tournament diaries 2004 USTA National 55 Grasscourt Championships 2004 National 55 Grass 9/12 The End of the Nationals and the beginning of the Cup matches Today was special. After the highs of yesterday’s semifinal wins I came into today with more work to do. I was now in a position to do something that I had never done before. Last year I won the singles and doubles at a National for the first time. Today I could complete a double double. Funny, I didn’t think about it all day until both matches were over. Incredible. I won both. In the morning, with good friends, family and Carol in attendance I beat one of the two or three best players I have ever beaten. I was calm as could be before the match. I was ready for any outcome. I wasn’t afraid of winning or losing. I just wanted to play a good match. I choked a little before the match started when he won the spin and chose to receive. Incredibly, I chose to serve on the side facing the sun, with the wind in my face. I was fortunate to serve well and win that first game at love. I knew, then, that I could play with him. We both held serve through the first eleven games and then, with 6’7” Turville serving to get into a tiebreaker, I broke serve to win the first set 7-5. It was the first headway that I had made on his serve. I broke him in the second game of the second set and, even though I had a couple of tough holds, I held on to my serve the rest of the way and won the set 6-3. I threw my arms up and ran to the side of the court and hugged Carol, Jane, Ron and everybody else who was there. I was so much more excited than I expected. I wasn’t aware of the amount of pressure that I put on myself to win this year in this way. Forty minutes later Cheney and I played in the doubles finals against USA teammates Bronson and Bohannon. Cheney asked if I was ready. High from my win, I was also unrealistic. I told him I was ready in spite of no stretching, scarfing down one half of a chicken cutlet and giving myself very little time. I played ok for a few games and then started to fade. With me playing fair and Cheney doing the bulk of the work we dropped my serve at 5-4 on a double fault and lost a first set tiebreaker. I was feeling like I wanted to leave for Philly. I had done enough today. Of course, my automatic pilot wanted to win and I kept competing hard. We hung around the set and served at 5-6. During that game we fought off three match points. Into the tiebreaker, we fought off some more match points and won it 10-8. I was now exhausted. Ten minute break. I had some fruit, talk to some people on the side and said, “ I don’t have a choice. I have to play one more set. I might as well do whatever I can to win it. I am going to crank up my energy.” Sure enough, I was able to find it, started to play well, we broke serve early and held on. I served the last game to win the second gold ball of the day. I was glad that I got to play in such an exciting, close final. I relearned so much in the last two days. I relearned that I have a lot of heart when playing, that I have the courage to go for it in big moments, that I love to be in the close moments in matches and that I want to hit the shot when the pressure is on in the biggest moments in the match. I relearned the value of doing everything possible to get relaxed before playing and before each point. Tennis life is easier when I am relaxed. We are now in Philly. We start to compete for the Cup tomorrow with a match against Norway. Captain Cheney feels confident and is giving me the day off so that I will be well rested for the rest of the week. How cool. I feel like a professional athlete. Because the doubles lasted 3 1/2 hours, we didn’t get to Philly in time for opening ceremonies. It is ok. The whole day was a ceremony. Journal Entry Semis of Singles and Doubles On 9/11 I woke up and felt blessed to be able to compete. Winning and losing aren’t that big a deal. Great day at the office today. Beat #1 ranked player in the semis 6-2, 6-4. I went in concerned that I hadn’t had enough tough match situations to be playing such a good player that far in the tournament. Turned out all right in that I played a very clean match. I was really pleased with how mentally consistent I was. I was in great control of my level of relaxation, my attention to the points, my nervousness, my fears and my overall focus on what I was out there doing. I also maintained a very strong physical presence on the court. For the entire match my posture was strong and my walk was confident. The result was that I was in complete control of the first set with one small wrinkle: my opponent was serving at 1-5 and I thought about how Roddick let Johannson get a little confidence the other night by not breaking his serve at 1-5. I knew that I should shut the door on my opponent by taking it to him. I didn’t play tough. I couldn’t get myself to feel a sense of urgency. He won his serve and, even though, I served out the first set at 6-2, he was now in the match. We played close until I was able to raise my game, just a notch, to break him to take a 5-4 lead. I played a nervous game that included a broken string at deuce, changing to a new racket, hitting a double fault, and fighting off two break points, but it worked out in the end and I held for the match. I served great. I thought about how excellent my serve is when I demonstrate it in a lesson and used that image throughout the match. It was the best that I have served in a big match situation. The doubles semis were anything but routine. Playing with Brian Cheney, my USA team captain and owner of about 70 National Championships, we played a team that has won 20 National Doubles titles. Brian and I pulled it out in over three hours by a score of 5-7, 6-4, 7-6. The level was high and the intensity was over the top. Every single point was crucial. It seemed that there was never a time in the match that either team had the lead. Each point was fiercely competed for. It was exciting for me to play with such great players and to really feel that I belong. I have come a long way with my game. Tomorrow I play 6’7” Larry Turville. He has a huge serve that seems like it is coming out of a tall tree. His wingspan makes him tough to beat around the net. He has won many, many titles. He, like Cheney, is among the top 1% of the best senior players. Cannot wait to play him. My body feels good. My energy is fine. I am relaxed. I am into it. Singles tomorrow at 10. Doubles at 2. Doubles finals will be against the other two member of the USA team. Right at the conclusion the four of us will hustle down to Philadelphia and try to arrive in time for the Opening Ceremonies of the Sr. Davis Cup matches. Monday the competition for the Team World Championships begins. Right now I am in good position to play #1 for our team. It will be up to our team captain and I hope that I get the chance. Journal Entry 9-10 Beautiful day today. I felt relaxed on my way to the club. Got in a nice on an elliptical machine and then did some new dynamic stretches that I recently discovered. They make me feel loose and energized. My quarterfinal opponent was a lefty against whom I had played three other times, winning all of them. I went in confident but not overconfident. I knew that I needed to take one point at a time. He won the toss and chose to face the sun, which is very bad for lefties when we started the match. I chose to serve, so had the sun at my back. I lost the first game at love and then moved to the side looking into a blinding sun. Interesting. It made me focus even better and I won the next 10 points of the match. I served well, returned well and did everything consistently. Ended up with a 6-1, 6-2 victory. Stopped and got another good stretch from the physical therapist because my body was still complaining about the three matches in two days on the hardcourts. Just chilling tonight in preparation for tomorrow’s semifinals in singles and doubles. My singles opponent beat me this year at the National Indoors and is leading the point race for #1. I look forward to playing him on the grass where I feel that I have a little more to throw at him. I want to serve a high percentage of first serves, be consistent on my first volleys and make a lot of service returns. The key on the grass is to make somebody win the point rather than taking too big a chance and giving the point away. Of course, when presented with the opportunity to end it, going for it is the right play. Maintaining the balance between patience and attacking is an ongoing challenge when playing. Journal Entry end of day Sept. 9 Woke up to more rain and a call that the singles quarterfinals would be postponed to Friday in the hopes of getting us on the grass. Doubles quarterfinals were on and going to be played indoors on the hardcourts in the late afternoon. My body was not feeling so flexible after yesterday’s two matches on the hardcourts. I spent the morning trying to stretch out but didn’t make too much progress so I went to a great physical therapist who worked on me for a while. It definitely helped, as did the fact that I was feeling better overall. Winning those first two singles matches reduced some of the pressure that I have been feeling all week...the pressure of defending the title and of playing well to secure my position for next week on the team. I have also felt some pressure playing doubles, for the first time, with Brian Cheney who is one of the greatest senior players to have ever played. I felt relaxed in our doubles, very confident that we had too much game for them. We won 6-1, 6-4. When we were leading 2-1 in the second set, I was serving and suggested that we try the “I” formation, where Cheney sets up directly over the center line. I thought it would be a good idea for us to practice it in case we needed it in another match. Sure enough we lost the next two points and had to battle to hold serve. We had changed our mentality from competing to practicing. I must remember that when I am experimenting in a match, the objective is still to compete for the point. Brian and I are a good team. He is very dependable and makes very few errors. I am quick and hit a lot of winners. We are learning what each other likes to do and say on the court. I let him know that I like to be complemented on good shots. He has been great about that. He told me that he likes to play at a certain rhythm and appreciates my reminders to get ready and pay attention. Getting on the same page with a partner is part of what makes doubles a great game. The synergy reduces individual pressure and really focuses on the team effort. Tomorrow morning...the quarters of the singles. Can’t wait. Journal Entry Sept. 8 The lack of flow continued with terrible rains today so getting around was tough. I was supposed to report to the tournament site at 10 but didn’t get there until 10:45. Needless to say, I wasn’t very relaxed. Took some time to stretch and breathe and definitely took control of my state. Then I was told that I would be playing two matches, both on indoor hardcourts at two different sites. It was to be a long day with the challenge of staying focused and calm. I was nervous about playing because both of my opponents were from California, were big serving hardcourt regulars, and were thrilled to play me off the grass where I would be a big favorite to win. First match my opponent was nervous at the start and I ran out a quick 6-1 first set. In the second he found his serve rhythm and held serve a few times to make it a close set that I won 6-3. I never felt the outcome was in doubt. My concern was playing on hard courts without training on them. I didn’t want to get hurt, which is easy to do on the hardcourts without proper training. Got through it with no problems. I then needed to kill three hours before my next match. Once again drove around in the rain for much too long, not by choice. Got to the second club for my match with plenty of time to stretch and prepare. My opponent was a top 10 ranked player with good experience. Again I played a clean first set and won 6-3. In the second he started to serve and volley very effectively and it was a battle of holding serve. With him serving at 2-3 I cranked it up and got to love 30. He didn’t fold and managed to hold. At 3-4 I knew I needed to crank up some more because his confidence was growing and mine was just so so. I got to 15-40, lost the next point, but broke with a pass at 30-40. After holding my serve routinely up until that game I was confident that I could serve out the match. As happens, he played a good first point to go up love 15, the first service game that I didn’t win the first point. Then I choked a volley and was down love 30. Uh oh. The difficulty of closing out a match was in my face. I took a lot of time before serving and came up with an ace. Managed to get back on track, stopped future tripping and won the next few points and the match. Into the quarters which will be played on Friday. Doubles quarters on Thursday afternoon. Journal Entry Sept. 7 My first event, the USTA National 55 Grass Court Championships, started on Tuesday at Rockaway Hunting Club yesterday. I was seeded #2 and, as a result, was given a bye for the first round. When I arrived at the club I was told that I might have to play on Tuesday even though I wasn’t scheduled because the tournament committee was concerned about upcoming weather. To deal with it, they wanted to get more matches in on the first day. For much of yesterday I was in limbo because my potential opponents had to play a match first. It turns out that they didn’t get on until 4:30 and, as a result, no chance for me to play. I was tense all day because I never knew for sure what I was doing. Should I practice? Should I watch other matches? Should I get away from the club and chill out? I ended up playing a few practice sets, fortunately, because I never got to play my match. Now I am a round behind and will probably have to play two