Thursday Practice Report (27-Dec-2007)

This is my first training session after the examination.

Today, our training started on 10am.
I arrived the court at 9:45am.

We got so many kids: Tommy, Oscar, Louvre, Brian, Boris, Jordan and our big guest Sam.
I invited Sam to join our training today, as I hope he can rally or play with them, in order to help with the kids.

We first had some warm ups.
Then, we back to our normal practice.
The first drill we did is the ball chasing exercise. Sam and I be the net players and others had to chase the wide ball to hit a forehand. Some did well in the drill. Tommy and Jordan tried their best. Sam and I both agree that Oscar did the best.

What's next, we had the "super chasing ball game".
This is the drill I learnt in HKTA's talenT Group. We had to use two courts for the drill( probably I would try to use three courts next time). We started at the first court, and Sam standed at the second court. They lined up on the first court, hitting a volley shot first. Then, I feed a very high ball to the second court, they had to chase from the first cout to the second court.

This is a very tough drill, they had to RUN!
Most of them didn't get the ball at their first few times. Tommy chased the ball at his first try, I can get the ball but didn't hit it... After some shots of practicing, all of them did better. Boris did a good job.

Next, we had the approach shot exercise as usual.
This is a very important drill for them, I bet. As many of the kids can't hit a short ball, such as the approach shot. Once they hit the short ball and move to the net, they always forget to be ready at the net. We had this drill just like our past experience.

Many of the hit the approach to the net. However, Tommy did better at the end, his volleys improved. Louvre also had some unpredictible shots, which makes Sam feared.

Service and one more game.
The game is "3-kings one side".
Two net game players and on baseline. Others line up at the opposite side.
If any of the kings lose the point, other would come to replace him. So that, it is a very fast and exciting game. The aim of the game is to let the boys learn how to recover in the court. Recovering in a double match is extremely important. Once your partner move a bit left, you had to recover some of his place in the court.

At the very begining, they are awful.
No one recover others place.
However, after talking to them, some learnt recovering.
I hope they earn something in the game.

Lastly, double and single.
Sam + Tommy vs. Jordan + Boris
Louvre vs. Brian

Next, I paired with Boris and played against Tommy and Sam.

This is a very good day.
Boys played well.
I'm so pleased to see our boys improved!

Finneran Cup on 13 January 2008.

Dear Edmond and ALL

Thanks for the update. I saw Oscar played last week and he certainly improved a lot. He had a Singles with Barry and I think Barry took revenge for an earlier loss.

Tommy was playing well. He was more consistent with his groundstrokes. Ernest was working with him on his kick serve, and tried to slow down the pace of his serve to gain consistency.

Ernest also mentioned that he would be transferring some of the Form one elites to join your group. It is a very good idea.

The Old Boys are training hard for the Finneran Cup. If Covan returns to play for the Old Boys, perhaps the coaches should play for the WYK Tennis Team. The Finneran Cup will be held on 13 January 2008 (Sunday) at 2 pm. Please circulate the news among your team mates and teachers. Could someone let Mr and Mrs Zhang Ping know about this? I have already informed Mr WC Tang. If there is popular demand, we could start even earlier with some singles in the morning!!

Good luck with the exams. Whoever (in the tennis team) found to have the worst rankings in their Xmas exams will need to do 5 laps of the concrete soccer pitch. We should reward those who do well in their exams too.

Let's resume tennis training on 22 December 2007

Cheers

Raymond

6-Dec-2007

I' m really sorry that I've not updated the blog for a long long time. I'm so busy in November, because I got some many projects and presentations....=[

Here comes to the review of the training.
In the past couple of lessons, we focused on the doubles tactics.
We had some very basic strokes like forehand, backhand and some powerful shots.

Tommy and Oscar showed full attandance in my training session.
Tommy showed some improvement but he's still not that consistent.
Oscar improved a lot and he became a better player.

We had a double tactic.
I tought them some return and volleys in the doubles tactic.
Some learnt the intercepting of the return shots.
Boys' net game were still awful, only Oscar showed better volleys.

We had singles today.
I played against Oscar, while Tommy played against Ivan.

Oscar was great, he showed a good player in the game: powerful and stable serve. I had to play very tough to beat him. Oscar improved a lot!! He becomes more powerful and consistent.
I bet, he would be our top players in next few years!

We would bring the kids to watch the JB Group Classic 2008 on 2nd of January (Wednesday). It would be a good chance for them to learn and see the professional Ladies players lively.
We are now preparing for the Finneran Cup, Raymond, How do the old boys prepare? I know Covan would come back and help the old boys, it would be a very tough match.
Next, probably we would have one more friendly match in the December, the christmas holiday, play against the POLY-U. I would try my best to organize the friendly match.

Good luck for your examination, boys!

Thursday Report ( 8-Nov-2007)

Arrived the court at about 3pm, no one were in the courts but I saw two boys wearing PE clothes were playing in the court. I bet that they were F2 only...
We are so pleased that the old boys and wahyan did many effort to raise the interest of tennis in wahyan students, especially the lower form students.

We had already did a good job!

Many boys came for the training: because they will have to play against the French International school, the most threatening team in our group.
Barry and Boris came for fifteen minutes, while Oscar, Tommy, Brian, Chris, Nicholas and one more new face --- Justin joined for the whole session of the training.

I'm so sorry of my voice today.
I couldn't speak too loud and I couldn't shout at all.

We focused on some very basic strokes like backhand, forehand, net games.
We then served. I found that Oscar and Tommy had improved their serves.
Oscar had more powerful serve, while Tommy had a bit more consistent serve.

