The "BOB" tournament

    What a blast this weekend at THE BOB tournament in Traverse City.  The weekend was full of good tennis, with 203 teams entered. This tournament is also a scholarship fundraiser for kids across Northern Michigan, organized by the "Bob Swanson Scholarship Fund".    The organizers did a great job getting the matches on, and off the courts quickly, and making it a really fun event!  The Grand Traverse Resort is really nice, lots of amenities like an outdoor whirlpool (which I used Saturday after match play to soak my sore muscles) despite the cold wind whipping around!).  Great spot for a weekend getaway.  I just wish my family could have joined me for such a nice getaway.

   I played in the 8.5 men's doubles with Bill Brown and the 8.5 mixed doubles with Dree Lo.  I'm lucky to find good partners, and we played some good tennis, going 1 loss/1 win in each division.
 Bill and I lost our first match to the guys who won the TC club tournament, both really good players. We could have probably played better the first set, but held our own the 2nd.  We won our consolation match... which was more mixed up than anything else but we played fairly well, Bill served really well and played good net to carry us in the first set and my serve was really on.

  Dree and I lost to the 4th seeds, in a match I think we should have taken or at least won the 2nd set after being up 5-3.  There were some really good points in that 2nd set, and our opponents were really nice and fun to play with.  Lots of close points at the end, but I'm still not sure how we dropped it.  I know I choked away an important point serving at 5-4 with a double fault totally because of nerves, but I think I got my head under control and served well the rest of the game, it just didn't fall our way.
Tournaments and pressure do funny things to people's heads and game.  I found my self frustrated quickly, and I played really streaky... playing one point well then just missing easy shots. My serve was about the only consistent part of my game.  The teams I watched that did well in the tournament hit some nice shots, but simply didn't miss as much and played more points the same whereas my game was hit or miss.
    I could return lots of difficult serves with pace and spin, but had trouble with the returning the "easy" ones. Too many ended up in the net or long.  I'm not sure what to do about my lack of consistency, maybe I need to start just 'hitting' more instead of match play all the time.  I hope to use our club singles league to practice as well, and I need to figure out way to not get so frustrated, and let things go, not beat myself up, when I miss a shot.