As those of you who have read Tennis thing know, I owe my tennis to my brother, MIB. He was the one who told me, before even meeting me in person, “Paulie, you would love tennis.” MIB was right, as he so often is. What I doubt, though, was that MIB would have expected how long I would take my twice-a-week lessons with my coach, Caesar Schwarz. It’s been a bit over two years since I started studying tennis with Caesar. I didn’t start out studying the game, I think it became a study gradually, but it is what tennis remains for me.
What’s the diff, you might be asking? Think back to playing dodge ball when you were a kid. How long was it between your first hearing of the word dodge and the moment when someone was chucking a ball at your head? Most games are learned as they are played. Many people, most people, likely, learn terms by playing it.
But, I have not. I have learned to play tennis while studying it. I like to watch tennis played whether I am watching a WTA or ATP pro or a little kid with marvelous footwork.
And, I love to hit the ball.
What I have not focused on is competition. This is true partly because at my age I am not especially competitive. I’m not even in a competition with myself, to be honest. I want to play tennis correctly out of a motivation to master something at once new and satisfying. That’s an intoxicating combination. But, the question is does the person on the other side of the net count and is anyone keeping score? When Caesar is the guy, he matters. It’s the precision and intentionality of his play that allows me the physical and mental opportunity to learn. He has raised me since I was a 60+ year old tennis newborn and has been instrumental to everything I’ve learned. If any elements of my game are AOK, it’s because of my coach.
But, and this is something I mused about in Tennis thing, does one need to play tennis, keep score, enter tournaments, seek the humiliation of their opponents to really play tennis?
There’s this old broad at Calabasas who seems only to hit with whichever pro is available. I have never seen her playing with anyone other than a coach. There’s no serving and each coach tends to hit the ball directly toward the old broad. But, the old broad bashes the ball back with fierce effort and likes to collect winners. And, this brings me to this quote:
“Some people, they keep on working with a coach, but the coach is just teeing the ball up for them. That’s no way to learn tennis. This is how you learn the game, right here.”
The previous quote is from Brisbane Stew. He’s a Qantas pilot I met at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl tennis courts. Unlike me, he has scads of tennis experience and is quite fit for 60. Unfortunately, he just told me the Qantas Brizzy to Los Angeles route is now flown using the Boeing 787. Unless Stew changes aircrafts I won’t be seeing him soon. Bummer. Playing with him was always amusing and educational. Back to his quote. He’s not wrong. Playing with him or MIB is not as easy as playing with Caesar but there’s more to it than that.
I have mentioned before that an example of Caesar‘s particular genius is the ability to hit shots that are consistently challenging for me, but only rarely beyond my capabilities. The other day, I was watching as he served to an elderly, but very fit student. Caesar had to abbreviate no fewer than three elements of his motion, that I could see, in order to hit a serve that was challenging to his student but not overwhelming. Now, can I imagine that I could get better faster if I consistently played with someone like Stew or MIB? I think the answer is undoubtedly, yes, especially if better is defined by advanced competitive ability. However, there’s a significant caveat. And that caveat involves the questions of form and balance. When the ball is coming too fast or bouncing too high or has been hit too wide or too shallow or too deep the kinds of corrections a beginning player like I have to make must ofetn be done in great haste. Not surprisingly, great haste, seldom results in a shot struck with good form or balance. And, there’s the rub, at least for me.
It’s a great understatement to say that I’ve enjoyed the meditative aspects of tennis. You see, I am on the eve of cutting back on my lessons with Caesar. This change is driven solely by economics. If a small shitpile of cash were to drop onto my head, I would gladly spend it on more frequent and longer lessons with Caesar, but this does not seem likely.
Early on, I remember Caesar saying that when he and his younger brother, Darius, were taking tennis lessons as kids their family could only afford one lesson each month. Caesar’s dad was a smart guy because he made sure that his sons actually practiced what they were taught during their lessons. That’s my plan and I will be similarly dedicated even though I will still be having four lessons a month. Still, I’m not going to be happy about it.