Oscar, Tommy, Brian and Nicholas had a double.
I worked with Chris.
I asked him which strokes he wanted to improve or to be worked on. He simply told me that his backhand should have been concentrated more. I found that he cannot hit a backhand cross-court as his steps his right feet to the very left, which makes him couldn't turn his shoulder and hit a widen angle of cross-court. One more thing, his arms were too straight when hitting the two hands backhand.

Lastly, Chris and me played a double with Tommy and Oscar till we can't see the ball in the dark.

All in all, a good training today.
But if my throat gets better, I should have taught some more drills for them.

Fighting!
Work hard and have luck on Saturday!
I'm sorry I wouldn't come to support, but I would call you at the end of the match.

Pray for the wahyan boys.
Boys, go to bed early on Friday night!!

Wednesday Report (24-Oct-2007)

I made an arrangement this week, we had Wednesday lesson.
I'm so sorry that I upload this entry so late, as there were so many projects and assignments.

Oscar, Louvre, Calvin, Ivan, Kenny and Jeffrey.
Joseph, this is my first time to see Jeffrey playing tennis in the court!

Although we don't have so many boys, we can have a smaller class size.
We had some warm-up.

Some basic strokes like forehand and backhand.
Louvre hit the target with his powerful backhand.
After some set of training, we aimed to hit the balls deeply.

A fun game: 3 vs. 3.
The score was close. Boys did a good job, they all enjoyed the game.

Today, we focus on the net game: volleys and overhead.
Boys didn't know how to hit an overhead. The beginner like Jeffrey didn't know what's an overhead is. Oscar tried his best and he had a quite powerful smash. In terms of the volleys, I can see they have the room of improvement.

We had the 2 to 1 match.
This drill is very effective and meaningful for our boys.
Louvre, Calvin and Oscar in the same group, while the rest are in another group.
The two vs. one game is quite challenge. You know, the two should totally beat the one person. What you have to do is only return all the balls back to the court, you don't have to hit a winner shot or some powerful killer shots. However, boys didn't know this!!

At first, they did bad. The two couldn't beat the one.
I told them what they should do! At the end, it became better.

Hitting a consistent shot is very important, not only in the Inter-school competition, but also every match. I hope the boys can know the fact that a powerful killer shot or their risk shots are not enough to win a point. What we should do is to be consistent!!

A nice day.

Our match began!

Today, we had our first inter-school match.
Raymond, Joseph, Charles, thank you so much for coming and supporting the team.

The team members showed up the court at about 8:15. Ernest led a warm-up.
We had our wonderful match with St. Louis. We beated them! Score 8.5:0.5.

Could any of our players write something here? write some feeling?

Something I want to share...
I helped one of coach at Causeway Bay at night, a junior advanced course (HKTA Tennis-for-all course). I saw two of the St. Louis boys in the course (the tallest one and his doubles' partner). I talked with them, they told me that our team is quite strong. The boy praised our wah yan federer was absolutely tough.

One more important thing, when our team standed next to the court, showing some supports to our team members, they felt pressure. The team spirit and support is crucial, this is more important in our next tough matches like French Intel' or other strong team Ying Wa. Showing support for our team member not only can support our players, but also "fear" our opponent team!

We did a good job today.
Keep it on!

* Kei To withdraw =]
I saw another match at the Gap at afternoon, West Island vs. Ying Wa, they are both tough and I wanna to know who win the match.

Thursday Practice Report (11-Oct-2007)

Wow, the inter-school competition is coming!
Boys would have the their first match on next Saturday!

Today, we had only 7 boys...
I'm quite sad as all school team boys came on Tuesday, Ernest class....
We had Tommy, Oscar, Brian, Jordan, Aaron, Kenny and Ivan.

Probably, the boys who join my training are intermediate level..
I do hope that they would have more improvement here..

I hit some shots with all the boys before 4pm.
Oscar has a powerful forehand, Tommy has a good backhand.
The young kids Ivan and Aaron also liked rallying with me.

We started the drill by the service boxes game.
Starting form the net and hit only in the boxes, the drill is to let the boys to run more.
Later, we also did some volley-volley drill.

Of course, today we had the volley to baseline drills.
All of the boys didn't have a good net game tactics, they seldom moved to the net. Some even never stay at the net when they're in the match.

Some mistakes they made:
later hit, backswing, too much swing, racquet face open....etc.

One more practice is the backhand slice shot.
This drill is for Brian at first, as Louvre told me yesterday Brian did't know how to hit a slice backhand..
We focused on some slice shots and then volleys.

I found that their slice are awful, of course the volley and overhead..

Lastly, we had one double.
Tommy and Oscar vs. Jordan and Brian.

For the first set, Oscar's team won, 6-2.
For the second set, Jordan's team led 3-1.

They performance were okay, but service were terrible.
I didn't tell them to warm-up their service, letting them to know that warming up the service is absolutely important. Once again, they seldom called the score before serving.

On last thing, the attitude in the tennis court.
Tennis is a game for gentlemen.
When we pass the ball to our opponent, please let it bounces once in front of the player. Passing the ball to your opponent should be polite. Others can easily know how wahyan students are in this little things, such as passing the ball, talking or just calling the score.

Tennis skill is important, but what I think more crucial for our boys is to teach them how to behave well in the tennis court.
Actually, I found that no more boys being late on Thursday.

You all have a great improvement, but I hope you can be more consistent in the doubles.
Practice more, boys!

I'm not free on next Thursday, I decided to have the training on the 19-Oct-2007(friday), 9-11am. So, anyone would like to join?