I’m still trying to get my first win of this year’s USTA League Mixed Doubles season. This report is from an 8.0 team match and, once again, I was teamed up with my Tennis Friend, Liz! Our outfits were not necessarily “matching”, but, the orange and black is definitely coordinated

The team that we played against was tough. The woman is Liz’s partner from her women’s team, and the man is my friend and the captain of a few teams that I have previously been a part of!

Our first set lasted 31 minutes.
Our second set lasted 43 minutes.

In the second set, I lost my serve, after a nearly 9 minute game!

My results for this season, so far, are:

Local District/Area 8.0 Mixed Doubles
0-wins, 3-losses

Local District/Area 7.0 Mixed Doubles
0-wins, 1-loss

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I’ll see you next time, with more tennis, . . . outside the lines!

- Marcus Tennis

                          

It’s USTA League Mixed Doubles season, and this year I am playing on two teams. One team is an 8.0 league team, and the other is a 7.0 league team. Since I am still a 4.0 rated player, I will be playing with a 3.0 partner for the 7.0 league team. On the 8.0 team, I will be playing with either a 4.0, or a 3.5 player.

This particular day, I was scheduled to play on both teams: One in the morning, and one in the afternoon. It was double duty for mixed doubles!

For my first match (8.0 Mixed) of the day:
Our first set lasted 26 minutes.
Our second set lasted 19 minutes.

For my second match (7.0 Mixed) of the day:
Our first set lasted 28 minutes.
Our second set had a rain delay, so accurate timing was unavailable.
Our third set lasted 17 minutes.

My results for this season, so far, are:

Local District/Area 8.0 Mixed Doubles
0-wins, 2-losses

Local District/Area 7.0 Mixed Doubles
0-wins, 1-loss

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- Marcus Tennis

                          

Coming this spring is the 2012 BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California!
The dates are March 5th through the 18th, and the first two days are at the price we love here at GroundsPass.net:
Absolutely FREE!

They just released the first player entry list here:
2012 BNP Paribas Open Player Entry List

Next week I will send out an exclusive insider’s email tip sheet
ONLY to GroundsPass.net subscribers.
To SUBSCRIBE for FREE to GroundsPass.net, be sure to enter your email into the Subscribe Here box on the upper right portion of this page.

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- Marcus Tennis

                          

Welcome to the new year on GroundsPass.net!

It’s USTA League Mixed Doubles season, and this year I will be playing on two teams. One team is an 8.0 league team, and the other is a 7.0 league team. Since I am still a 4.0 rated player, I will be playing with a 3.0 partner for the 7.0 league team. On the 8.0 team, I will be playing with either a 4.0, or a 3.5 player.

My first match of the year is with the 8.0 team, and as a bonus, I got to play with a brand new Tennis Friend . . .

Our first set lasted 29 minutes.
Our second set lasted 36 minutes.

My results for this season, so far, are:

Local District/Area 8.0 Mixed Doubles
0-wins, 1-loss

Local District/Area 7.0 Mixed Doubles
0-wins, 0-losses

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I’ll see you next time, with more tennis, . . . outside the lines!

- Marcus Tennis

                          

The results are in! I had entries from all over the Untied States, but, where were the entries from my Tennis Friends all over the world?

Congratulations to the winners! I had some really great prizes, and each winner gets a different box full of tennis stuff. Each multi-prize box contains (at least) a hat/visor and a can of tennis balls, plus, something from nearly every tournament that I covered last year!

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I’ll see you next time, with more tennis, . . . outside the lines!

- Marcus Tennis

                          

It’s time to start the new year here at GroundsPass.net
with the BIGGEST PRIZE GIVEAWAY EVER!

I have amassed even more bag-loads of tennis souvenirs and memorabilia from my past reports. As in past years, I pick up most of these prizes on the final day of the events, and I am usually on the road soon afterward, logistically it didn’t make sense to hold a contest until I had a lot of stuff to give away.

As I celebrate my fourth year, and begin my fifth year, of hosting GroundsPass.net, I wanted to thank you for subscribing, and give you a chance to reap even more rewards of being a subscriber!