When I go to sleep at night I am thinking about my footwork as I move toward a deep, high-bouncing back hand. I’m not thinking about how I can beat someone or keep them from beating me. It will be interesting to see how things differ and stay the same in 2026. Tt
Shortly after I started playing tennis, back in the late summer of 2024, I began to sift through the internet looking for information on players, coaches and the game itself. I wasn’t usually looking for something or someone specific, but I always have a special interest in coaches and the techniques they use to teach. Tennis, it turns out, is not much different from golf. There are a lot of gurus, a lot of experts standing around, ready to tell players how the best players in the world do what they do. After playing for a while, taking lessons twice a week, I began to apply a lot of what I know about golf teachers to what I was learning about tennis coaches. As a group, tennis coaches are far better at what they do than golf teachers. I describe the differences in Tennis thing so give it a read to learn more.
Walter Redondo
One of the more interesting coaches I stumbled upon was Robert Lansdorp. He came, seemingly, from nowhere but was an influential coach to Pete Sampras, Lindsay Davenport, Tracy Austin and Maria Sharapova and many others. Lansdorp, born in the Dutch East Indies, came to California in the early 1960s. Little is known about what he did during that first decade but sometime in the 1970s he was introduced to San Diego’s Walter Redondo.
In an interview given toward the end of his life in 2024, Lansdorp said the most talented player he ever worked with was Walter Redondo. Thinking for moment about the list of other players who Lansdorp coached, they of the 25 grand slam victories, made me want to learn more about Walter Redondo. It turns out Walter Redondo was easy to find at his San Diego art gallery.
Tennis thing: Walter, I’ve been trying to decide whether we should talk about art first or tennis and I’ve settled on art. What got you interested in art and how old were you?
Walter Redondo: Art really became interesting for me around the age of six. Before that, I hadn’t paid too much attention to it. One day, I was walking down the hallway of the house we lived at the time and my older brother was in his room and as I was passing by I saw he was doing a drawing so I walked in and looked at what he was doing and got a piece of paper. And, basically, I drew what he drew with the materials he had around him, and as I looked at my drawing, I recognized that mine was very close to what he was doing. I thought to myself, well, if I can do what my older brother does it must mean I can make art.
Somehow it just registered for me that, OK, I enjoy art! From that point art just started to take shape in everything I was doing. From the time I started first grade my teachers recognized I could draw and I was creative. My teachers and school nurtured my art by having me create their classroom display boards and eventually others at my school started and realizing what I could do. Before I knew it, I was designing and creating works for the stage for performers at my school. So, really, my school nurtured my art early on.
Tennis thing: Ok, same question about tennis. Who got you into the game and how old were you?
Walter Redondo: Oh again, I was around probably the same age, about six or seven. My grandmother was the one that actually got us involved in tennis. Because there were so many of us in the family, there were nine of us, and my father being in the Navy and was away a lot, and my grandmother needed to work and so on, but she had found a sport that she loved. She would watch films of Helen Wills Moody and the other great players and figured out what she could do to get us involved in the sport. Because she truly loved tennis, she would bring us to the tennis courts and so it was my grandmother who introduced tennis to us and from that point it just kinda took off.
Tennis thing: You know Walter, what put you into my mind was an rather offhanded comment by Robert Lansdorp in an interview he gave some years ago. In it, he said you were the most talented player he ever worked with. And I thought to myself, Lansdorp worked with Sampras, Sharapova and Davenport. How many slams among that trio? 25? But, he mentions you, Walter Redondo. But right now I really want to know more about your art and especially your gallery.
Walter Redondo: You know my art is constantly evolving. Obviously, as we move, just as a tennis player does, we’re trying to sharpen skills and trying to evolve into a stronger voice. When I think about art and tennis there’s such a similarity, but when I think about, you know where I am in my life as as as an artist, and where I’m in my career, figure what was important to me as I had a little bit more control over my art career.