matches today. It is not very fair but I have to just do it. To add to the challenge of playing two matches, it is pouring this morning, so, in spite of all of the preparation for grass court play, I will be playing indoors today. Regardless, I am hitting the ball really well, I am focused and I couldn’t be more ready to start. My first round opponent is a solid player who has had some success in the Nationals, including an upset win in his first round. If I should win, my second match will be against the #9 seed, who would be playing his first match of the day. Just one more challenge. Last year, everything fell into place smoothly. Just a reminder that when competing I must expect nothing and be ready for anything. I am working hard at being flexible and taking things as they come. Preparing for the Nationals, Sr. Davis Cup and the World Championships Journal Entry 9/2 Didn’t practice at all from Friday until today, Thursday. I had planned on kicking back a little, both at the gym and on the court, but I wasn’t planning on six days off from the grass courts. One practice partner canceled on me at the last moment. Another day I couldn’t find someone to play. Regardless, I was less up tight about not playing than I would have thought. I wasn’t feeling all that primed and ready to go because my first match was still a week away. No real sense of urgency. All of that changed today. I practiced today at Rockaway Hunt Club, the site of next week’s tournament. Last year I played great there, probably the most consistent week of good tennis, both singles and doubles, that I have played. Within the first few minutes I was back there again. My game, today, felt 50% better than it felt last week. I felt 50% better. I felt energized. I felt eager. I felt happy on the court. Two things had happened. Firstly, the layoff turned out to be just what I needed. My body felt rested and flexible. I had been working so hard that I was sore all the time. I guess my tennis gods were guiding me because I hadn’t really planned it. Secondly, the courts at Rockaway were totally different than the courts on which I had been practicing. I had been playing on courts that were so soft that the ball barely bounced. Of course, all grass courts play differently, but some have a higher bounce, like Wimbledon, and some have a lower bounce. Very few are as soft as those that I used. Rockaway, I realized today, has a perfect bounce for me. I have low compact backswings that work well while hitting on the rise. These courts play right into my zone. The result is that I felt totally connected to the court and the ball today. I realized that, for the last couple of weeks, I have been minimizing the fact that I had been winning sets from players that I thought would trounce me. I made excuses for their bad play because I didn’t think that I was playing all that well. It turns out that it wasn’t that at all. It was that playing well on the soft courts didn’t feel like good tennis to me. Turns out it was and that it also was the perfect preparation for the courts at Rockaway. It is funny how sometimes it feels like something is not working when it actually is working better than you knew it could. Can’t wait to get that turf under my sneakers again. Oh, one more little wrinkle. One more challenge on the bumpy road to playing matches. It turns out that the top four seeds in the tournament, next week, are the four players on the Austria Cup team. The four of us will be representing the USA in the World Team Championships in two weeks in Philadelphia, also on the grass. Who plays what position for the team (two singles and one doubles) will, in a large part, be determined by how we all do, individually, next week. Just when you think you can take a deep breath... Journal Entry August 28 This week of practice has been particularly interesting and fun because of the people who practiced with me. First I played a 35 year old teaching pro who is currently #1 in the East in the 35s. Next I played a 32 year old former Canadian Davis Cup player who played for UCLA. Next I reached into the cradle and worked out with a nationally ranked 16 year old. Finally, I played at legendary West Side TC in Forest Hills with the top 65 and over player in the country. A former American Davis Cup star and US Open semifinalist, he is preparing for Cup matches and the Worlds in his age group. What was interesting was that even though the younger players hit the ball better and were quicker, the veteran player was my toughest opponent. Not so much in terms of outcome and scores but in terms of being able to figure out what I was doing and how to counter it effectively. The experience to be able to stay mentally in a match by analyzing what is going on and what to do about it was the lesson that I relearned this week. Without realizing it, during my first three practices I figured out how to disarm my opponents by varying what I was doing. The funny thing is that I thought all three of the younger guys just didn’t play well against me because I split sets with all of them. I even felt a little guilty that I had an unfair advantage, having played on the grass so many times this season. In retrospect, after my last practice this week, I realized that I had played a game that made them uncomfortable and that I had a lot to do with how they played. This may seem obvious. To me, it wasn’t. I tend to think that when I am playing badly it is all about me. I will stay aware that many times my opponent may be making me play less than good (and I can do that to them.) Went to the Open quallies the other day and bumped into John James, an Aussie who, when he moved to New York was undefeated in my age group for 10 years. People often said that I was his nemesis because I had played him 11 times, often in finals. I never beat him. Never even took a set. How can you be a nemesis when you have no impact. Well, here it is many years later, John is not competing and I have had a lot of success. Regardless, I felt small next to him. I wanted to read him my resume. In competition you always want to end up with a win, even if it is on paper. I still hope that someday he comes back so that I can close that chapter. This week I will slow down a bit and go into more of a rest, relaxation and flexibility mode. Having overtrained and gone into the last few major tournaments with injuries, I am determined to start these events feeling good. So far, knock on wood, I have taken care and feel ok. I will still get out and hit on the grass a few times. I probably will do some drills that will address serves, first volleys, returns and passing shots. These are the shots that I want to be rock solid when I begin competing on September 7. By the time I am hitting those first balls at Rockaway Hunting Club in the Nationals I want my game to be complete. Journal Entry August 19 Over the last 10 days I have gotten in a lot of practice on some local grass courts. It is an exceptional tennis experience to play on it. It is lush and beautiful. The ambiance of the game is so different in that there is no sound when the ball bounces and no sound from running on the court. The whole game is very quiet so it seems almost heavenly. The game is different than on any other surface in that the points are very short, more often than not, four shots or less. This requires a different type of focus than long points. Here there is no breather. I need to be alert every moment because a minor mental vacation from the task at hand will usually end badly. Every shot must be executed or their is little chance of winning the point. Underplaying or overplaying a shot usually costly. I need to approach every point and each shot as if the fate of the universe depends on my effort and attention. On other courts you can recover from a so-so shot during a point. On the grass, down means out. At the same time, the grass can be forgiving...a bad volley doesn’t bounce up and earns the point. A mishit return can throw off a charging opponent. Any shot that I hit to my opponent can take a bad bounce. All in all, playing on the grass is a great challenge to my flexibility, adaptability, balance. Of course, the greatest challenge remains the same...to be focused more and more of the time in more and more big moments. I feel lucky that I have such a concrete experience in which I can test myself. It keeps me on track and disciplined as my preparation continues. I have noticed that I keep mentioning to people that playing for three straight weeks is going to be tough and that I need to be at my best at the end of 21 days if I am going to succeed big time in the World Championships during the third week. Mentioning it so frequently means that I am having negative thoughts about it, so starting today I will start focusing only on one day at a time. It is a relief to get rid of the burden of anticipating difficulty. Playing wise I am in good shape. I have a few playing goals that I plan to get worked out in the next two weeks. My serve has been erratic because I am fussing around with my timing in order to generate more power and depth. In another few days I will settle in on what my serve will be. I am also nailing down my service return plans...where to hit them with my backhand from both the deuce and ad sides. I am tempted to go down the line on the deuce side but keep hitting it wide. I will either get it together or stop trying to go there. Each day that I play I clean up another part of my game. Starting next week I will be playing 3 days a week on the grass. What a gift! August 1-8 Beginning Sept. 7, I will be on a tennis whirlwind that will find me playing 3 consecutive weeks on the grass against the best players in the country and the World. Week 1 will be a return to Rockaway Hunting Club in Cedarhurst where I will be defending singles and doubles titles for 2003. This is a first for me, never having won singles and doubles National titles in one tournament. On September 12, I will go to Philadelphia to check in as one of four players representing the USA in competition for the Austria Cup, representative of the World Team Champions for 55 and over players. On September 19, also in Philly, I will participate in the Veteran’s World Championships , playing singles and doubles. Whew! That is a lot of tennis. The biggest challenge for me in preparing is to balance working on my game and conditioning with getting enough rest and renewal to be fresh for the task. It is possible that I could play for 21 straight days, many singles and doubles. Matches will be tougher as the days go on. I need to remember that I have worked all year in improving my conditioning. I am prone to kicking everything way up in anticipation of a tournament and have hurt myself a couple of times. To this end I committed to myself that beginning August 1 and continuing to the end of this run that I would meditate and stretch daily. Sure, I know I should do it every day, but I get lazy. Now, though, my reason for doing these daily tasks is more engaging and that will help me with the discipline. Over the last couple of weeks I have started to play some competitive matches to get the juices flowing. Having lost a couple of doubles matches that I might have won, I got charged up even more than I expected. My love of winning in competition got out of hand last week when I played a 20 year old Division 1 college player. He beat me like a drum and I was really annoyed. Everyone I spoke to during the day tried to remind me to have perspective. I wasn’t upset that I lost...I was upset that I lost the way I did. I was so eager for a win that I didn’t see what I needed to do to be more competitive. I was too result oriented and that is what bothered me. As usual this is a wonderful reminder to me about what to pay attention to. I need to focus on me and my game. How I will execute. Where I will hit the ball. Outcomes will always follow. Played on the grass twice this week. The first time served as a reminder about several important aspects of being tough in grass court matches. The points are very short. There is no opportunity to work your way, mentally, into the point. You lose concentration for a moment and the point is over. Each service point and return point must be started with the highest level of focus. Doing that over and over again makes for a very difficult opponent. I plan on being one of those. Right now my plan is to continue going to the gym three times a week to work on my strength and cardio. I will play two or three times a week. I hope to get practice opponents who can beat me up to help me be strong for the road ahead. Sitting quietly and stretching each day will be my mainstay so that I will start these tournaments in a calm and relaxed state. My tennis will be fine. The 2004 National Indoor Championships January, 2004 January arrives and gives us the opportunity to look ahead. It is a good time to think what you have accomplished since moving indoors. Have you made progress in your game since September? What were some of the parts of competing that you wanted to improve? Have you achieved some of your goals? Now is also a time to think about where you want to be with your game at the end of the indoor season. You can reset your goals for the next few months. Doing this will help you rededicate yourself to the day to day work necessary, whether it be on or off the court. I have made it a habit to set goals frequently and find that, if I really care about my goals, I am drawn to the work that I need to do. Two of my tennis goals for 2004 are result oriented. This September, the Senior Davis Cup and World Championships will be played in Philadelphia on grass courts. If I make the Cup team, my goal is to play in Cup matches freer of the tension that I have played with in the past. I want to bring my true A game to the Cup matches. For the World Championships, my goal is to win it. I can close my eyes and imagine how I will feel when I accomplish