ball in the service box, your opponent may return the ball to the net and "out". What's more, during the practice, the boys who hit a double fault would have an punishment--three push-ups. The punishment is not really an punishment, this is to remind the boys to hit the ball "in".

Some groundstrokes and volley drill came for the next practice.
Ernest concentrated for the forehand, I focused their backhand. Boys were divided into two groups. We had volleys and groundstrokes practices. They were okay.

Having some match.
We only played a tie-break.
Two doubles and one single.

At last, we had the running lesson. Joseph and I joined with the boys. Ernest led the boys to run around our wonderful wahyan. Some boys' faces were nearly turned pale. That's okay for the first time. I suggest to having more shuttle run in the court, but they were too tired. Luckily, no one fainted in the court after the tough training. But if one fainted, I would try my best to him as I just took a course about the first aid and CPR yesterday!

Some stretching, and one more match.
I paired with Joseph vs. Barry and Chris.
Played about five games, it rained.

*Thanks Joseph for coming and supporting the school team!

2 comments:

Raymond Ho said...

It is good to learn that Edmond has taken on this part-time job as tennis coach and replacement teacher in Civic Education by the sound by it. Court manners and disciplines seems to be the order of play these days.

If we were given push-ups for serving double faults in Fr Father Finneran, perhaps we could at least learn how to do push-ups properly.

I really appreciate Edmond's blogs as we are given a live news report on what happened in the tennis practice.

Keep it up. thanks.

Ernest said...

that's great to hv edmond with me to work as a team to train the boys. However, we can't make it without the support from u all. Wish the boy can learn something from all of us n behave themself as a decent tennis player in the near future