Part of that was being able to show and grow because often times when you get involved with the gallery, you develop a clientele that you actually start to paint for, to some degree. And so you kind of move in that way, which is a great thing also because it’s developing me as an artist and as a painter. So, I thought to myself, as I’m sitting in my home, that all this art is on the walls, and I think, as I was evolving I started recognizing, as well as the gallery owners were starting to recognize, that I was selling a lot of my work.
And often times some owners would say that my work kept their gallery open in a given month. Abd, I was so gratified to hear that. It was confirmation that I needed to give my own gallery a shot. I’ve always dreamt of owning my own gallery. That also says a lot about where I am spiritually. I love believing. I love faith. I love entering into something with the understanding that, you know, the work ethic, the whole thing of being able to believe in something that hasn’t yet transpired but will by believing in faith and hard work.
I like the whole inner person of my being to grow. And I think as a tennis player, or you as a writer, we want to evolve and grow as a person because it’s the person that we basically play with and so our person becomes stronger and more confident in the things we believe. There’s a difference from what I choose to believe and that for me is where I’m with my art. You know understanding that what I’m painting, what I’m receiving from the outside, whether it be someone’s giving me something they look for as far as a commission or whether it be that, you know, I’m picking up things around me in my environment that hopefully will make a difference or change for someone’s perspective our outlook on the way to see life.
Tennis thing: I’m right with you on all of that and I think whenever you create anything, particularly in visual arts but also perhaps in writing, when you start you often don’t know when you’re gonna finish and sometimes you don’t know if you’re going to finish. For me anyway, as a writer in creative and in business writing, you always finish because it’s the job you have to do, but in creative writing you only finish if you want to and if you need to. You have to have faith.
Walter Redondo: Personally I think it’s a such a privilege to be able to move in this way. I think this is for everybody really, you know I was literally thinking and taking notes for myself in regards to my approach to art. And, people will ask me how do you start? And, you know, we basically start with nothing but once we start that first stroke or that first line you’re developing, but then there’s kind of a mess. You know as I’m moving along and I’m just scattering paint. I’m moving paint. I really don’t have anything in mind but I’m doing this with a lot of energy. But, what’s beautiful about it is the discovery that while I’m doing this I’m taking notes of little details here and there so that I can resolve all these mistakes, or what one could think are mistakes, but actually be able to use them. I think that’s the beauty of being able to be creative is understanding how a problem gets solved just like we do on the tennis court. I like that the gathering of thoughts in the energies and even the discipline to focus as long as it takes us to get to a certain place, I think that’s a real privilege for all of us, whether it be in business or being creative with art or playing tennis.
Tennis thing: When you speak about resolving mistakes it reminds me of something one of the tennis coaches where I play said. One day when I was sitting by the courts getting ready to play and he walks by and says, “I’ve just discovered the secret to tennis and I’m gonna share it with you.” I said, “OK, Austin, what’s the secret?” He says, “Adjust. Then, when you’re done adjusting adjust again and just keep on adjusting.”
Walter Redondo: Isn’t that so true? And another thing I’ve discovered, you know, as I have thought about this and spoken with a number of the students I’ve worked with when we watch the top players: They have come into such a confidence with their own game style we would think that they are not making adjustments to their opponents, but their opponents are making adjustments because of them. And here I’m thinking getting to the point where you are just playing your game and you stick to it, everyone has to adjust to and accommodate what you’re doing. That’s a great place!
Tennis thing: Now let me take you back to Robert Lansdorp, so we know he was impressed with you as a player but how did you come to work with with him and what was the experience like for you?
Walter Redondo: I think I was the first player he worked with who became recognized. While we were over at Morley Field Robert had just started teaching and he recognized that our family was not well-to-do so my grandmother who is the one that got me started. We would go around and pick up aluminum cans out of the trash cans. But, it was really out of the kindness of his heart that Robert started working with me. It was really out of God’s grace to have a gentleman of Robert’s ability become part of the process of my life. He taught about discipline and a work ethic. Robert worked me hard but at the same time he recognized how much I loved tennis. In later years, Robert would come down San Diego and I remember him saying, “You know Walter, as a coach you see a lot of players who come to you, but there will only be a very few who have something that’s truly special. It’s not necessarily how they hit the ball but there’s something that’s a little bit different. It could be a work ethic. It could be a longer focus or it could be a kind of hunger. You’re going see a lot of players, but they may not have the substance that it takes to be a great player.”