these two goals. I will visualize succeeding many times over the next months. It would be nice if that is all it would take. The reality is that these goals provide me with targets that make clear some of the process goals that I will need to achieve to be able to improve my chances of success. GOALS be better conditioned than I have ever been by increasing my strength, speed, quickness, endurance and flexibility increase my awareness that close games and matches are often a function of my opponent playing well, not my inadequate play increase my commitment to loving the battle more than the result improve my ability to recognize my opponents strengths and weaknesses and to use this info effectively during matches make fewer unforced errors when leading in games and sets get closer to the net for first volleys improve my forehand topspin lob improve my running backhand passing options be more forgiving of my opponent’s behavior I have started working on the first of these by joining a gym and working out there 3-4 times a week since early November. Over the next several months I will adjust my workout to be specific to my conditioning needs for grass court tennis. The remaining goals are mostly on court work, many of them in tournaments. To that end I have decided to play more local tournaments than I have in the past couple of years. I usually start tournaments in March. This year...I am starting next weekend. I am sure that my list of process goals will expand and become more specific as I travel on the path that I have set out for myself. Am I psyched. You can bet I am. Can’t wait to get to work. May 8 The Day After the Tournament Ends Today I feel like I am on vacation. I have been working on my game with this tournament in mind since mid March. I have practiced hard and taken care of myself with extra discipline. I have watched my diet, worked out many times in the gym, stretched, played hard, and charted my progress. For today it feels like the work is over. And then I remember that this tournament was just a step along the way. My goals remain the same as they were at the beginning of the year... to bring my “A” game to Senior Davis Cup and to win the World Championships in September. This week’s experiences in Boise have brought me closer to what I am shooting for this year. I reflect back on my process goals that I wrote in January. Some I have accomplished. Some I neglected. I am a better player today than I was in January. I have made important steps on this year’s journey. I have made progress. So today is a vacation. Maybe I will take off this whole week from this work on my game. But the work is not over. I hope it will never end. By next week I will set new goals and get back to it. I will keep the momentum going...always putting one foot in front of the other. The ultimate goal for me is to continue to improve...to always be a little better today than I was yesterday. Every tournament ends with a new beginning. May 7 Long day of waiting around to get out to play the doubles semis. Always tough to do after going out of the singles early. Neither Charlie nor I were able to get our A games going. We fell behind early in the first set, down 5-2, we made a little run to get to 5-4 but couldn’t break our opponents so they won the first set 6-4. The second set was a similar experience. I was a little flat, possibly a result of feeling the disappointment of being out of the singles. I had watched my buddies who were playing to get to the finals and felt a bit down. I did manage to fire up a bit in the second set but it was too little too late. I have gotten used to playing on the last day in these tournaments so it was a little weird. It is a reminder for me that none of this just comes to me. Every time I play a National event I must be prepared for any outcome. Still, all in all, I am blessed to be able to compete year in and year out and to continue to grow the relationships with the other players. I have been playing against these guys for twenty years and we share a terrific bond. We all look forward to seeing each other on the courts later in the year. Win or lose I would not trade these experiences for anything. Every tournament offers me the opportunity to look inside myself, to see how I have grown and to present me with new paths to travel in my personal development. I am proud to be a part of a group of people that keeps putting it on the line. I may have some more thoughts to write in the next day or two but, if not, thanks to all of you for sharing the time with me, for supporting me and for all of your input. Next up will be the USA vs. Canada on the grass at Piping Rock CC in early June. May 6 I will begin by writing that I lost in singles today to Steve Cornell, former UCLA player, 1-6, 6-4, 6-3. The details: three hours of extraordinary competition against a true warrior. I had him down and out with a break point to go up 5-3 in the second. I had a forehand pass that just caught the top of the net and dropped back to my side. He played tough as nails from that point on. I was behind on my serve games throughout the third set and kept escaping but could not do it every time. It was one of the most memorable matches I have ever played. The first set may have been the best set that I have ever played this deep into a National tournament. I played with courage throughout against a player that was at the net, in my face, every single point. He attacked my backhand without mercy time and time again. I took the challenge and succeeded on every level but the final score. I left nothing of myself on the court. Interesting thing was that I had been so concerned about my hamstring all week and felt that it would inhibit my play, especially against a player like this. However, yesterday I made the commitment to give it my all, regardless, and when I woke up today my leg felt fine. It was never a factor. I must admit that, during the third set, as I was struggling , I started to pull on the wrap on my leg and started to pull up at the end of a run, as if my leg was bothering me. It wasn’t, but I was falling into that old trap of using an injury as an excuse for missing shots. When we do that, it is a way to make the loss hurt less. Excuses tend to do that. Happily, I noticed that I was doing that and had a firm talk with myself and refused to go there any more. Steve just beat me. I can take nothing away from him and nothing away from my personal effort. I learned, in this match, that I still need to work on my backhand passing shot, that I must find a way to practice against all types of players (in this case, a player who is always at the net) even if they are hard to find and that when the opportunity is there in big moments to go for it. No fear of missing. To play it safe in a big moment is equal to giving the point away. All in all a great day on the courts. By the way, we won in doubles to advance to the semis. Now, into the hot tub to rest these weary muscles and to begin to prepare for tomorrow’s doubles. I love this game! May 5 The first couple of days of a tournament is the time that all of the players reconnect with each other, see what is happening in each other’s lives. The real posturing starts later with stories of recent past successes, new game strengths, vulnerabilities that have been eliminated and presentation of injuries. This is all done in an attempt to set up potential future opponents. As each of us hits the practice courts we watch those people that we anticipate hitting up against. This lasts for a few moments for me in that I realize early on that all of this thinking about other players just creates more anxiety. I just start to get into seeing how I am hitting. I set my goals very high in practice. I want to hit every single shot with purpose and success of execution. This puts strong positive pressure on me and gets me ready for the matches when every shot is important. No more fooling around. No more cute shots. No more showing off. The closer I get to my first match, the more and more intense I get. I have moments when I get caught up in the fact that many of the other players are watching me. As the #2 player in the country and #2 seed in the tournament, I am respected. I am also a marked man. I am somebody that everybody wants to take down. Went out to play my match today. Moved cautiously to protect the hamstring. Bad idea. If I am not moving aggressively I am half the player I can be. I was overly focused on not hurting myself. Result was ok. I won 6-3, 6-2 but did not play my game. I realized after the match that I can hold nothing back tomorrow when I play a fine player. I lost to him in the finals of the National 50 Indoor Championships in 2000. No more injury prevention. Just go 100% and see how it holds up. I am looking forward to the match. I am not concerned about winning or losing. I just want to play like a warrior. Winning or losing will change nothing about how I feel about myself as a player. My doubles partner, Charlie Hoevelar, is the guy I won the National Grass with last September. Not in the singles, he arrived today and we went out to play a practice match against #1 Brian Cheney and his partner. These guys are legends in the seniors. I look at them and still question whether I belong on the court with them. My game is at least as good as theirs but my belief is not. It is still part of my work to see myself as others see me in tennis. They see me as one of the best in the age group. I still feel like I am trying to become a member of their club. I wonder when my perspective will be based, not on the past but on the present. As long as I am unable to see the truth of who I am as a player, it can undermine my play when I go up against these top players. May 2 Finished up training this week and am on my way to Boise. Got in some final work on my new backhand and worked hard on my patience in developing the points. Feeling so strong, I am prone to hitting too hard. It is important that I leave the ego gratification of power hitting at home. I will remember that I can get to every ball and that, as long as I keep it deep, I will stay out of trouble. The opportunities to attack will present themselves. Had a bit of a scare in my last practice session with Phil on Thursday. At the end of our session, an hour and a half in, I felt something in my hamstring pull. Within two hours I felt doubtful for the tournament. Woke up on Friday and continued to feel doubtful. I had decided, last year, when I went to play the 50 Indoors with a shaky back, that I would not kid myself into thinking I can compete with the best if I am not completely fit. This got me into action and I treated the hamstring aggressively. Within 24 hours I was feeling much better and am, right now, on the plane. My first match won’t be until Wednesday, so I will have to balance playing and resting. Better for me to be fit with less on court practice than the other way around. My goal is to continue to focus on my game. It isn’t about the other players. They cannot be in the equation. I feel that I have everything that I need. It now comes down to whether or not I can keep my mind on the simple execution...of my shots and strategies. I know what I want to do. I know how I want to play. I know what I want to look like. I know how I wan t to feel. Boise, here I come. 4-23-04 Practicing was fun this week. Tuesday I got a great hit in with a top 40s player who usually beats me. He was a little off and I managed to get the best of him. I am noticing that I am making more mid match adjustments, which was one of the goals I set for myself back in January. I have been so focused on my backhand goal that I forgot about some of my others, including this one. I didn’t follow one of the rules of goal setting...to keep reminding myself what is on my goal list. Regardless, I was happy that I started to make the adjustments and will recommit to reading my goals every day. It makes a huge difference. Getting closer to the tournament I try to start playing more sets so I added a practice session on Wednesday with the Jamaican pro that I played with last week. Learned an important lesson. Don’t assume that a Jamaican pro will remember the details, like where we are playing. He didn’t show up. Instead I hit with one of the top juniors in the Robbie Wagner Tournament program. Great workout hitting against somebody who blasted every ball and ran down just about anything that I hit. My confidence was not affected by having player 44 years younger than me dealing with my shots. She is one of the best in the East and highly ranked in the country. I don’t remember 12 year old girls playing like this when I was a kid. I hit a little bump in the process road and some result thinking kicked in this week when I saw the draw for the tournament. Not only is it very deep with talent but, also, the top player in the country decided to play. This bumped me out of the top seeded position to #2 and I started to get focused on him and the other strong players. This has been a trap for me in the past. Will need to push myself to keep thinking about getting my own game to be where it needs to be with little or no concern about how it will all play out in the end. Later in the week I did some specific training to deal with the strong chance that I will meet some opponents who will serve and volley 100% of the time on their serve and chip and come in on my serve. I prefer to get my teeth into the point with two or three shots. This other style challenges me to react quickly with predetermined strategies. I called Bob Malinow, who plays this style well. For more than an hour he kept putting me in the uncomfortable situation of rushing. I am sure that the specific training will pay off. Also got my butt kicked by Russell Heier 62 60. I seem to require a major butt kicking before each event. It helps my humility and keeps me from becoming overconfident. I learned to be more patient on my down the lines. I also noticed that I am hitting with too much concern about outcome on my mid court attacking shots. I need to keep them in the flow of the point and make sure I am looking to end the point with a volley. I am starting to wind down my gym work and putting more energy into stretching. Still new to this weight work I am uncertain about whether or not to keep lifting weights. Each trainer I talk to has a different opinion. I will need to do more research in this area for the future. 