Tennis

Language teaching - Life :) - Tennis

Tanking

May 9, 2016 by 0 Comments

The last few days I’ve had a cold and almost no energy, but I’ve still shown up to work because that sure beats the alternative.

I played tennis on Saturday morning against the guy I narrowly beat in round one of the club champs. This was part of a round robin singles competition that I wish I hadn’t committed myself to. I lost in three sets, 7-5 3-6 6-2. I led 4-2 and 40-15 in the first set but chucked in six double faults (count ’em!) in that god-awful game, quite a feat when you think about it. I still got within two points of what was a dreadful opening set from both of us. We both improved in the second, and when I won that set I expected to carry some momentum into the third, but not a bit of it. I had nothing left in the tank. My opponent sensed this and hit drop shots to good effect as I tried to defend from behind the baseline. He served well in the second and third sets and his win was well deserved. I was glad to get off the court after a match that took 95 minutes, give or take.

Fatigue has been a huge problem for me ever since my flatmate moved in, and I hope I can get an energy boost when he moves out in eleven days (count ’em!). He has been exhausting. He’s not a bad person by any means, but he needs to learn when to leave people alone. My previous flatmate (in 2014) could certainly be a pain in the butt too, but I felt I was helping him get some stability back into his turbulent life and that made me feel good. He’d made some bad decisions and had got involved with the wrong people, but giving people another chance is part of what makes a good human being. I don’t feel anything similar towards my current tenant.

I gave my English lesson tonight. We worked on the forms of the verb to be (I am, he is, etc.) and the contracted forms (I’m, he’s, etc.). I decided to leave it there rather than go on to the negative forms and I’m glad I did. I’d have only confused him. I got him to talk about his new painting job and we made basic sentences about his colleagues: I’m from Myanmar; He’s from New Zealand; They’re from Vietnam. Getting him to pronounce it’s was a battle; I don’t think the ts combination, which is common at the end of English words, exists in his native tongue (and I wouldn’t know where to start with a word like exists). He said he wanted to practise reading so I’ll get him a simple story book for next week’s lesson.

A Tame Impala song came on the radio tonight. I only recently saw the name written down for the first time. A-ha! A non-wild antelope. All this time I thought it was two people’s names, Tame and Parlour. Jack Tame is the US reporter on One News, and there was a footballer by the name of Ray Parlour, so it seemed plausible to me. Tame Impala are similar to MGMT, and I like them just as much. I should probably see them live some time, and make sure I listen to the whole show.

Life :) - Tennis

Let this be over

April 28, 2016 by 0 Comments

My flatmate keeps acting as if he’s here for the long haul, so on Tuesday I asked him about his exit date which he previously said would be late May. He then talked pompously about his connections in Liberia or whatever African country it happens to be, and when I interrupted him to ask how any of that was relevant, he got angry. He did mention a date eventually: 1st June, which is a Wednesday. I don’t believe him. I think he’ll try and stick around for what will be a really long Queen’s Birthday weekend, and beyond. In the meantime, as I remind him of the date, the tension between us will only ramp up.

He’s always there, and I can always feel that he’s there. That’s why I don’t look forward to weekends, even normal-length ones. I prefer being at work where I don’t get hassled as much. The highlights of the week for me have been sitting on a bench at lunchtime, overlooking the sea, while trying to follow baseball on my phone. A year ago I never imagined I’d be doing that. We’ve had beautiful autumn weather all week.

I’m still going to marimba lessons. These are very enjoyable, if not quite as much as fun as during the first term when the resonators were always attached. Last night I found out the name of the seed-filled gourd that is used as an instrument in marimba music. It’s a hosho, which is a Zimbabwean word that sounds Japanese. Until last night I thought our teacher was saying “listen to the whole show” which I took to mean “pay attention to everybody’s parts, not just your own”, but all this time she’s been saying “listen to the hosho“.