Contest Rules & Regulations:
This contest is only open to GroundsPass.net subscribers.
To SUBSCRIBE for FREE to GroundsPass.net, be sure to enter your email into the “Subscribe Here” box on the upper right portion of this page.

Next Tuesday, January 9th, 2012, after 12PM Pacific Standard Time, I will send out an email with simple instructions on how to enter. This email will only go out to GroundsPass.net subscribers, and the subsequent entries will be checked against the current list of subscribers.
Subscribers will then have two days to respond to the entry email.

The entries will be drawn and announced on next Saturday’s program.

In addition to announcing the winners in the next posted video, winners will be notified via email.
International entries are always welcome!

You email information will not be given out or sold to any other parties.

Happy New Year to all of my Tennis Friends!

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I’ll see you next time, with more tennis, . . . outside the lines!

- Marcus Tennis

                          

During my daily reports from this past Western & Southern Open, I included excerpts from an interview that I had with Serbian doubles superstar Nenad Zimonjic.

In this report, instead of the initial three minutes, I am including the expanded version of that interview. I was surprised that, at the beginning of the interview, he remembered the scores of the previous matches that they played against the current opponents in this clip, Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna. For those who think that tennis is a short term memory game, that is not always the case, especially with Nenad.

Zimonjic and Llodra qualified for the 2011 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, making it Nenad’s sixth appearance at the season finale.
In that London event, the duo went 1-2 in round robin play, failing to qualify for the semifinals, however, they closed their debut season together with a 46-16 match record, and ended up #3 in the 2011 ATP Doubles Team Rankings.

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I’ll see you next time, with more tennis, . . . outside the lines!

- Marcus Tennis

                          

It’s my final match for the USTA Fall League tennis season!
In this report, once again, I got to team up with a brand new Tennis Friend . . .

Our first set lasted 35 minutes.
Our second set lasted 38 minutes.

My final results for this season are:

Local District/Area 4.0 Adult Men Doubles
3 Wins – 2 Losses

Out of nine teams in our local district/area, our team nearly tied for third place (one individual loss separated us from third place, and left us in fourth). It was a pretty good accomplishment, since the top two teams were nearly unstoppable with only one match lost a piece. I had a personal winning record and met a few more Tennis Friends. This is what USTA League tennis is all about!

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I’ll see you next time, with more tennis, . . . outside the lines!

- Marcus Tennis

                          

Last weekend, I was invited to yet another local tennis event that had so much going on, that I couldn’t have possibly included everything that was happening in this video report. This is why I always encourage you to get out to these events, to choose for yourself the matches that you want to watch!

This tournament also featured the National 40 Mixed, Father/Son, and Grandfather/Grandson tournaments.

There was way too much to try to fit into this report. However, I did get to sit courtside, right on the court, on Court 2, and watch a very exciting match featuring Rowe/Rowe versus Ginepri/Ginepri! That’s right, current ATP Tour player Robbie Ginepri entered the tournament with his dad, Robert, and put on an amazing show for the appreciative crowd.

The results for the matches that I featured in the video report are:

WOMEN’S 40 SINGLES CHAMPIONSHIP
Jennifer Dawson d. Dina McBride 3-3, retired

Dina McBride was unseeded, and Jennifer Dawson was the #2 seed.

MEN’S 40 SINGLES SEMIFINAL
Oren Motevassel d. Jeff Greenwald 3-6, 6-3, 6-1

Jeff Greenwald, seeded #3, had reached an ATP Tour career high of 796 in 1990.
Oren Motevassel, seeded #2, had reach an ATP Tour career high of 161 in 1997.

WOMEN’S 40 DOUBLES CHAMPIONSHIP
Alissa Finerman / Erika Smith
d. Gretchen Magers / Ros Nideffer 6-4, 6-3

Here is a press report from the Sunday finals:

In a singles final featuring two former touring professionals, second-seeded Oren Motevassel of Sunnyvale, Calif., defeated defending champion and top-seed Jeff Tarango of Manhattan Beach, Calif., 6-4, 6-3, to win the USTA National 40 Hard Court Championships men’s singles title.

