Thursday Practice Report (17-Jan-2008)

Today, we got only five kids, including Tommy, Nicholas, Calvin, Ivan and Kenny.
Oscar was absent because his leg was injured.

We warmed up for a while.
Before the class started, I decided to have some group training.
However, at the end, I decided to have some individual and more specific training which would be benefit to all of them.

I told Tommy and have many single match as possible today.
Tommy would play a single in the K-Swiss next Monday.
He is a good player: more consistent than his past, extremely powerful serve.
I talked to and taught him a lot.
He played against Kenny but was lost.
He than played against Ivan and beated him.

I think he had learnt a lot:
He knew that consistency is the must, the more consistent you are, the higher chance to beat your enemy even he is a very strong player.
During the match, you should do what you are good AT THAT TIME! Just take Tommy as an example, he didn't perform well in the net. He tried three or four times but hitting many volleys to the net or out. So, you are not good at the net in this match. What you should do is to do what you are good in the game.

Tommy improved a lot.
He was inconsistent and not good at single in the past.
But now, he is a tough single player, threatening others with a very powerful serve and backhand.
I bet, after the summer, he would be our next crucial team member in next season!

Calvin and Nicholas had the specific double tactic training.
I worked with Ivan at first. Calvin and Nicholas played against us.
I fed the ball to the one in baseline, he just hit a wide shot to prevent the interception of the net player. This is demostrating the real situation in double match: the net player (especially our old boys Raymond, Joeph and Simon, they like intercepting!!) may intercept the ball and score.

Nicholas did well, hitting some powerful shot and threatened Ivan.
Calvin was okay at the net, but his legs are still too heavy to MOVE!!
We lobbed them, they were weak in chasing the high ball.
Nicholas always wanted to hit a killer shot but it doesn't work...

Nicholas and Calvin became more active at the net...
Nicholas's volleys and overheads are more consistent.

Tommy, Nicholas and Calvin become stronger.
I hope they will beat the enemy in next Monday's K-swiss.

One more thing, I told Kenny and Ivan to practice more in doubles.
Some will think they are consistent, but only in single match.
If they want to represent wah yan and play for our school, they have to be a good doubles player at leat to represent in the inter-school.

Boys were busy, some of them needed to attand tutorial lesson after school.
Some get injured.
The number of boys joined Thursday training decreased in these couple of weeks...
I told Ernest to call the F1 boys (who are good and have potential in the Friday lesson taught by Ernest) to come next thursday.

Developing our new lower form player is important.
As two or three more years, the lower form players like Oscar and Long Long or other new members this year will be the very important and crucial player in the team. They would represent Wahyan to play.

So, I hope to see more new face in the team, especially the lower form.
I hope these new faces would be our core player in future.
I hope, after Ernest and my tennis lesson, our boys would become strong and more importantly, they would be more proud as a wahyanite.

Today's tennis team is different from the time when I were in wahyan.
More team spirit, more team members even some says our team is not that strong.
But, I believe, we would be promoted to Division 1 again by all of our efforts!!!

*I appreciate our boys, Louvre and Oscar.
They didn't come for the training as they were injured.
Oscar called me yesterday and told me he couldn't come while Louvre called me at today's lunch time.
They were responsible.
Our team members are good men, they are more responsible.
I belive, responsibility is also the thing we want our boys to learn in tennis court!