They’ve started up a round robin singles competition at the tennis club. On Monday I got thrashed 6-0 6-2 in 45 minutes by probably the best player in the competition. It was just what I expected; I’m a shadow of the player I was six months ago, and he took me apart, accelerating through the ball on both sides and hitting inches from the junction of baseline and sideline with alarming regularity. I also averaged about two double faults per game. OK, the sun didn’t help me at one end, but in October I might have served two double faults in an average match. I got on the board early in the second set, much to my relief, but once that set started running away from me I thought, please, just let this be over. That’s just what I’m thinking about my flatting situation.

Language teaching - Life :) - Tennis

Just another year

April 20, 2016 by 0 Comments

Today is my 36th birthday. I brought some cake and biscuits to work, but other than that it’s just another day, although it is a reminder that yet another year has flown by and I need to do something with my life.

Some numbers geekery: 36 is both a square and a triangular number. You can arrange 36 snooker balls in a square with six on each side, or in a triangle (which is more what one does with snooker balls) with eight on each side.

36 square triangular

What’s more, the current year is a triangular number too. If you happen to have 2016 snooker balls lying around, you could arrange them in a nice pretty triangle with 63 balls on each side.triangular-number-2016

I gave my third English lesson on Monday. It went well, far better than last week’s one where I think I overwhelmed and confused my poor student. This time we talked about the world of work and didn’t stray much from that (apart from the bit where he tried to tell me that, unlike in Myanmar, there isn’t much farming in New Zealand). Half-way through the session I thought to myself, this is great. I’m helping someone, he’s appreciative of my help, and we’re both clearly enjoying this.

I made myself the underdog in my first-round singles match in the club champs, but it was a toss-up really. My opponent is undoubtedly more technically proficient than me, but his approach to the game is more casual than mine even if he plays more than I do. I won four games in a row to go 5-2 in front in the first-to-nine match, and felt I might win comfortably, but in the following game I seemed to forget how to serve. Three double faults cost me dear as I was broken in the first of five consecutive deuce games; I lost four of them and we were all square at 6-6 (the game I won was thanks in part to a stone-dead net-cord that left my opponent seething). Six-all became seven-all and it was down to the wire, but I then played my best two games of the match, winning them both to love, for a 9-7 win. I played well to reach the second round but once I got there nothing went right. I was flat-footed, my first-serve percentage was low, my unforced error rate ballooned, I lost control of my forehand, and before long I’d lost the match, 9-1. It wasn’t a match I expected to win, but I didn’t think I’d go down in a heap like that. Oh well. That’s how it goes sometimes, but the reality is that I’m not playing nearly as well, or enjoying the game nearly as much, as at the start of the season.

The doubles, both the men’s and the mixed, went as well or as badly as I thought it might. My most enjoyable match was a men’s match that we lost 9-4. My partner has only been playing tennis for a matter of months and played remarkably well, considering. He has a Filipino partner. His small daughter, Luz, was sitting courtside. He pronounced the name “luzz” to rhyme with “buzz”, and looked at me blankly when I said that it means light in Spanish. I can see that both the “lose” and “loose” pronunciations could be problematic in English, but I still prefer either to “luzz” which doesn’t do justice to such a beautiful name. Talking of parents pronouncing their kids’ names in unusual ways, I recently met a woman who had a two-year-old daughter called Arya. “Everyone keeps saying it wrong. It’s not ‘aria’, it’s ‘aah-ya’, as in ‘aah-ya going to the party?'” Well I’m sorry, if you give your daughter an unusual name that people haven’t seen before, they’re going to say it how they see it, and in this case that’s “aria”. Poor Arya.

Tomorrow I’ll be seeing Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which I’m expecting to be at least ten times better than Batman and bloody Superman.