Tennis thing: I think tennis more than any other game I can think of brings element of artistic expression and here. I’m thinking about the court as a canvas, the arc of the ball the angles, all those angles! As one who has been a high-level player and a professional artist can you say something about how art relates to tennis and tennis relates to art for you?
Walter Redondo: Oh yeah, so the beautiful thing about this whole thing is that in tennis and art we strike with we make one quick strike at the very beginning, right? We hit a ball. I put a mark on the canvas same thing at the very end. So, regardless of what happens we’re ending with two strokes in both tennis and art you know? The similarity of the intuitiveness, the whole play on how the focus and the way I may use space on the canvas to lead, or mark, or line to lead the eye because all I’m trying to do is lead the eye to a certain place on the canvas in the same way I would with, maybe, locating a ball in the corner of the court to open the space on the court. So, all I’m doing is taking what I’m doing on the tennis court and applying it to a canvas. So, whether it would be a color that’s a little bit more yellow, just for example, yellow being a very happy color. Orange being very energetic, red passionate, so I’m combining all these colors with lines and space. The beauty of this, I think what I love about is, and being involved with the process I’m sure you totally understand. Often times I’ve shared with individuals that in tennis when I go to sit down between sets, I’m just not drinking water. It’s like me stepping away from the canvas. What I’m doing as I’m looking at the canvas and I’m organizing my mind how I’m gonna resolve this painting, the same way I would in regards to OK this is what’s happening in the last few games. I’ve got my notes now. I’ve got to try to resolve this match and how I approach it is really going to be Important. So, that’s kind of really my whole take; being confident with my strikes on the canvas, letting go and surrendering to the process and believing in the outcome.
Tennis thing: Walter, I want to thank you for spending this time with me and having this chat about art and the game we love.
Walter Redondo: I’m honored, Paul. It’s been a lot of fun!
It took a while before I decided I wanted to wear sunglasses when I played tennis. On one hand it’s not like i”m out there forever but my eyes aren’t getting any younger either. Light weight is good, as is visual coverage. I was interested in getting a bit more contrast while still maintaining decently accurate rendering of color.
Nike Trainer: Let down by odd fit and flimsy build.
These has the blue reflective lenses and were fine optically. But, the Nike’s were let down by their exceptionally flimsy construction and the fact that they rode so high on my nose they created a coverage problem under the lenses. In decades of sunglass use I have never had that issue before.
Well done for a little cash. Good work, Tifosi!
I’ve had pretty good luck with Tifosi. They make a lot of different sunglasses at significantly different price points. The Tifosi Optics Centus are one of their less expensive designs but have been impressive to me so far. The Centus are actually a gram lighter than the Nikes but somehow feel sigificantly more durable than the swoosh shades. I’ve never had a pair of sunglasses with brown lenses unless you count the brown-lensed Vuarnet’s I borrowed from my roommate at UCLA from time to time. The Centus’ brown worked great with the yellow of the ball and the blue of the court to keep everything as visible as possible. They fit much better than the Nikes and left no odd coverage gap in any direction. The only commnt on fit I’d like to make is that the centus could be better suited to medium to wide faces rather than narrow to medium. With their design and light weight they have no tendency to shift or slide around during play. Well done for a little cash. Good work, Tifosi! Tt
Yesterday, over a nice, crisp wheat ale (Rasenmäher-Bier [lawnmower beer]) at Enegren, I was waxing lyrical about how much my tennis game would improve if I was able to play with the MIB just once a week.
My ale-sipping companion wondered if my coach, Caesar, wasn’t able to fill that roll. His question revealed the difference between playing for the sheer joy of trying to hang in there, rather like riding a bucking bronco, as opposed to the steady, incremental block-on -block approach of a tennis coach intending to help a player build a complete game.