4/14 Journal Entry I feel my engine revving higher and higher each day that I work on my game. Had a great workout with Phil, a strong 25 year old pro who helped warm me up for my last few National events. He hits the ball very big and is much faster than any of my regular opponents. This is great for me. I am under constant time pressure when setting up for my shots and if I hit what I think is a winner, he runs it down, so I am challenged to stay alert and to hit more than one good shot in a point. We played three sets on Tuesday and, even though I grabbed one set, he beat me up pretty badly. I was not very good. Thinking way too much about my “new backhand.” There I was playing a player that rushes me on most of my shots and I am trying to hit a new shot all the time. I was making errors galore and missing most service returns. I did stay determined. I was persistent. I didn’t give up on it. That is my typical way. However, when reviewing my play, later in the day, I started to question what I was doing, trying to develop a new shot at a time that I am getting ready for a major tournament. Those self-doubts started to infect my mind...what if I can’t do it? What if I can’t refind my game? Maybe I should just go with what I’ve got. Do I really need to make a change? Maybe I should put it off until after the tournament. I was at a critical point and needed to take a stand with myself. I knew these doubts were just a way for me to resist change. Asked some of my students what I should do...abandon the work or just commit to the change and take whatever results happen? Some encouraged me to commit and accept the results. Then, though, I would not be facing the truth of what I want in playing. I want to win also. I don’t want to take losses to players I think I can beat. I don’t want my ranking to drop. Yet I also want to make the change. I will be a better player for it. When I asked myself how I could have both, the solution came instantly...be flexible. Use the new backhand in those situations that I feel it will help me, on the passing shot and on the cross court opening. Stop doing it on every single ball. I don’t need it as a basic groundstroke. With this awareness, I dragged Phil out the following day and the outcome was different. I had the strength of the old with the new mixing in at appropriate times. I played great. The same thing happened the following day when I practiced with a former Jamaican Davis Cup player. How pumped am I! When involved in working on my game and having a clear picture of my goal, it is like building a model car or putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Each day that I come back to it I have a slightly different perspective and greater clarity. I start to see more parts that are related to the whole, in this case, playing my game as well as I can, today, with less and less clutter each day. At this rate I feel confident that my game will be in top form two weeks. If anything I must stay conscious that I have a couple of more weeks of preparing. Although I always like to play my best, I need to pace myself so that I don’t leave my best stuff on the practice court. Can’t wait to see how this week goes. 4-07-04 It has been a somewhat frustrating week or so in my preparation. Eager to get on the court and practice my game, I arranged for a few practice sessions a week. I want to get to work on my returns and my backhand passing shots. I want to get my teeth into some sets to start feeling the intensity and fun of competing for every point. Life, though, has a way of interfering with the best laid plans. One of my practice partners didn’t reserve a court so we only got a half hour in. Well, I worked on being flexible and hit the gym instead. I was even more ready to play yesterday but, no way, my opponent was sick. Again, the gym. I feel that I need about six good practice matches so I have time. First match is four weeks from today. Today I asked Robbie Wagner, one of the top junior coaches, to take a look at what is going on with my backhand pass. I had been getting a little heady about it and needed some objective feedback. I am pretty coachable except for the part of giving over control. Knowing that I would be able to walk away with something valuable, I kept my mouth shut about what I thought and let Robbie do his thing. He made two suggestions, one about my preparation and one about my movement to the ball, that were right on the money. He worked me very hard for about an hour and I felt good. It will take some serious mental effort to make these changes over the next few days and weeks. I will be using visualization techniques to help speed the process, starting today, in addition to working extra hard on court. For all of you who I coach, there will be another week of working on your cross court forehand approach shots. :) March 30, 2004 Started the on court phase of practice today. I have five full weeks before the National Indoors. My playing goals are still forming and each time I play they will become clearer. On my definite to do list are: being clear about why I am playing...to love the challenges and to be eager to compete; serving tougher...focusing on each and every serve so that it is always a weapon; attacking second serves with my forehand and approaching behind it; going for the flat cross court backhand to keep pressure on, rather than slicing it and resetting the point; to give my all, every single point, no matter what the score. Played against Russ Heier, a top Eastern 40s player, on the hardcourts today. He was my first hardcourt practice opponent two years ago, the year that I won this tournament. I hadn’t thought of it until now but maybe it is a sign of what may come. I was pleased with my play for the most part and was able to see some stuff that I need to clean up. I felt that I was moving very well and feel stronger than I have ever felt. The work in the gym for the last four months is noticeable. I served strongly...very good spins serve up the middle on the deuce side and flat up the middle on the ad side. I want to work more on getting the deuce serve out wide. I was aced a bunch and didn’t make quite a few service returns. Have to raise my level of physical and mental alertness on service returns. I was concerned that I had put off playing for so long and that I might have lost some of the fever. Not an issue. I had a great time playing today. I felt good. I was interested. I was totally engaged. It continues to be a treat to work on my game. Back to top 2003 National Indoor Championships One month before the National 50 Indoors First time out in a long time where I was playing with a goal...to get ready for the National Indoors, four weeks away. I hit with Ricky Becker a former Stamford player who is in his 20s. I hit great, especially in the warmup. Even during the points I was really on the ball, making good contact and taking an aggressive swing a the ball. Sounds pretty good but I was planless. I had no idea what I was doing with any ball. There was no purpose to my shot selections and the score reflected it. I won one game. To me it was a perfect first day of preparation. I now know exactly where I am in the journey towards focus. I have four weeks to narrow my attention to that of a laser beam. Four weeks to get mentally clear about how I want to develop my points, to find an emotional state that is just right for competition, and to shape how I am going to think about winning and losing. While marinating all of this stuff over the next few weeks I also need to get my body to be strong so I have been in the gym most days for the last week. My body is hurting from pushing it but I know I am getting stronger. The week before the tournament I will cut back and let my body rest to get ready for the work in front of me. DAY 2 A couple of days later, I play with Malinow who is getting ready for the 45 Indoors in Salt Lake. My first time on a hard court in a year. He is a little dinged up so isn’t running hard. Regardless I was feeling fine on the fast surface. I am hitting very big off both sides, using my hips more than ever for a quick set up and additional pace. If I can stay alert with my footwork I will be able to execute like this throughout. I will be tough to win a point against. I served very strongly. I have discovered a feeling of loading up before going up to the ball as well as finding a power zone through which I can do a lot with the racket head. I enjoyed serve and volley. I need to get closer in for the first and farther in for the second. Also, need to start hitting overheads and passing shots. Day 3 Played Malinow again. He played better. I need to take pace off the ball. I am wanting to hit too hard all the time. I have been executing a new shot of late, the topspin lob. I do it on the forehand when I have time to pass. Sometimes it goes very short, but I think it is ready for matches. I think I hit my first one ever last year in this tournament. Day 4 Phil was my practice partner last year and he has a good game to play against. His is 22, very fast, big serve and big forehand. He has a couple of areas I can attack so I can play points against him. He is a good push for me and I will lose to him a bunch while preparing. Today my focus was on finding a return zone... a way to play against a big server. I tried staying farther back for a while, then worked on coming right out to the serve and taking in on the rise. Both were effective in putting the ball into a good place on the court. I need to have a plan for the next shot. Am I coming in behind returns? Am I staying back? Today I remembered that I can run down any shot that anybody hits and that I don’t need to rush my point because of that. This is major for me. Three and one half weeks to tournament Worked out with 3 strong juniors on the hard courts. Did a variety of point drills for two hours non stop. Great workout. Their balls come with so much pace that I was often late and scrambling. My pace didn’t get them in any trouble at all unless I could hit three or four pressure building shots. They were also very quick. The ball in the 50s is going to moving pretty slowly for me if I keep playing with the kids. Everybody I am practicing with hits the ball big. It isn’t great for my confidence but I have it in perspective. One of the coaches who was watching pointed out a couple of valuable things: I don’t try to take my first volley from as high as I can, if I were to move to it more aggressively. And when I return with my forehand from the deuce side I take the ball too late, off a big serve, to get it back up the line. Stay conscious of hitting the ball early on the forehand return. I am working my body really hard at the gym and am counting on being able to recover from the work beginning one week before the tournament. I am feeling very psyched and am counting down. I want to be playing really good tennis when I arrive there. I want to feel confidence in my being able to hit any shot on demand, whether it be in practice or at match point up or down. Two weeks to go This was a tough week for me in my preparation. First of all I am still too focused on the tournament rather than my game. I need to make a stronger effort at changing this mindset. The first step is to make the decision that winning is going to be much more based on how I am feeling about my game than on my results. Results, as usual, will just have to follow. They will regardless so I may as well disconnect from them. The second part of my tough week is that I never got to feel that I was playing the style of tennis on the hard courts that I want to play. This happened because I have been practicing with much younger, very hard hitting players. This may turn out to be helpful in terms of dealing with the shots of my age group players but I still needed to get more of my kinds of points going. So it felt like a week that wasn’t all that productive. I did do some good mental spin work after losing a golden set to Ricky Becker, the former #6 player for Stamford. I actually played pretty well but, obviously was never able to hurt him or hurry him. I still saw it as a positive in recognizing how it is always a good idea to try something different when things aren’t working. I also saw how far from focus I really was and this was a good wakeup call. The week before the tournament: Well, I have found my game. Played several times this week and have gotten clear that I am going to Chicago to run for everything, to hit the right shots at the right time, to avoid the silly selections that feel so right as I hit them, but so wrong as they land long, wide or in the net, to go for my shot when I get the invitation, to stay relaxed and have fun while playing and, mostly, to feel satisfied with who and what I put out there on the court. The day before matches begin: Got to Midtown Tennis Club in Chicago today to do my final preparation for the upcoming week. It is both exciting and pressure building to be the defending champ and #1 seed. Exciting in that I feel very special in this small universe. Pressure building in that I am a marked man in the draw. That is about all the time I have for thinking about stuff like that. I hit with a couple of the favorites in the tournament and felt good. I found that the courts are playing pretty slowly compared to the ones I had practiced on back home. I feel secure and confident. It is a special experience to be at a National. I spend most of my time thinking about my game, my