Life :) - Tennis

Club champs preview

April 15, 2016 by 0 Comments

We’ve got the tennis club champs this weekend. Tomorrow is the singles, and in the first round I’ve been drawn against the gay bloke I endured Batman vs Superman with. We’ve never played each other but he knows my game well. My fairly unorthodox game, combined with being left-handed, gives me an advantage in interclub (against people who don’t know me) that I won’t have tomorrow. I haven’t been hitting the ball well of late, and I’d say I’m the underdog in spite of my run of interclub wins. Last year I made the semi-finals of the singles. In round one my opponent didn’t show up until it was almost too late but made a good go of eating into my huge lead. I got there in the end. My next opponent was seeded third and in a different league to me but in the midst of a very protracted ninth game after I’d clawed his lead back to two, he said he was getting the aura from a migraine and pulled out. In the semis I was outclassed and lost 9-1. The format, just like this year, was the first to nine games, with a best-of-three-set final.

Several of my colleagues had interviews today for the new roles that have been created by the restructure. They were understandably stressed even though they would almost certainly keep their jobs whatever happened. I’m glad I didn’t have to go through that – my care factor would have been through the floor.

Tennis

We did it

March 24, 2016 by 0 Comments

Some good news: our team did win the interclub competition for our grade.

In Wellington they split the season into two competitions – pre-Christmas, where we finished mid-table, and post-Christmas, where we finished first out of seven teams by the slimmest of margins.

We tied on points with the team who beat us in the penultimate round of matches. The first tie-breaker wasn’t head-to-head (which would have been curtains for us, obviously) but overall wins and losses. Our rivals, like us, had five wins and one loss. The next criterion was set differential: we finished on +16 to their +11.

The teams in third and fourth place were nipping at our heels too. There were no stand-out teams, and our winning total of 32 points (out of a possible 48) is probably some kind of historic low. But somebody had to win, and how often in life have I been part of a winning team? Hardly ever. I certainly played my part in the win: all those straight-set singles wins were a big help, and although some of my doubles losses were disappointing, the closeness of those defeats was crucial in eking out overall wins, as well as for our set differential when it came to that.

In a round robin competition like this, how should you separate teams tied on points? In football, should you use goal difference or head-to-head as the first tie-breaker? I’m firmly in the goal difference camp. Why use only one (or two) matches to break the tie when you can use them all (which could be as many as 38 or 46 matches)? Why shouldn’t every goal in every game be worth something? And when three (or more) teams tie, head-to-head can get messy. The same principle applies in a tennis competition. It’s just as well whoever made the rules of Wellington interclub saw things the same way.

Tennis

Interclub tennis – Week 9 (undefeated!)

March 19, 2016 by 0 Comments

Our team went into the last round of matches with a chance of winning the post-Christmas competition. I don’t yet know whether this morning’s performance was good enough – it depends on the outcome of a match between two other contenders for the title.

We played the same team as last week but in a different order. My doubles partner was elevated to number one, so I played in the top doubles match against big servers and big hitters. One of them was a young Serbian who played in a Novak Djokovic shirt. I could tell he’d had many hours of coaching. In the first few games the rallies just went on and on and on… Actually no, it almost entirely rally-free tennis. Remarkably there were no breaks of serve at all in the first set. I don’t ever remember playing such a set before. We missed some break point chances but then had to save three set points at 4-5, love-40 on my serve (I’d won both my previous service games to love). We did save them and got to 6-6 and a tie-break, but that was our undoing; we quickly fell 5-0 behind before losing it 7-3. After that “macho” service-break-free first set, there were six breaks in the second which we lost 6-3 after having a point for a 4-1 lead. I had a bad time at the net in the second set, even by my standards. That was disappointing, even if we got closer than I expected we would given out opponents’ sheer firepower. We somehow avoided sudden death in the first set, despite getting to deuce a few times, but played three decisive points in the second set, winning one of them.

