The more things change…

So all is good in the world right?  The Olympics are here and I’m looking forward to watching whatever my schedule allows.  I can’t remember the last time I was in an Olympic mood.  Perhaps this sense of National pride will carry over to the Presidential election.  I do believe that our economy is transitioning to the new global economy which is bitter medicine for some but I do think we are headed in the right direction.  And, Roger Federer is #1 is the world.  Can I get an “Amen brother”?

I have a few comments to make related to some of my previous posts.  I don’t expect many have ever read all my posts and I’ve proved that most people don’t read emails to the end but I digress.  Strings, Strings and Strings – wow what a difference fresh strings in your tennis racket make.  I’m hitting with Babolat Pro Tour and the extra top spin I’m getting is noticeable.  My friend remarked, “you have more bite on your serve today.”  Sweetest words I’ve heard…

My next topic is Diet tips.  I lost weight and added 10 pounds back.  I’ve had a hard time shaking those 10 pounds.  Bottom line, if you are hard core dieting the only thing that matters is your calorie intake.  If you are consuming 1500 calories or less per day (with at least a small amount of activity) you’ll lose weight.  If you wait until you are really hungry, eat as little as possible and repeat – you will lose weight.  After a few weeks, you stomach shrinks and you are full from much less food.  All the tips really apply when you have this strategy.  Drink a full glass of water before you eat – very filling.  Drink 8 glasses of water per day.  Eat celery and carrots, don’t eat late night, track what you eat and when you are bad, put it on a plate, try not to finish it and when you are done ask yourself if the large amount of calories you just ate were worth it.  I find that getting back to my ideal weight is worth a few months of active dieting and then you can get into a maintenance routine.

Does anyone remember Mr. Microphone?  For some reason I do.  I have mentioned this to several people recently and the looks I get are quizzical or blank.  “Hey good looking, we’ll be back to pick you up in an hour!”  I remember roaring when watching these commercials.  Sheese, remember when we all listened to the radio?

Well, back to tennis.  The Philadelphia district just completed Districts over the past two weekend.  We got a fair amount of rain which meant we had to move many of the teams inside.  All was a fairly non-dramatic as most of the teams that I thought would advance – did.  The most interesting level was certainly 3.5 women.  I’m very familiar with this group as I am the Philadelphia league coordinator for 3.5 women.  It’s the largest segment by far and there are 10 flights of teams.  To advance to districts you have to win your flight.  Some of the flights have as many as 11 teams each so this is no easy task.  You have to win all of your regular season matches or close to it.  This is hard for any team because captains don’t have their best players available every single week.

The winners of the 10 flights advance to districts where they are placed in two groups of five teams and then they play a round robin format.  This means that you have to play 4 matches and win your flight of five teams to advance to the finals against the other flight of five winner for the right to go to Sectionals.

One flight was dominated by Kicking Aces captained by Marci Mitchell.  They were 3-0 entering their 4^th match having lost only 1 court out of 15 in the previous individual matches.  They won their 4^th match 3-2 for a perfect 4-0 record which included losing both singles courts and winning all three doubles courts in their last match.  This means that the Kicking Aces were 12-0 in individual doubles matches as each team match has 3 courts of doubles for each match.

In the other flight, the Lemon Drops captained by Cindee White and 2 Love captained by Beth Varma battled it out with both teams having a 2-1 record after 3 matches.  2 Love won their 4^th match making them 3-1 and the Lemon Drops played last and won their remaining match of the round robin 4-1 which was just enough to advance them to the final courtesy of the ‘sets lost’ tiebreaker.  If any of the 4 individual wins in their last match had gone 3 sets they would not have advanced.

In the 3.5 final on Sunday, the Lemon Drops defaulted 2^nd singles because they were extremely short staffed and had an injury on

Saturday.   1st singles fought hard to get to a 3^rd set tiebreaker but lost the court putting them down 0-2 in the best of 5 team match against a team that had not lost a doubles court all weekend.  Stick a fork in the them right?  Not so fast…  The Lemon Drops swept the Kicking Aces at doubles and advanced to Sectionals in Princeton.  Congratulations and well done ladies, well done.