Sunday, September 26, 2004

Tennis Away Yesterday in Bitburg, the Baumholder tennis team kicked off its season.  For many of the players, it was their first meet.  For the coach, it was, too. The meet wasn't just against the heavily favored Bitburg team.  Brussels was also in attendance, and were our first opponents after they'd been overwhelmed by the home team in the first match-up of the day.  The Brussels coach had admitted that his team was inexperienced, and the Bitburg team showed that they knew their way around a tennis court.  I'm not sure if Brussels got a win against the Barons. Things immediately looked up for Brussels in the second round against Baumholder.  Our side is probably even less experienced than they are, and we soon lost all of our matches but one.  Our top guy, Zain, managed to take down the Brussels number one. And yes, we are very inexperienced.  I could only manage to take eight players yesterday, and of those eight, only three had been on last year's team.  The other five had only been playing tennis a couple of weeks.  Brussels had sixteen players.  Bitburg could call upon twenty-four. There wasn't much time to regroup, because as soon as Brussels were done with us, we had to face the mighty Bitburg team.  How mighty are they?  Their coach decided to go easy on us by not playing his top two boys and top two girls.  Didn't use his top doubles teams, either.  Didn't matter.  They quickly made short work of our team, with some of the matches ending a completely lopsided 8-0. Zain came through for us again, though.  He accepted the challenge and beat Bitburg's number three player in a tightly contested match.  Overall, I'm glad my team came away with some limited success.  I think most of them see where it is that they need improvement.  There were a few matches where I feel we could have beaten the opposition if my players just had a a couple more shots in their arsenal.  We'll be working hard this week to get those shots down. That and my players just need more time on a court.  The huge disadvantage we have versus teams like Bitburg and Brussels is they have proper facilities and we don't.  For half my team, this was the first time they'd ever been on a real tennis court.  In Baumholder, our best court is asphalt with deep cracks and weeds sprouting up.  We have only one other useable court and its net is held up by a board in the middle.  It also has a healthy supply of cracks and weeds.  So yes, with only two courts to play on, it's tough getting a team ready to face an opponent like Bitburg that has seven nice courts to work with. But we'll battle on.  With Zain setting the example, I'm hoping the rest of the team will realize that these other schools can be beaten.  It just takes practice and enough time to get our game ready. Next weekend we have our only home meet.  Can't wait to see how that turns out. Pics: Michael hits one back against a guy from Brussels Isabelle tries her best against a girl from Brussels John goes with a two-handed backhand against Brussels as Zain looks on Zain receives serve from the hard-hitter from Bitburg 12:52:49 PM     |

© Copyright 2005 Alex L. Mauldin.