I played my singles in the heat of Wellington’s never-ending summer. My opponent, who turns 62 next week, works as a photographer. I felt confident that my younger legs would see me through in a match I needed to win to give our team a chance of winning the morning’s contest, let alone the competition as a whole. My opponent aced me on the very first point and I had to climb over the fence to retrieve the ball. Apart from that I started comfortably enough, but even though I won the first set 6-1 I’d lost my dominance by the end of it. I dug deep to open up a 3-1, 40-love lead in the second set, but on one of my game points I called a ball in that was out over the baseline according to my team-mate; to be honest I thought it was out too, but I didn’t know it was out. I dropped my serve, and played two absolutely shocking games to go 4-3 behind when I should have just about been off the court. I’d lost all confidence in my shots, everything I tried came back with interest, and worst of all I was stringing double faults together. I needed to win in straight sets for our team to win. It was all unravelling. But my opponent couldn’t quite keep up his level, I regained some consistency, and I won the last three games to give the team the overall win. We won three matches out of six, with every match being decided in two sets, but we won by an eleven-game margin.

And guess what? I finished the season with an unbeaten singles record. Nine wins out of nine, 18 sets out of 18. I didn’t expect that for one minute at the start of the season. I had my hairy moments along the way, not least the match a couple of weeks ago where I faced four set points in the first set, but I did it! My doubles record was nowhere near as good (four losses including the last three matches) but maybe that just shows that I don’t need other people. Flatmates, workmates, team-mates, who needs ’em?!

Tennis

Interclub tennis – Week 8

March 12, 2016 by 0 Comments

I made a bad start to this morning’s interclub. I thought we were playing at Karori, not Kilbirnie. I arrived at Karori in plenty of time, but none of my team-mates turned up. One of the guys we played last week did turn up, however. Damn. I had a look at the drawsheet and had to hightail it to Kilbirnie, which isn’t particularly close to Karori (or Kelburn or Khandallah or any other posh places beginning with K that I might have forgotten about). At the time I thought, this is normal anxiety, normal stress brought about by a normal everyday event. It almost makes a nice change.

I didn’t play well in the doubles, to put it mildly. In the first few games I hardly hit the ball. That might be why we led 4-1. Our opponents had no problems wiping out our lead, and we were fortunate when they caught the tape on the sudden-death point in game nine (the only game of the match to reach sudden death) to put us back in front. We broke in the next game to win the set, despite my general ineptitude. We trailed 5-2 in the second set but pulled it back to 5-5 after my only decent spell of the whole match. The 11th game, however, was on my partner’s serve. Just what am I supposed to do in that game? Intercept at the net, that’s what, but I’m so terrible at that. They broke, and their better player put together an impressive love service game to put away the set. His serving didn’t get any worse in the super tie-break which we found ourselves in yet again; we won the first couple of points but went down 10-5. I was really disappointed with my performance and felt I let my partner down badly.

Singles. What a contrast. I played the weaker of our doubles opponents, the same bloke I played in Week 5 when I fell over and lost four straight games but won easily in the end (the format of the competition makes it possible to face the same player twice in one season). This time, after one or two scratchy games early on, I won 6-1 6-0. He had no real weapons and I was able to stay in the rallies and generally wear him down. He came to the net probably too much and I hit a number of passing winners.

The sun came out just as I was finishing my match, and I was more than happy to hang around for the next two hours while the other matches played out. Overall we lost by four matches to two. It could have been worse if my doubles partner hadn’t won his singles 7-5 in the third set. It could have been a lot better if I’d shown up to the doubles.

Tennis

Interclub tennis – Week 7

March 5, 2016 by 0 Comments

Everything is such a struggle at the moment that I didn’t hold out much hope for today’s outing at the Wellington club, which is one of many clubs in Wellington. Sleep deprivation would surely have an effect on my play. We started with the doubles: we lost the first set 6-4 after gaining an early lead, then won the second 6-3 to set up the dreaded super tie-break. We trailed 8-4 in the ten-pointer but won the next three points, only for their (better) player to send down two fantastic serves, the second of which was rendered almost unreturnable by a gust of wind. It was a dramatic finish to a close match. Before the shoot-out we went to sudden death six times (0 from 3 in the first set, 2 from 3 in the second).