opponent, how I am feeling, what I want to be feeling and doing whatever it takes to get in the optimal state to play at my best. For me, this is when I am physically relaxed and mentally clear on what I am trying to accomplish. Emotionally I am at my best when I am eager, happy and little concerned. To be able to put all of my energy into this is unique. I am struggling with balancing the importance of this tournament relative to the war. I keep telling myself that it is ok for me to be playing while other American brothers and sisters are competing with real bullets. Tomorrow morning I start off playing doubles. I look forward to hitting the first ball and getting started. Opening Day The energy around a club on the first day of a National is usually very high. Players who haven’t seen each other for a while are busy sharing stories of matches, ranking hassles and, of course, injuries. Everybody has a story. This National is a little different because, in addition to the Men’s 50s, the Women’s 40s and 50s are here. Also at stake are National Mixed Doubles Championships in both age groups. Each person is permitted to play in two events. I am passing on the Mixed. Several people that I have coached over the internet but never met are here. It is interesting to meet them in person. They are eager to be coached this week but I need to keep my focus on my own game so I am not so receptive to their questions. In the end, though, I end up doing what I do, which is coach. Started the doubles today. My partner is David Nash of Minnesota. He is currently #1 in the country in the 55s, the age group that I just entered. We one 6-0 6-0. Nash is 6’7” tall and covers all the overheads letting me roam around the net. We are a fine team. Last year Nash and I played here together and played into the semis. Knowing before the match that Nash could not play the next day if we won, we decided, before going on the court, that if we got to match point we would default and let our opponents advance to the finals. Sure enough we were leading one set to love and 5-4, 40 love and we shook hands. Tomorrow at 1PM we play the team that we defaulted to. Those guys will not be eager to prove that last year was a fluke. They are very good and are seeded #2 based on their advancement to last year’s final. I mentioned to both of them that we expected to start the match where we finished off last year...that Nash and I were just on a bathroom break. They didn’t think that was very funny. They have no interest in revisiting the past. Singles begins tomorrow at 8AM. My focus is decent but not where I want it to be . Tonight I will visualize myself playing with good energy, intense focus and positive emotion. I will also clarify what my game plan will be. My strategy will be what it usually is. To run for everything so that my opponents feel that they have nowhere to go. To hit the ball to the parts of the court that keep me in control. To go for my shots when the opportunity is presented to me. I will continue to play within myself and to be patient during the points. Technically I will plan on using my new knowledge of loading up with my hips and legs on my groundstrokes. On my serve, which can be a big factor in my matches, I will be focusing on my timing, making sure that I am exploding up to the ball. Last Day and beginning of the next competition Lost my singles 4-6, 7-5, 6-4. Got a pretty decent warmup and was feeling ok when I got on the court. Unfortunately I was faced with a battle that I was not up to winning. The battle was one of playing through an injury. Due to a pretty deep muscle pull in my lower back I was unable to explode to the ball. My first step in any direction was weak. There were many balls that I didn’t even attempt to run to. It was very frustrating. Movement is one of my strongest assets as a player. I kept trying to push myself into the match but my frustration interfered too much. While playing I felt disappointed. I thought too much about what I couldn’t do rather than focusing on what I could do. It isn’t necessarily the case that I would have won the match because my opponent was a fine player who might have still hung on for victory. I take nothing away from him. No, it was a matter of me taking control of my thoughts when my thinking was counterproductive. In some ways it was a continuation of what happened in the doubles...the need to be accountable to myself when I am aware of what I ought to be doing. I knew that, being limited, I needed to attack on service return. I thought about it. I knew it was the right move. But it is not my style. It is out of my comfort zone. But it was also my best chance to succeed in the match. The lesson for me...be willing to adapt when the situation demands, even if it means doing some things that are uncomfortable. I hope to never have to play a match where my movement is limited, but I will plan for it and make a commitment to myself to act on the plan I come up with. This will not happen again! Thanks to all for your comments, feedback and support. The Morning After The morning after a loss in a big tournament is always a little strange. My hope was to be playing to the end of the event. All of a sudden it is over. The work. The preparation. The anticipation. The hopes. It feels so final. A loss such as this one, where I didn’t feel that I accessed the warrior within me, leaves me with a lingering sense of disappointment. I wake up and think that maybe the magic and excitement of competing is over. Maybe I will take the year off. The great tennis champion, Bill Tilden, wrote that there were many nights he went to sleep and burned his (wooden) rackets in disgust, determined to never play again, only to be on the courts the next morning, trying to improve. I, too, will be looking to grow my game again starting on Monday. In further reflection I have a sense that my motivation for playing this event was not fully formed in my mind. What I mean is that, from the beginning I was coming here to “defend my title.” My goal was to defend my title. Although I thought about playing good tennis, I never made it my north star. With my goal being to “defend,” all I needed to do was show up. It was even okay for me to show up when I was less that 100% physically. Today, as I feel my disappointment, I realize that if I had wanted to have a chance to succeed in this tournament, to play great tennis, to have a chance to win and to feel self satisfied no matter what the outcome, then I needed to be 100%. The funny thing is that I achieved my goal. I defended. What will I do differently next time I have this opportunity? I will make my goal stronger and clearer...to defend successfully. Back to top 2003 Fred Perry Cup THE JOURNEY BEGINS...May, 2003 I have started to fire up my competitive rockets for a new journey that will conclude in Germany in August. At that time I will,again, be representing the USA in our team quest to win the Fred Perry Cup. This 50 and over event is called the Veteran’s International Team Championships, a/k/a the Senior Davis Cup. This will be my third time on the team in the 5 years I have been eligible. The first year, as a rookie, I played with stars in my eyes. I couldn’t believe I was on the team. Last year, I knew I belonged but never really got my confidence until the last couple of days of playing. This year I will be the veteran member of the team, the only one of the four players who has competed for the Cup. The USTA has appointed me captain of the squad. I will no longer have the luxury of focusing on my preparation and play. I will have to be a leader, make lineup decisions and be on court to coach the rest of the squad during their matches. It is an honor to be put in the position of being the team leader. It also presents new and different challenges. I will need to be more focused than ever if I am to succeed both on and off the court. I call it a journey because I have quite a ways to go from the level of my last play to where I have to get to in order to be able to compete against the very best senior players in the world. My loss in the round of 16 at the National 50 Indoors in March marked one of my weakest efforts in several years. I went into the event with unremarkable goals and a body that wasn’t ready to compete. I was overconfident that my play of the prior year would carry me through against a field that I underestimated. My play was unisnspired and my disappointment wasn’t deep enough. I started thinking that I might have had enough of all of this competition. After all, it has been twenty years since I started to compete. I considered that my mind/body couldn’t take it anymore. I thought that the thrill of competition had worn off. Even while thinking this way after the Indoors I felt pretty certain that I was just defending against the feeling of disappointment that I had not really given it the right effort. Fortunately I got a call to play for the Eastern 45 and over team in an intersectional match. Not only was I asked to play, but I was told I would be playing #1. This would probably be my last 45 and over competition. I had three weeks to get ready. During the three weeks my interest came and went. I didn’t know if I really had it in me to do the work. I started to question whether I should go to Germany. It is amazing what self doubt can do. A couple of my Eastern tennis playing buddies, teammates on the 45 team encouraged me to get out and practice. I felt signs of the spark and interest. When I would feel the spark I would be playing pretty well. If not, well, I was kind of lifeless and uninterested. ATLANTIC COAST 45 CUP...May 17-18 Happy to be playing and seeing a lot of the buddies that I have met over the years of playing team matches. Many of us have played against each other since the 35s. Our opening match was against the Middle Atlantic team. I had played and beaten their #1 a couple of times, so I was pretty confident that I would win. Many of the players were congratulating me on my year of playing. My confidence and their comments all went to my head. I figured that all I needed to do in my match was keep the ball in play and I would find a way to win. Unfortunately, my oppenent had the same idea and was better at just playing steady than me. I am at my best when my feet are moving all the time in between shots and I am looking to be aggressive at the first opportunity. On this day, though, I was playing flat footed and rarely looked for the chance to attack. I kept playing a losing strategy and my opponent was rock solid. He got the win, 5-7, 6-2 ,6-2. I definitely was upset with my play and, that night, determined that the next day, when we would be playing the finals against New England, I would bring my intensity and game to the court. I walked on the court on Sunday ready to battle. My energy was great. My interest was high. My intent was to compete for every point. I was clearly on my way to finding my game. I started out a bit too complacently, sensing that I could outlast my opponent, but at 2-2 of the first set I realized that I was close to falling into my pattern of my previous match. I rededicated myself to moving my feet and looking to attack at the first opportunity and I won easily 6-2, 6-2. I was pleased with the way in which I straightened myself out. My match was just a small part of the day. The team needed to win four of the seven matches to win the Cup. Our #2 singles finished with a win just before me, so we were up 2-0. Our #3 and #4 singles were in battles and we dropped #1 doubles. It was close. Happily, #4 pulled his out and #2 doubles came through. Victory to the Eastern team. It is special to play tennis on a team. It is rare that we truly get to pull for the same people that we are often competing against. Each of us got to drink champagne from a beautiful Cup and our names will be engraved on the Cup and will remain there forever. It was especially nice for me being that it is probably the last time I will play on this team. GETTING DOWN TO WORK...The week of May 19 So I am feeling more motivated. Feeling that excitement of working on my game. Looking at the parts. Finding newness in my mental approach. I am clear that I want to feel the level of confidence in my shots, movement and strategy that makes the game so much of a focused experience. I will be working on keeping my shots really deep, on locking in my serving rituals, on opening the court up with my forehand (this is new for this year), on attacking on service return and on playing courageously, unafraid to make an error when being aggressive. Just writing about it fires me up. I practiced with one of the 45ers today and found that I was playing differently that during the Cup matches. Instead of trying to win, I was working on my game. Those parts that I had planned to work on were right there on the court with me. I wasn’t always executing (how could I be with so little time playing over the last few months) but I was in the hunt. When I missed, my correction would relate to the tasks that I had set for my self. I felt positive. As the playing session when on, I saw some of the early fruits. I lost the first set but toughed out the second by winning me serve after being down love 40. This is always something that gets me incredibly juiced. I start to believe in myself. Today it was a turning point. I started to adjust my tactics to break down my opponent and I sprinted to the end of the practice session by winning the last five games of the second set. It was enough. I have accomplished step #1....I can’t wait to get out there again. I pulled out the Eastern tournament book and selected three tournaments to play in the month of June. Hey, Fred Perry Cup, look out. Here I come to bring you back to the USA. One Month into Preparation...The Week of June 16 Well I have been steadily progressing in my preparation for the Perry Cup. Sometimes I think I may be overly focused on an event that is so far away although