Lucky Dog Speaks

Welcome to the first Lucky Dog Tennis Podcast:

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The PTR Symposium is fast approaching with plenty of Cardio Tennis activities!

Cardio Tennis Morning Workouts will be held on:

• Sunday February 14th, 7:15am – 8:30am
• Monday February 15th, 7:45am – 9:00am
• Wednesday February 17th, 7:45am – 9:00am
• Thursday February 18th, 7:45am – 9:00am

The Cardio Tennis Feeding Shootout will be held Tuesday February 16th at10:00am.

The debut of the the Cardio Tennis Kids Workshop will be on Thursday February 18th, 9am – 12pm. If you are not planning on attending the PTR Symposium, but would still like to attend the Cardio Tennis Kids Workshop, you can do so for $35. This will also allow you to attend Thursday’s Cardio Tennis morning workout and participate in the Beach Tennis event from 1pm – 3pm. For more information or to register, please contact the PTR at 843 785-7244.

It is still not too late to attend the PTR Symposium so please contact the PTR to register!

As the year starts to wind down, it is time to start thinking about finalizing my travel plans to the PTR International Tennis Symposium, which runs February 13-18 2010.

If you have never been to the Symposium, plan to make this the year for your first appearance. The event is held on Hilton Head Island at the beautiful Shipyard Plantation Tennis Center, the home of the PTR. There will be tennis pros, directors from more than 50 countries in attendance. In addition to the conference there are always a great list of Professional Development Courses that you can take advantage of. This year I will be attending the Etcheberry Strength and Conditioning Certification for Tennis.

Emma Nelson, Hans Romer and I will be giving a presentation called Embracing Technology for Tennis Players. This will be a great opportunity to learn creative ways to use social networking to help build your personal brand as a tennis professional and to generate more visibility for your club’s programs.

I will provided more updates as the date gets closer and I will be blogging daily from the conference.

Kim Clijsters deserves huge kudos for her amazing run all the way to becoming the 2009 US Open Women’s Champion. It could not have happened to a nicer person or role model for the sport that we all love. The last time a mother won a major was Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1980.

While Serena is a fantastic player and has been a great champion, her actions in the semi-final were inexcusable and should not be tolerated. Yes it is unfortunate that the timing of the foot-fault call was less than ideal. However, threatening a linesman the way she did and approaching her not once but twice should not be tolerated. In any other sport, she would have been suspended, almost immediately. The $10,000 fine while it may be the maximum allowed to be given, by the US Open, is not sufficient. You would not see other greats such as Sampras, Laver, Evert, Federer, Seles or Agassi, behaving that way.

It is unfortunate that we are talking about Serena’s behavior more than how well Kim played then entire two weeks of the championship.

Hopefully this will be a learning opportunity for Serena as she is seen as a role model to many young players.

The USPTA New England section held their annual Spring conference May 16-18 at Stratton Mountain Vermont. There were two sessions featuring Cardio Tennis.

Friday the Cardio Tennis Feeding Shootout competition was held. We had 16 participants. Congratulations go out to Brian Morissette who won with a score of 32 and runner-up Spritely Roche with a score of 28.

Saturday featured a Cardio Tennis for Kids session which was presented by Ken Dehart. Ken is a Master PTR and USPTA tennis professional and is also a member of the National Cardio Tennis Speaker team. The session was attended by about 20 people and was well received. Special thanks goes out to the kids who participated with us in the presentation.

For more information the on 2008 USPTA Cardio Tennis Feeding shootout, please download the 2008 rules and court configuration from here on partners.cardiotennis.com.

Technorati Tags: Cardio Tennis, USPTA, tennis

Have you ever played a USTA tournament or have thought about playing but just never got around to it?

I am reaching out to see if you have any input on what would be required to get more of you to participate regularly in USTA adult tournaments. As you may or may not be aware, the draws for many adult tournaments is poor at best. I am part of a USTA New England committee looking at ways we could increase adult participation. Our league participation is very good, but we seem to be seeing a reduction in participants in tournaments.

If you have any specific ideas as to increase (or in some cases start) your participation in USTA tourneys, please let me know. Or if you have had bad experiences which have turned you away from participating, that would be beneficial as well.

Thank you in advance for any input that you have.

Technorati Tags: USTA, tennis

To borrow from the late Vitas Gerulitas, “Listen smart guy, nobody beats Andy Roddick 12 times in a row”.

Andy finally was able to stop his slide against Roger with the 7-6(4), 4-6, 6-3 quarterfinal win on Thursday night at the Sony Ericsson Open. Andy played well and served big when he needed it. This was a huge win for Andy who now plays World No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko for a chance to advance to the finals.

Is Roger starting to look vulnerable or is he still recovering from mononucleosis? I think the jury is still out.

Technorati Tags: tennis

As Tennis teaching professionals, it is extremely important that we are aware of court safety for our clients. This includes making sure loose tennis balls are picked up or moved out of the way for our clients.

Well, note to self, make sure you do the same on your side of the court. On Wednesday evening, I was teaching a private and did not see a ball next to me. As I went to play a shot back to my student, I stepped on the ball with my right foot and ended up doing a 360 in the air. Fortunately for me, i did not incur a serious injury (except for my pride!) and the X-ray was negative. So, lots of ice, advil and my good friend the air-cast will be part of my daily schedule for the next week or so.

Technorati Tags: PTR, tennis

The Longfellow Club in Wayland, MA is looking for a few more women players who have an NTRP 4.5 rating for our USTA team for 2008. If you are interested, please contact me directly.

Technorati Tags: Longfellow, tennis

The Cardio Tennis feeding shootout is off and running again for 2008! The shootout provides a great way for Tennis Professionals to demonstrate their feeding skills and have a chance to win prizes.

The feeding shootout rules are as follows:

• Must be a current member of the PTR or USPTA
• Shoot out competitors have 60 seconds to get has many feeds into the correct target areas
• Each competitor is given 6 practice feeds
• Prior to starting, each competitor must not be holding any balls or have their hands on the ball cart
• Competitors must feed from behind the designated line
• Competitors must go in sequence from right to left trying hit the correct targets
• If a ball hits the target boundries (i.e. target line), it is good
• If a target is missed, you just continuing feeding to the next target
• The winner of the competition is the competitor with the highest total of feeds hitting the correct targets
• In the event of a tie, a playoff will occur

At this year’s 2008 PTR Symposium, we had 24 participants and the winner, Catalin Chira, finished with a score of 47 and was awarded a $400 cash prize. The runner-up was given a 2009 PTR Symposium pass.

The USTPA will be hosting Cardio Tennis Feeding shootout events at their divisional conferences with prizes awarded for first and second place. The winners of each event will be provided an opportunity to compete in the Cardio Tennis Feeding shootout finals at the 2008 USPTA World Conference on Tennis. This event will be held September 15-18 2008, at the La Quinta Resort and Club, in La Quinta California. The winner of the finals will receive $500 and the runner-up will receive $200.

Now is the time to start preparing for the 2008 USPTA Cardio Tennis Feeding shootout by downloading the 2008 court configuration from here on partners.cardiotennis.com.

Here is a picture of National Cardio Tennis Speaker Team member David Robinson standing on a court set up for the 2008 Cardio Tennis feeding shootout:

So get out there and start practicing and perhaps you can become this years USPTA National Cardio Tennis Feeding champion!

Technorati Tags: Cardio Tennis, tennis