I had a longish break in between matches. I spent some of that in the club rooms which are always fascinating. Photos of winning interclub teams going back more than a century: the hairstyles, the rackets, even the fonts used for the names. Occasionally I’d recognise a famous surname. Sometimes you’d get opening day photos: just look how many people turned out in the thirties or the fifties compared to today.

In the singles I felt really sluggish. From 3-1 up in the first set I lost four straight games amid a barrage of winners from my opponent. I lost 14 consecutive points or something ridiculous. He made his fair share of errors, but he could accelerate through the ball on the forehand, killing off points that I’d had the upper hand in. I saved a set point on my serve to close to 4-5, then faced three more in the next game which was the longest of the match. He double-faulted on one, but I saved the other two with winners including a volley (most unusual for me). Strangely the fact that I’m feeling so much pressure elsewhere in my life might have helped me on those crucial points. When I’m feeling my sanity going down the plughole, who cares if I might lose a set of tennis? Two more breaks of serve took us into the tie-break in which I struck something of a purple patch to take it 7-2. I still wasn’t overly confident because physically I felt shot to pieces, but I got my nose in front and finished strongly in the second set which I won 6-3. Four months ago I might well have won rather more comfortably, but under the circumstances this was a very good win for me. It took 80 minutes or thereabouts. Sheer determination and a stroke of luck got me over the line in the first set; had I lost that set I suspect the match would have run away from me.

This was a direct match-up between the top two teams in the league. We won three matches out of six but claimed the overall win by virtue of winning more sets. Those four set points were pretty important then, not that I cared about that at the time.

Life :) - Tennis

Flat(ulent) mate

February 3, 2016 by 0 Comments

Living with another person again has given a greyish-brown tinge to everything. I’m used to doing whatever I do without being noticed. Now whatever I do is noticed, analysed, scrutinised and critiqued in an accusatory tone, and it wears me out. This is how I live here. I try and be as unobtrusive as I can. If you don’t like how I live, you don’t have to live here. My flatmate is an eminent Wikipedia editor, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. Lack of personal space is also a problem. To partially solve that, I dismantled my slat bed last night and moved it into storage in the basement. Moving the mattress was in no way a one-person job but I had no real choice. I’m now sleeping in the spare bedroom instead, and I’m turning what was my bedroom into a study. Then there’s the farting. So many farts, and they all sound like the noise a squeezable bottle of Wattie’s tomato sauce makes when you accidentally get a bigger dollop than you wanted. I’ve now got enough fascinating fart facts at my fingertips to heavily analyse, scrutinise and critique if I so wish. Of course the biggest problem with any flatmate is me; I like my own company far more than the average person, and I’ve certainly got used to it over the years.

My contract at work was due to finish on 17th October, but that has now been ripped up and my end date is now 7th April. Yes, just two months away. I got called into a meeting about this today. This has all come about because of one new manager who wants to change things just to make his mark, just for something to add to his CV to help him get the next job in a couple of years where he’ll be able to make a 5% bigger mark for 5% more money, and so on. New roles will be created, and I should be able to slot into one of them, so all is by no means lost, but it’s still an unnecessary process that causes unnecessary stress, and not everyone does have a role to slot into. In the meeting I was thinking about that lovely feeling I got when I arrived in Boston the second time. Mmm, Boston. And it’s been almost as hot today as it was on my last day there; another beautiful day in what has been a fantastic summer, but I’ve felt worn out and unable to appreciate it one bit.

I’ve now had three ransom viruses at work. They’re becoming a bit of a joke, as am I. The source of them remains a mystery. Every time I get one my PC has to be rebuilt and my ability to actually do anything is heavily compromised. I’ve got them all on Wednesdays at around noon. There’s a 4% chance you’d get them all on the same weekday so that may or may not be coincidence. Though I wouldn’t admit it to my colleagues, I was a bit disappointed not to get a virus today.