that attitude usually has me looking at an event that smacks me right in the face before I know it. I find that you can never start thinking about what you want and where you are going too soon or too much. Having this much time allows me to add parts to my training slowly, so as to avoid the frustrations and injuries that are often a result of cramming. the flip side is that on many days I feel that I am not doing enough or I am not progressing fast enough. It certainly is a delicate balance. If I wait too long I put too much pressure on myself or lose motivation. If I start too soon I question whether I am working hard enough. As is often the case with me, I think way too much about future results during my preparation phase, ie winning the Cup, rather than processing those things that I need to be doing well both on and off the court. By writing I am able to see these weaknesses in my approach and to make the necessary adjustments. In a practice match the other day against a very steady 45 and over player, I got very frustrated with myself for making silly shot selections. I started thinking, “I can’t be hitting shots like that if I am going to win in August.” It didn’t help and I ran a streak of very bad points. In fact I lost 13 points in a row at one stretch. Part of finding my game is facing the truth about myself. Recognizing that I am thinking too much about the future results is the first thing that sets me on the right path. It has often been said that we learn much more from our failures than our successes. That being the case I am fortunate to see my weaknesses at this point in getting ready. One of my competitive challenges is to time this whole experience just right...to be involved in the process of playing good tennis and to be free of concerns about results by the time I get to Germany. I feel certain that I will find that timing. My overall game is progressing nicely. Physically I am feeling more and more fit every day. Each day I do something, whether it be practice, bike, treadmill or specific movement exercises. I am not compulsive about it. I just do a little each day. This keeps my mind tracked in on my goals. The Cup is never that far from my consciousness. I am playing well, although I may not be challenged quite enough in my practice sessions. I need to play more people who will beat up on me. If not, I will develop a false sense of confidence, something that will trip me up when I meet a very tough opponent. I am playing a 55 and over tournament this weekend with a couple of 45 and over events coming up in the next month or so. The 45s should be a good challenge for seeing how far I have progressed since the team match I played a month ago. One thing is for certain...I am really into it. Week of June 26 I feel like I am really on track this week. Some obvious playing ideas have crystalized. I am now sure that running every ball down and getting each shot back deep is the way I need to keep playing. My overexcitement about getting back to competing manifested itself in overexcited shots. I had been trying to do way too much with each shot. I am clear, at least for right now, that I can use my speed to play patiently and to look for opportuinities. No need to force them. If they aren’t there I can always postpone and look for another chance. This is a very freeing experienceon the court. Eliminating the fear of the other player being able to win the point at will takes a lot of pressure off. Over the next few weeks I can work on developing specific weapons to use in specific situations. I will start to work on the patterns that will force my opponent to play into these situations. Today when playing, each shot I hit had a purpose...to keep my opponent from winning the point, to get me out of trouble, to develop the point, to apply pressure and, ultimately, to give me a chance to end a point. I made a big step this week on my serve, as well. I have slowed down before tossing. I am taking the time to visualize the serve I am about to hit. I am staying ritualistic, always bouncing the ball the same number of times, taking a deep breath before initiating the toss and looking into the court the same way each time. There is a feeling of certainty about what I am doing when I prepare the same way each time. The more I do something the same way, the better I get at it. Of course, I have to make sure I am doing somethng that works for what I want. July 13 One Month to Go Have really kicked into gear, doing on court training five days this past week. My motivation is very high, so doing the work comes easily. It doesn’t matter if it is hot, humid or raining. I look forward to my game developing a little bit each day. I was inspired by seeing Roger Federer playing such relaxed tennis during the second week of Wimbledon. He, as many great athletes, provided us with a glimpse of what they do that contribute to extraordinary levels of play. When he completed his run to win the title he said that for the last two years, since he beat Sampras at Wimbledon, he has been struggling to live up to his own and other people’s expectations that he was the new greatest player. He decided before Wimbledon started that he was going to simply relax and enjoy the experience. He apparently was able to do it because he seemed to be playing completely within himself, with no pressure to overextend himself. The result was that his mechanics, tactics, emotions and spirit were all perfect. Seeing this helped me become more aware of how “hard I am trying” on each shot...probably too hard...and that I can truly dial it down and be much more effective. This is ongoing for me for I tend to think, instinctively, that if I am not working really hard, then I am not doing enough. When I start to do what feels like enough, it is, in fact, too much, and I start to break down. So all week I was staying aware of relaxing and having a good time. Playing within myself. Letting myself fall into the flow and absorbing my opponent’s shots rather than being overly-aggressive and trying to hurt him with each shot. Patience feels great. I needed to doing some spiritual work too. This involved making a decision to relax some of the “win the Cup” pressure that I have put on myself. I realized that playing for the USA is a gift and something that is an experience to truly enjoy and I am committed to doing just that. Some of the high points of my week of practice: feeling completely energized while and after playing a two hour practice match on a very hot and humid day; working out for doubles for 45 minutes on just returning serve with my backhand, developing the a return that will get me to the net quicker; an amazing set in which I went down 5-1, fought back to 3-5 and while serving that game fought off 6 set points playing without fear. I won that game, lost the set in the next, but still felt a huge win. This week I will do more work on staying relaxed, being purposeful on each shot, serve location and spin and more backhand service returns. My goal continues to be to be a little better today than yesterday. As long as I can do that and let the winning/losing take care of itself I will be playing good ball when I arrive to play. July 14-20 Workouts this week are showing the fruits of the last few weeks’ labors. Played two strong sets on Monday against a very steady 45 and over player. I got much more in touch with dialing down my intensity. There was too much tense in my first set intensity. I was trying to do way too much with each ball and found it difficult to maintain consistency. As a result when we got into a tiebreaker I was too edgy and made a few bad selections to lose the set. I had a short talk with myself and rededicated myself to relaxing into the game. Even though it often felt like I wasn’t doing enough with each ball, I became much more consistent and broke my opponent down. Doing less I won the second set easily at 6-1. So important that I continue to play within myself even though I keep thinking I can do more. It just isn’t necessary and just creates earlier breakdown in mechanics or shot selections. Tuesday I did a full hour of returning serve drills for doubles with a fine Colgate player. I am progressing on my task of getting in behind my return.Spoke to Mike Zim, who was a great doubles player at Harvard and on the tour. He gave me some terrific new insights into doubles tactics. There are so many people out there that can provide great information and I need to remember to go them for advice. I did a presentation on Focus for a ladies club team and heard myself say a few things that were great reminders for me about my own focus. I was stressing over and over again, for them, the importance of being relaxed and enjoying the playing experience. I told them of Billie Jean King telling me to keep reminding all my players that “it is not about the trophies...it is about the playing, the challenges, the relationships, the discoveries...” When I said to her “that is easy for you to say...you have won 20 Wimbledon titles.” Her answer was “that is just why you have to trust what I am saying. I have been to the top of the mountain and I have seen that it is not that big a deal. It is the journey to the top that is meaningful.” I certainly intend to listen. I played a few doubles exhibitions this weekend and played totally fun tennis. I am truly the player that I want to be when I am in this playing mode. This continues to be my goal. July 21-August 2 Spent some time during this stretch with Peter Fishbach. He was the greatest high school player in Nassau County history and went on to become an ATP Tour coach. I picked his brain about doubles service return theory. He helped me clarify what it means to “go for the return,” something that I am trying to do more often. He pointed out that when you play aggressively on the return, you have made a choice to miss more...and that is ok. So my attempts at being able to be aggressive and not miss very many returns was bound to fail. I am free now to go for it without the fear of missing. It is helpful to remember that there are always people out there who know more and can help. During this stretch I have started to feel very solid with my game. I have been playing both singles and doubles so that I am prepared to play either when I finalize the lineup next week. In singles I have managed to get myself into a patient and opportunistic mode of play. I am playing within myself when my opponent does not give me the pitch that I want. I am alert to the possibility that, at any moment, I will get the ball I want. It is then, and only then, that I am attacking. There is a security in knowing exactly what I am trying to do in the point. I will maintain this mode as a way to stay relaxed and focused. I am ready to go. Ready to play. Feeling eager, confident and focused. We arrive in Germany on August 7, practice for three day and then go for the Cup. There will be 20 countries competing for this championship with Spain, Australia, Germany, England and USA being the favorites. There is no guarantee, though. Our Davis Cup team remembers how, two years ago, Roger Federer singlehandedly won a Cup match against the USA team. We know that there may be a great player from any one of the other countries that could win at singles and doubles every day. We must stay alert and avoid team overconfidence. As the captain of the team, this will be my job. I consider myself lucky to be playing and sharing this extraordinary experience. All the work over the years has led to this opportunity. I have worked hard over the last couple of months and have prepared effectively. I have gotten myself to a place, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually that will give me the best chance to play well and to help the team. It is my intent to continue to send email journal entries when I am away assuming I can get easy access to the web. Aug 2 afternoon A quick followup from today's practice sessions...played good friend and great player Adam Rosen who absolutely took me apart. I was impatient, overhitting, being non ritualistic on my serve and, generally, not doing anything that I had thought that I had solidified in my game. GREAT REMINDER...DON"T GET LAZY MENTALLY OR OLD HABITS QUICKLY TAKE ROOT! Better that it happened today and not next week. Tomorrow's practice session will give me the opportunity to rededicate myself to working hard and taking nothing for granted. THE DAY BEFORE LEAVING I have played hard for 20 of the last 22 days. I am ready. I am moving well, getting to every ball and have gotten back to making myself a tough opponent to win a point against. I am still making a few too many errors in specific situations such as on 2nd serve returns (I am a little too casual) and forehands on the run (I am going to improve my positioning). I need to serve more into the body and continue to use my pre serve rituals so that I am taking my time. I am going to rest my body, process all of the info that I have gathered about my game , make decisions and choices that will help me play good tennis. I look forward to the challenges in this game of me vs. myself. I am psyched. I am eager. I am ready. hello all from bielefeld germany we arrrived late on thursday after a very long a hot trip. we had a 10 hour layover in paris. carol and i spent several hours walking around the left and right banks in 105 degree weather. it was brutal. europe is in a terrible heat wave. a/c has been cut back all over including the airport. but we finally made it with another flight and two train rides. bielefeld is delightul and the germans are wonderfully hospitable. the food is excellent. the weather...that is another story as it is reaching 95 every day. the team is made up of neal newman of columbus ohio, fred robinson of north carolina and jamie pressley of palm beach florida and me. i have been glad to seem many familiar faces from the international tennis scene. friends i have made from polaying