It was a year ago when these same two left-handed players met in the tournament final as Tarango dropped the first set of the 2010 title match before coming back to win the next two sets and capture the championship.

In this year’s final, which was played on Court No. 1, Tarango and Motevassel each fought off break points early in the first set, but with the scored tied at 3-3, Tarango hit two straight double faults to lose serve and give Motevassel a 4-3 lead.

Two games later, Motevassel served for the set and at 40-15 Tarango smacked a crosscourt forehand long to give Motevassel the first set in 59 minutes.

Despite losing his serve to open the second set, Tarango came back to take a 2-1 lead but Motevassel, playing solid, steady tennis from the baseline broke Tarango twice and won four straight games to take a 5-2 lead.

Tarango got one of the breaks back when Motevassel’s crosscourt forehand passing shot landed wide to make the score 5-3. As Tarango served to stay in the match and get back on serve, he fell behind 15-40 and faced two match points.

On the first match point, Tarango approached the net, but Motevassel responded with a near perfect lob which Tarango pushed wide with a high backhand to end the match in one-hour and 45 minutes.

After being awarded a USTA gold ball for winning the national championship, Motevassel spoke about the difference between losing last year’s three-set final and winning the title this year.

“After last year I was kind of upset. I had the match. I was up a set and I was up a break. I just lost a little focus.
I was playing too defensive from the back and allowed him (Tarango) to dictate. I played too tentative last year,” he said.

“I was focused today. I had a good game plan and it worked fine,” Motevassel said. “I took the ball a little earlier. I put him on the defense more. Getting the ball more on the rise helped me a lot today.”

Motevassel plans to return to the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club to defend his title next year. “I plan to come back. I like coming here. It’s a nice place and a good venue. It’s fun to play here,” he said.

Top-seeded Brett and Brian Joelson of Beaverton, Ore., the eight-time defending Father and Son National Hard Court champions saw their eight-year winning streak come to an end as they dropped a thrilling 6-7 (9), 7-6 (5), 7-5 decision in the semifinals to fourth-seeded Peter and Tanner Smith of Los Alamitos, Calif. before a large crowd on Court No. 2.

Peter Smith, the head coach of the University of Southern California men’s tennis team, and his 16-year-old son Tanner, fell in the Father and Son final to third-seeded Travis Rettenmaier of Las Vegas, Nev. and Tom Rettenmaier of Fountain Valley, Calif., 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.

MEN’S SINGLES CHAMPIONSHIP
Oren Motevassel d. Jeffrey Tarango 6-4, 6-3

FATHER/SON DOUBLES CHAMPIONSHIP
Travis Rettenmaier / Tom Rettenmaier
d. Peter Smith / Tanner Smith 6-4, 3-6, 6-4

For more information about the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club, follow this link:
La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club

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I’ll see you next time, with more tennis, . . . outside the lines!

- Marcus Tennis

                          

Last weekend, I was invited to another local tennis venue that had a USTA sanctioned Open, and other NTRP levels, event. Because of a recent rain on the qualifying weekend, prior to the main draw weekend, the schedule was a little compressed, but, that made for a more concentrated tennis day!

CORRECTION:
In the on-screen graphics, I had misspelled Jelena’s last name. The correct spelling is “Durisic”.

The results for the matches that I featured in the video report are:

MEN’S OPEN SINGLES QUARTERFINALS
Dennis Novikov d. Raymond Sarmiento 6-4, 6-4

WOMEN’S OPEN SINGLES CHAMPIONSHIP
Jelena Durasic d. Rio Kitagawa 6-3, 2-6, 6-4

The scores for the Men’s Open Singles Semifinal rounds were:

Dennis Novikov d. Derek A. Siddiqui 6-3, 7-6

Daniel Kosakowski d. Dennis Mkrtchian 3-6, 7-6, 6-3

In the Men’s Open Singles Championship, which was held the next day, on a Monday, the two top seeds, #1-Daniel Kosakowski and #2-Dennis Novikov battled it out with Kosokowski winning the contest: 6-3, 6-2.

For more information about the La Habra Tennis Center, follow this link:
La Habra Tennis Center

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I’ll see you next time, with more tennis, . . . outside the lines!

- Marcus Tennis