On Friday I’ll attempt to sell the Camry to Turners. I’ll be catching a very early flight to Christchurch the next morning. On Monday I’ll be picking up my parents’ Honda and driving it back here. I’m very much looking forward to the drive and the ferry, which I haven’t been on since 2004.

The Australian Open women’s final was a wonderful match with such an unexpected result, though it was seriously in doubt right until the end. I was so happy for Kerber that she won. It was the best women’s match I’ve seen in quite a while. There were surprises throughout the women’s draw, with Shuai Zhang coming from zero lifetime grand slam wins to make the last eight where she was beaten by Johanna Konta who now plays for Britain. And yes, I had to update that page (there was the very real possibility in the third set that Serena would save a match point and go on to win, and I’d have to update it for a different reason). The men’s tournament was altogether more predictable, and Andy Murray (predictably) lost to other-worldly Djokovic, falling to his seventh defeat in nine grand slam finals. But hang on a sec, nine grand slam finals. That’s quite an achievement in itself.

Tennis

Interclub tennis – Week 6

January 30, 2016 by 0 Comments

I spent easily more time on court today that in any of my pre-Christmas interclub outings. In the first set of the doubles we never got a game in front and at one stage trailed 5-3, but our opponents fell away a bit and we ended up in a tie-break where we took a 6-3 lead. Unexpectedly they then played three very good points, including two on my serve (what could I have done differently?) to make it 6-6, and the final two points ended with me erring into the net. Great. We’ve just blown three set points in a tie-break, and the only way we can win this match now is in a super bloody tie-break. And they’ll be cock-a-hoop (isn’t that a funny expression?). Surprisingly our opponents’ level dropped in the second set and as we took a 5-2 lead my partner gave me one of those annoying fist bumps. I’m guessing a fist bump is supposed to make you play better. Or something. Our lead was soon cut to 5-4, but we brought up three more set points in the following game. They all came and went, including a sudden-death point, and it was 5-5. A major turning point came in the 11th game when we won a high-intensity rally to get to 30-all. This galvanised us, and we won the set 7-5, taking our fifth opportunity of the set and eighth overall. Super bloody tie-break. We lost the first three points but won the remaining ten. It was nice to win but I didn’t feel I was of much help to my partner until that big point towards the end of the second set which got my intensity level up. We played only two sudden-death points – winning one and losing one – but frankly with those tie-breaks the match was sudden-deathy enough that it didn’t need any more.

In the singles I played a bloke in his sixties with a stronger-than-average backhand for this level, making life difficult for me at times. I was comfortable if a little erratic in the first set which I won 6-2 in under 25 minutes, but the second set was over twice as long as the first and a different beast altogether. I got up 3-0 after some long games, and then won a ridiculously long point to reach deuce in the following game. My opponent stood facing the fence for a minute or more, finally saying “that was a real gut-buster”. I felt sorry for the poor bloke. I hardly gave him the next two points but I certainly eased back a bit, something I can’t ever remember doing before and will avoid doing again. He took advantage, winning that game and the next (yet another deuce game). Suddenly I was struggling, especially on my forehand. We reached 4-4. I hit two winners (they’d been in very short supply) early in the ninth game and he missed some would-be winners by small margins to leave me serving for the match. I led 5-4, 40-15: double match point. On the first of these he got lucky with a net-cord; on the second I served a nervy double fault. Bloody hell. Two more long rallies ensued and I got there somehow. I timed the match at 76 minutes but it felt longer. He was a tenacious opponent and after giving him a sniff in that 3-0 game, I never felt in control. It was a good job I’d built up a lead because I sure as hell needed it. Overall the team won by four matches to two.

I fear that both the Australian Open finals will be short, such is the dominance of Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic (and in the case of Serena, presence too). If Serena does somehow get beaten I’ll need to update this page because Angelique Kerber faced a match point as early as the first round.