this event the last few years feel like old friends. the bonding with players from south africa, france, austrailia, israel, germany, sweden and on and on. it is a special experience. we all share a wonderful passion for tennis and competition that is special. we all talk about how lucky we are to be participating in an event such as this. the whole city is excited about this event. bielefeld is hosting the Fred Perry Cup for 50 and over and the Dubler Cup for 45 and over. the american 45 and over team are good cronies as well and we are pulling for each other. my teammates and i have been dong two a day practices at Tennis Club Dortmund. it is a wonderful club that has all of the amenitites. well, not really...no soap or shampoo and towels that feel like sandpaper. tennis balls are $13 a can...well at least they give you 4 balls in a can. the beer flows in the clubhouse like you cannot believe. by the way the beer is locally brewed and delicious. the courts are the famous euorpean red clay and very very dry becaus of the hot dry weather. footing is terrible and players are searching the city for sneakers that offer better traction. as for me, i like bad footing and crummy conditions so i am ok with it. the first day of practice was awful. i thought that my game had abandoned me. it was not that, though, it was simply no legs from the long trip and feeling exhausted. by today, day 3, i am feeling good on the court and ready to go. i have a captains meeting tonight with the ITF (internationa tennis federation) to present lineups and, make the team seedings and scheduling. i met with my teammates today and we discussed who should be playing our two singles matches and one doubles. each of us is good enough to be playing first singles but only one of us can be listed in that position. i heard everybody's opinion and made my decision based on all of the input. i have put pressley at 1, me at 2, newman at 3 and robinson at 4. Robinson is def. our best player and putting him at 4 gives me the most flexiblity to play him at #2 or doubles. i can play 1 or 2 or doubles. pressley can play only 1. we will trade off at singles a bit. i don't know who we paly tomorrow in the first round yet but will go with pressley, robinson aat singles. newman and i will play doubles. we need to win 2 of 3 matches each day in order to win our flight to advance to thursdays quarterfinals. the best teams are spain, australia, england, germany, france, and usa. all of our wives are with us and provide remarkable support and our infintely patient with our endless tennis stories, dirty laundry and an occassional massage for our physical complaints, of which there are many. the team has bonded teriffically. we eat all meals together, hang out and help each other out with plying suggestions. how very different than he normal tennis experience. first match tomorrow at 11:30. the format is that we get one court and play in order #2 singles, followed by #1 singles, and then the doubles so we all watch each other. i will be on court to captain and coach my players during their matches, another aspect that is different. coaching is allowed and is a huge benefit. we are all used to being alone out there when playing. in this event, as in davis cup, we can receive the benefit of an on court coach. you may be able to find the results at www.itftennis.com. the link would be cups and compeitions, veterans, and we are the Fred Perry Cup. i will attempt to write after each day but it appears to be tricky to get a computer each day. go USA! NIGHT BEFORE THE COMPETITION BEGINS at sunday night's meeting, the seedings were determined and we were #4 of 6 seeded teams: spain, australia, france, usa, germany, austria. next in line but unseeded was great britain. we had a bye on monday and had our first match today, tuesday, against the brits. they were anchored by one of the finest individual players at this event. for us this was not a happy prospect. when i reported to my teammates who we would be playing for our first match everybody got overly focused on how tough it would be. i stressed for all the importance of just going out and concentrating on our games and playing good tennis when the time came. on monday night i discussed lineup with all and decided to put myself at doubles. we had pressley, a super clay court master at 1 singles and robinson, our youngest player at 2 singles. to win the match it is necessary to win 2 of 3. i put myself at doubles with newman, the finest sr. doubles player in the usa. robinson won easily, 60 64. pressely went out to play the great British player and lost a 2 1/2 hour marathon 62, 64. the doubles would now be the crucial point to determine the winner who would advance. feeling that robinson was a far superior doubles player to me i made a last minute change in lineup and put him in to play with newman. it was a difficult decision because i am here to play and wanted to be out there. but it also felt like the right decision for the team. alas it did not pay off as the brits won the dbls 75 62. i felt like the loss was mine. i know what it feels like to be the manager or coach of a team. if the team wins, it is the players. if the team loses it is the coach whose head rolls. i have been second guessing myself for the last hours. my teammates all supported the decisions and that feels good. this takes us out of the running for the cup this year but we still have a match against mexico tomorrow followed by at least two more matches in the second level flight. i must motivate myself and my teammates for tomorrows match. we are from the usa and we are accustomed to success. our goal will be to win our remaining matches and to hold our heads up high. last night, the opening ceremonies were held at a fifteenth century castle. it was an extraordinary experience with all teams wearing their nations colors and, as captain, i got to hold our flag when the national anthem was played. it was moving and i felt pride at being an american. the israeli players wanted to take pictures with our flag and me. the argentinians wanted a picture with me as well. they said they wanted to bring home pics of teir team and the captain of the most powerful country in the world. carol of course was moved to tears. as i looked around i realiyed how far i have come as a player, standing with the top 4 players from 18 countries from around the world. i was aware last night that regardless of what would happen on the court we were all winners and will never forget it. the relationships that i have developed by playing on this cup team for 3 of the last 4 years will stay with me forever. i have made friends from spain, france, germany, israel, australia, england, ireland, and on and on. we all talk of making sure to visit one another in the future and i am sure that we will. a local family has been assigned to be our hosts for the week and we are off to their home for dinner tonight. they are opening their home to both our 45 and 50 and over teams as well as wives. incredibly hospitable. there will be more to report as the week continues. Before 2nd Team Match had to have a team meeting with players last night to fire everyone up for future matches. we are still here to place as highly as possible. the guys were kind of depressed in that each one contributed to the loss. by morning we were ready to go again. we played against mexico and had two close singles matches with the second match of the day going three sets. it was nervewracking. i played doubles for my first play of the week. i was determined to put the past behind and to play really well. i was really pumped up and was so eager that i would have picked up the balls for the opposing team if i were allowed. we won 62, 62 and i played about as well as i can play. happy to report that my returns were great. i had practiced them for weeks before arriving and it really paid off. i feel really good to have won a point for the team and the usa. tomorrow we play sweden. i am thinking of playing singles and doubles but wont decide until the morning. we had a wonderful dinner last night at our host family's home. they hosted both the 45 and 50 teams as well as wives. 12 of us were in this lovely apartment and we ate and drank much beer until very late. the germans are delightful and incredibly hospitable. Quarterfinals of back draw vs. Sweden a wonderful day for the team and for me, personally. today we played the quarterfinals of the back draw against a very strong team from sweden. we swept all three matches. i played #1 singles for the first time ever in an international cup match and played as well as i have ever played. i beat the top player from sweden 62 62. i played with a confidence that i dream about but don't often feel. this was clearly a continuation of the way i felt in the doubles against mexico, where i felt like the best player here. to win so handily against such a fine player contibuted to how i played in the doubles as well. neal newman and i won 62 62 in that match. now we advance to the semis against swityerland on friday. our team is clearly on a mission. we have left the disappointment of our earlier defeat to great britain and have moved on. since that day we have won all six matches that we have played. i am happy that i have won 3 of those 6 matches. our team continues to bond and the four of us will be close friends forever from this remarkable experience. again we are aware of how we are loved by the aussies, the brits and, mostly, the israeli team. the israeli team will need to leave before their final match and have suggested that i wear one of their shirts, speak a little hebrew and play in their place. won't happen but it was a cute idea. Semifinals of Back Draw vs. Swiss another banner day for team usa. we swept swiss without the loss of a set (i won in the doubles 62 60) and have advanced to the finals of the back draw. tomorrow, closing day, we go against #3 seeded french team. they, like us, were upset on the first day. i considered them to be the favorites before we arrived so it will be our toughest match. i will play #1 singles and doubles. my singles opponent was the 45 and over world champion two years ago so i will be up against it. i am eager for the opportunity to play him. my goal is to play good tennis, to run down every ball and to make no unforced errors. this guy will be seeing me at my best and i will be a tough opponent for him to win a point against. my speed will be my weapon. how great that i have a chance to play against someone of his level. as agassi said after beating roddick a few months ago..."between the lines there is no age." at the opening captain's meeting last sunday, the french captain called the usa team old (three of out players are 55). i told him that age means nothing and that we are simply more intelligent. we have been kidding each other all week so tomorrow will be fun for all. i have mentioned the great relationships that this sport and competition has given me. last night at the big players party two of the israeli players remembered that we had competed against each other in the 1985 maccabian games in israel. we shared great memories and talked of how we will always remember each of these special events. tonight at dinner i toasted my wonderful teammates who have truly eliminated the word "I" from their vocabularies. we are tryly a team forever. we saluted our wives who have been so supportive, have put up with our endless tennis talk, and have allowed us to be a bunch of self absorbed kids. one comment about late last night when we returned from the party. standing around the bar we saw the reports on BBC about the power outage. we all were glued to the tv and were nervous about what was going on. we had limited info as i imagine many of you had. we wished that we were there even though it must have been awful. when something happens at home, tennis is forgotten and we just want to be there. we were relieved to hear this morning that this was not what we had feared. hoping that all of you are doing ok and that everyone is fine. Back Draw Finals vs. France well it was the #3 and #4 seeded teams playing fo rhte finals of the back draw. france vs. usa. our #2 player started off the day with a very tough 3 set win and things looked pretty good for us. i was feeling eager and excited to be playing a former world champion. i had to wait two hours to get on the court for the first match to end. istarted out on fire against an extremely crafty player, a lefty who sliced all backhands and snapped topspin foehands. he mixed in an incredible number of drop shots and i took hím out in the first set, 6-2. up 15-40 on his serve in the first game of the second set i was poised to take control of the match. he escaped and quickly broke me. at 2-0 down in the second i popped a string in my racket, had a little trouble adjusting to my second racket that was strung a little looser. several games later i broke a string in that one and never really got my feel back. he won the second set, 6-1. before i knew what wswa happening he was on a roll and i was unable to catch up. his game took me out of mine and i had no ansers on the slow clay against somebody who was feeling more and more comfortable. i went down 6-3 in the third.newman and i went out to "play the doubles" immediately after a fifteen minute break, had chances in the first but i didn't hold serve at 5-4 in the first and they won a tiebreaker. we went down 0-4 in the second, fought back, but lost 6-3. the loss was disappointíng but the team feeling at the conclusion was memorable. as i have said all week, the experience, the relationships, the opportunity to play for the usa... this is what it is all abóut. never to be forgotten.by the way germany beat australia for the cup. after splitting the two singles matches it came down to the doubles. there were nine, yes 9 consecutive service breaks and in the tenth game the germans held. fitting that they won the cup as