After a week of competition, a couple of dark horses appear to be the early frontrunners. They are namely Julian and Cliff.
Julian has beaten Peter , a early league leader 8-4 on wednesday and also surprisingly tamed League Heavyweight Kelvin Yeo 8-2 to strongly stake his claim for RV tennis league title. Cliff has also disposed of another League Heavyweight Robin 8-4 and Kelvin in the earlier rounds.
Peter in the meantime is sitting pretty on top of the league but having played an additional match in hand. His match with Roland, according to Larry was a extremely closed affair with both parties at 6-6, with Peter catching up earlier, before Roland ran out of steam. Apparently Peter is very fit (but I can't really figure it out with his spare tyre sticking out) and was able to retrieve line hugging balls from Roland all the time. He is also shaping up to be a difficult player to beat with his renewed fitness, with only one known apparent weakness : his backhand.
Newcower Henry Chu with his recent STA coaching course attendance has improved tremendously and was able to take Larry, another STA coaching course attendee to a tie break. 3-4 mths ago, it would have been totally unbelieavable as Larry has sound techniques. According to Larry, Henry was able to take most of the balls early and use his opponent's power to his advantage.
My match with John Ho was a ding dong affair with yours truly racing to a early lead at 6-2. I was using the slicing strategy fairly effectively with John's full western returns hitting the net or blowing the returns frequently. Somehow John managed to recover and counter my strategy later. I had real problems with his powerful full western forehand that hand balls bouncing over my head frequently. The match subsequently handed up 8-8 with John finishing the tie break off at 7-5. A real close affair not helped by the extremely hot weather.
Cliff's match with Robin was a close affair with frequent rallies. But Robin's fitness was a real achilles heel and he finally defaulted the match at 4-7.
In between matches we were all dissecting each other weaknesses.... and each of us has lined up strategies to tackle our next opponent's weakness.
Match updates
| Saturday, August 25, 2007 |
 |
 | John Ho | 9 | 0 | 0 |
 | Albert Teo | 8 | 0 | 0 |
|
| Cliff Lee | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| robin ho | 4 | 0 | 0 |
|
| Julian Lee | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| Kelvin Yeo | 2 | 0 | 0 |
|
| Friday, August 24, 2007 |
|
| larry chew | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| Henry Chu | 8 | 0 | 0 |
|
| Peter Crazee | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| Roland Heng | 7 | 0 | 0 |
|
| Wednesday, August 22, 2007 |
|
| Julian Lee | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| Peter Crazee | 4 | 0 | 0 |
full scores at
http://www.tennisengine.com/league/index.asp?LgID=3613
