McMorrow's Serve

Short clip of Kyle's flat first serve. All the kids are ramping up for the national open, Denis Lin, Frank Carleton and JT Sundling are in Mexico playing an ITF tournament and then Kyle will join the boys for Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl in Florida later this month. Training for me has slowed to a crawl, only ten more days until wrist surgery #2 and then I should be able to get back to doing some balanced training. Right now my back is botched from not doing enough on my left side, very frustrating.

Wednesday Fitness

Just wanted to post a short video of some of the things we do at our wednesday at 4 o'clock footwork and conditioning class. Thank you to all the guys and girls who show up week after week, rain or shine, hot or cold, you all make it fun!

Good week of Practice

We had a really good weeks worth of work with the boys this week. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we had Kyle Mcmorrow (U of Washington) Jt Sundling (USC) Dennis Lin (Stanford) and Frank Carlton (unsigned) out doing some great drilling. They were able to push each other to practice at a pretty high level of intensity, which for my money is where it is all at, the higher the intensity the better. It is really interesting to see how each of the players have differing game styles and strengths Kyle's got a big forehand, Dennis' backhand is just awesome, Jt's all around game and lefty serve really cause some problems and Frank's consistency and work ethic are great. It is also interesting to see how much better they all could be with some work on their weakness'. Kyle's backhand is much improved but he could be a much stronger volleyer, Dennis could also use a lot of work at the net along with some better footwork on his forehand, Jt has great talent but could use some discipline and concentration work and Frank needs to ramp it up quite a bit on the serve. All in all not bad for four guys all in the top 10 in the US. I think college ball will really help make these guys into some really, really good players. As for my training, took last week off after the little back problem which proved to be a very tight piraformis, from getting to one sided on the one arm swings. Need to probably go lighter until the left arm is able to do some work as not to unbalance my body so much.

Ouch bad back

Well after finally making some progress with pistols and one arm push ups, my back finally didn't like all the right sided workouts and the imbalance popped up in my back. So I've been on the dl for the week no workouts now with either side. My frustration with my wrist and now back has not made my diet any good which is a bad combo for body comp, but I guess I will look toward the long term and start over again with the etk rop when I all healed up.

My Friend

About seven years ago I hired a guy for the Head Tennis Pro position at the club where I am the tennis director. I didn't know it then but this guy would have a tremendous effect on my life. Over the course of time we became great friends and peers in the tennis world, learning much from each other about life and other pursuits. I saw him get married, buy a home and thought we would end up doing something in tennis or business together. Seven months ago we had a talk in the office and Jay told me of his plans to try his hand at the Ventura County Sheriffs Academy. I was shocked that he was going down that career path with all his other talents I didn't see this one coming. He got through the academy, which was one of the toughest things he has ever done, and yesterday on Halloween , his favorite day, he graduated! It was a little bittersweet knowing our paths may not cross much any more, and that I will miss my friend, but I am so proud to see what he has become and wish him all the good fortune in the world. Godspeed to you Jay Havelka.