the host team. cheers to them. it has been a great run. i now prepare to go to boston in two weeks to play the potter cup, a competition between the brits and usa on the grass at longwood, a historic club. can't wait to get off the dirt and on the turf. best to all. Back to top 2003 USTA National 55 Grass Championships Over the last two weeks I have been preparing to play in my first 55 and over tournament, the National 55 Grass. It is being played at Rockaway Hunting Club in Cedarhurst, Long Island. Rockaway is the oldest club in the country and steeped in tradition. Of course, all white clothes, best behavior and no cell phones allowed on the premises. This tournament offers me several new challenges. Coming into the age group as one of the top players in the 50s makes me a bit of a marked man. I have been seeded #1 so everybody is eager to get a shot at me. Being seeded #1 in a National is a wonderful acknowledgement of the past year but it is unrelated to how a player is doing in the present. Being seeded #1 in a tournament is particularly enjoyable during the couple of days before the first ball is hit. Lots of external gratification and talk about how great it looks like I am playing. Of course, being seeded #1 does very little to help win a match. It still comes down to playing good solid tennis day in and day out. Another challenge will be playing a big event while staying at home. I need to treat this event as if I am away, where I can focus on those things that help me play good tennis. Practicing, eating right, stretching, hot tubs and just, generally, being self absorbed. Carol has already given me the ok. In fact she insisted that I cancel a couple of lessons that I had scheduled for today. Even though my first match is tomorrow she reminded me that I need to be in that match frame of mind starting on the first day of the tournament. Her support always makes my commitment easier. After playing on the clay in Europe my confidence was a little down. I was feeling that I had lost a little of my swagger that contributed to me having such a wonderful 2002 on the courts. My perspective was distorted for the losses that I took in Europe were against the very top clay court players in the world. I, nevertheless, am tough on myself and felt that I could have been putting a better level of play out on the courts. Fortunately I got to play on the grass in Boston two weeks ago. I was asked to play for the United States against Great Britain in competition for the Avory Cup. The organizers of this biannual cup select two players from each age group from the open (under 30) to the 65 and over. Being selected is an honor. I got to play and win two singles and two doubles matches and helped the USA kick the British butts. It was a bit of payback for me after our loss to them in Europe three weeks ago. Interestingly, the other 55 and over player on the team is my doubles partner here at the 55 Grass. He is somebody who years ago, before I had ever won a National match, had been kind enough to hit with me when he was the #1 40 and over player in the USA. The best players are secure enough in their games to let go of the pecking order and welcome other players into the game. They don’t look down at lesser players. Now, so many years later, we are playing doubles together. I practiced today and played more than satisfactorily. I am serving big and smart. Watching Roddick over the last few days has reminded me to continually be aggressive when serving. I am returning as well as I have in several months. On the grass my movement is a huge asset and I am feeling quick. All of this has my confidence moving up. I play singles tomorrow morning and can’t wait to get out there. Doubles in the afternoon will help complete what I am confident will be a good opening day. First Matches Today I finally got out there to start playing. I was aware of feeling very relaxed for a National. I usually have a more nervous edgy feeling on day 1. I am feeling confident in my game. This is a welcome change that has occurred over the last few days. I know that I am "on the ball" and into every shot. Tournaments require this attention to every single shot. Everything becomes magnified in importance. A shot missed that could have been made can turn into a lost game. A loose game can turn into a set that you can't recover quite turn around. It feels great to be able to tune in to each moment during the match. This is what staying in the present feels like. Tennis competition provides me with this experience. I played a near perfect match in singles, winning 60 61, losing very few points. I made very few careless errors. I played relaxed and easy, yet with a mental intensity that allowed me to hit every ball cleanly. In doubles, Chas Hoeveler and I won 62 62 against a solid team. This is our third match together and we definitely complement each other. He is a fierce competitor with high expectations of himself. I feed on this. It is a gift to be able to play in these tournaments. I am challenged by them every day. Today I was challenged to play focused and hard against a player that I knew that I would beat under almost any circumstances. I had to be alert to overconfidence and complacency. I needed to be sure to give my opponent the respect that he deserved. This is the spirit of competition. Today I succeeded in each of these ways at the same time as winning the game. It feels good to be able to succeed in all of the goals of competition. Round of 16 Today was one of those special days where everything felt just right. I was calm, unhurried and unconcerned about anything. It didn’t matter if we started on time, what court I was playing on, who was watching or what was going on around me. I was in a comfortable bubble. I felt like I was watching myself. I noticed how relaxed I was feeling and behaving. This feeling stayed with me through both my singles and doubles matches. I was totally confident in my ability to hit just about any shot. I served and hit returns without any fear of missing and the results were remarkable. My opponent was a fine player but there was very little that he was able to do that impacted on my confidence. I had two shaky moments. Leading 6-2, 1-1 I missed a couple of makeable shots, he made a couple of passes anti dropped my serve. Staying calm and confident I broke him at love making two winner service returns. At 6-2, 5-3, serving for the match, I was down game point twice. I came up with a winner volley and an ace to escape. So even when there was trouble, I did fine. Tennis should always feel the way it felt in this match. Unfortunately it doesn’t but this can still be a beacon to always aim for. Doubles was more of the same. I played against two long time friends who were better than me when I first started to play tournaments. Today I was the best on the court. Again I felt that I could hit any shot. I even made some backhand service return winners. Tomorrow, in the quarters of the singles and the semis of the doubles, I will just continue to focus on my game...making returns, being aggressive on my serve, running for every ball, making good contact. I will continue to wrap myself up in a relaxed state. I must do these things just for the sake of doing them, with no particular gaining idea. At the same time, I am also aware that all of this, if I can do it, will keep me focused and will lead me to feelings of confidence. Quarterfinals Woke up today again feeling calm and clear. I knew right away that I was going to be able to stay relaxed. I knew exactly what my goals for the day were and I wasn’t going to let thinking about winning or losing ruin my plans. My goals were to stay relaxed, have fun, make a lot of returns, serve aggressively and put lots and lots of balls in the court. My opponent in the singles was an Eastern player, one with whom I have had many memorable matches. We have played no less that 15 finals but have never played in a National. The stakes were higher. I made a strong conscious effort to delete him from my thoughts. Thinking abut the implications of beating him or losing to him would have kicked up my anxiety and reduced my focus in a way that my play would have been shaky. Today that was not to be. Today it was just a beautiful day on the grass at Rockaway. I started out great and then got even better, winning 63 61. In all of our matches together this was the most lopsided. By focusing on my goals and blocking any thoughts about my opponent I was able to, as Brad Gilbert tells Roddick, “take care of business..” The doubles was more of the same as Charlie and I beat the 2nd seeded and multi National Championships team 63 63. I played with confidence as I continue to increase my belief that I belong at the top. This has been a long hard journey for me as I have often felt like a temporary visitor to the upper echelons of senior tennis. My results are not what convince me. What has increased my belief that I am a top senior player has been my more recent ability to control my state effectively when playing in big moments with great players. Feels good. Another special part of today was when my Mom's sister and Dad's brother, both in their 80s showed up to watch. On this day of memories it was nice to feel that my folks were here watching. Tomorrow the semis of the singles against my doubles parther and the finals of the doubles. Singles semis and Doubles finals Followed all of the same rituals that I have been doing all week to maintain my relaxed focused state, walked on the court to play the singles semis and felt ready for more of the same confident play. Got immediately knocked out of the calm accepting frame of mind when I went down 0-40 in first game when serving. My opponent, Charlie Hoeveler, a winner of 33 National Sr. Championships, played a tactically brilliant first game, hitting softly and short. For the first time in the week I dropped my serve. It shook my confidence a bit and, instead of coming back strongly for the next game, I missed a bunch of returns and found myself down 0-2. Played another shaky serve game but held as Charlie made a couple of great gets and got a let cord rollover winner. The pattern was that he was doing to me what I had been doing to others: getting every ball back, running down my volleys and outguessing me when I had an open court chance. My old enemy, frustration, started to kick in, I got edgy and started to talk to myself negatively. This didn’t help and I had a couple of more shaky serve games and no impact on his serve. Serving at 3-5 I fought off thoughts of losing the set, played a positive game and, on the changeover break decided that I needed to play aggressively in the next game as he served for the first set. I decided that playing cautiously and fearfully would only give it away. I broke him in a very competitive game to get to 5-5. From that point on it was my match. I didn't lose another game, winning 10 in a row and getting a 75 60 win. It was the moment of deciding to play aggressively with no fear of losing that was the turning point. It was a wonderful win for me in terms of result as well as in taking a big risk in a huge moment. The doubles match was fierce with Charlie and I playing the top seeded team. We started quickly and went up 3-0. When I served at 3-1 I future tripped and thought of winning the match easily. Instead I dropped serve and we were in for a battle. Everybody held serve until 6-6. Both teams had chances in the breaker. I made a set saving service return winner at 7-6 and a set winning return and forehand drive at 9-8. I served out the match at 5-4 of the second set. Winners of the National Grass doubles with Charlie Hoeveler in our first tournament together. Remember Charlie was the one who, twenty years ago, was willing to practice with me when I was a virtual unknown. During the post match photos I found out that our opponents have won 48 National doubles titles and that Charlie, by winning today, won a National title for his 15th consecutive year. As for me, it was my 6th. Levels of the game continue to amaze me. Looks like the singles final may be washed out for today and postponed to Sunday. If the courts are not playable for Sunday, we will be moved indoors. So much for the grass if that happens. Double Gold On a slippery grass court this morning I defeated 3rd seed Peter Bronson of Scottsdale, Arizona 75 64 to win the Nationals. My best tennis tournament ever ended with me winning two Championships. I am stunned. Will attempt a final summary journal entry after I come out of the clouds. FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE NATIONALS Winning the singles and doubles championships at one tournament is something that I had never even considered. I continue on this incredible journey often feeling like an observer more than a participant. I watch myself achieving remarkable results while at the same time feeling that I am doing very little to make these results happen. More and more I get a sense that these successes have everything to do with getting out of my own way. As I progress through the different years, seasons, tournaments, matches, sets, games, points and shots I learn more and more how to trust my game and and to let my instinct just play. This tournament was a new level of taking it easy, being relaxed and letting go of the tension of control. I experienced new levels of being unafraid to fail that allowed me to go for shots that, in the past, would have had too much risk. I felt no risk this week. It was a special feeling. I know that I am still visiting this place and that the tennis gods will want me to learn more before I can call this place home. In the finals I never had a doubt. I knew that my game was solid. I knew that I was unworried. I knew that the match was mine to win or lose. I was confident and sure. I was intense and relaxed. The feeling of self satisfaction when completing this run was extraordinary. I can’t wait to play again. Thank