Outwardly, the best evidence of the kind of play that characterizes a lesson is preparation (anticipating and flowing toward the incoming ball) and executing the proper kind of stroke. It is simple, but simple is often not easy especially in tennis.
Playing with MIB stresses my game to its limits and beyond, but is also just plain fun. A great deal can be learned just by watching him move around the court anticipating and revealing entertaining angles to create.
Caesar would approve of the exercise but I think he’d want to both debrief and decontaminate afterward. I think I will always have the tendency to overhit in tennis, something I never did playing baseball and rarely did on the golf course. I can hear Caesar now, telling me to do all of the same things he has for the last two years. I will sometimes stop just to say that I hear him and that I appreciate what he’s saying and that I am trying my best to put his advice into effective action.
But, the tennis racket and tennis ball contact is simply too enjoyable not to occasionally crank up to 11. Catch that ball in the middle of the racket especially when accompanied by some well-timed movement into the shot and you have an experience that’s hard for me to resist, though I usually do.
Reading Anthony Verghese TheTennis Partner will always stand as a reminder of how rare the best tennis partners will always be. Enjoy it when you find yours.
I’ve only been playing tennis since late July 2023. But, since then I’ve owned a good number of rackets. Two of them came from the MIB (the 2013 Head Prestige Pro and more recently a Wilson Shift 99). The others I bought used, some on Ebay and a few on Craigslist.
The first variable to be considered was grip size. My first racket was codenamed Battle Axe. It was a Wilson Six One 100 and I really liked it but its grip was 4 1/2 and everyone thought it was just too big. It was, but I enjoyed playing with that racket anyway. I still miss it.
I made the move first to 4 1/4 and later to 4 1/8 to make it easier to use overgrips. Later I drifted back to 4 1/4 by way of a couple Tecnifibres (a TFight 300 and a 305). Overall, the racket that worked best and felt best was my 2018 Head Graphene Touch Prestige Tour. That’s the worst racket name I’ve come across but, all things considered, it’s the racket that has best fit my game and aesthetic.
Then I tried MIB’s Wilson Shift 99 and I was surprised at how easy it was to swing while still feeling solid on impact. At first, I was under the mistaken idea it was a Wilson Shift 99L which weighs 10.1 ounces (286.3G) but once I got it home I realized that when MIB identified it as the lighter one, he meant it was the 10.6 ounce (300.5G) version. Strung, and with my usual Sampras dampener, El Shifto weighs 316G, fully ten grams less than my Head Graphene Touch Prestige Tour. Months earlier, MIB had told me how much difference five grams can matter and here I was finding that eleven grams obviously means even more.
I do enjoy hitting with a heavier racket. It’s not unlike putting with a modern 350G putter as opposed to an 80s Ping putter that typically weighed less that 300G. Mass is your friend when you don’t need much absolute velocity or your don’t need to change directions quickly. I like to think my time playing tennis has made me stronger but I know it hasn’t. When I got started in tennis I was 62 and now I’m 64. I don’t want to deceive myself into thinking I’m defeating the effects of gravity or age.
So, the Wilson Shift has been instructive though I’m not wild about the 16×20 string pattern, plus, its grip is 4 3/8 which is a bit large, even without an overgrip. So, I’ve spent a few days looking for a racket that aligns with the Shift’s basic specs before I found the Head 2022 Instinct MP. It’s very close in terms of weight (the Wilson is a little more head light) and flex though while the Instinct’s head measures 100 sq in as opposed to the Head’s 99 sq in.
Once I get the Instinct, I will have the Head Prestige at 327G and the Head Instinct and the Wilson Shift at right around 315G. I’m pretty sure the 315G rackets will work better for my game. I’m not sure I’ll like them quite as much as the Head Prestige but I still feel a few steps closer to playing with the right racket for me,
The occasion of my family’s 2025 reunion presented an irresistible opportunity. With a little tweaking of flights, rental car and hotel we found ourselves in South Eastern Michigan with the Man in Black himself.
Looking south from the roof top of Plaza La Reina.
The last time the two of us shared a little time we found ourselves on the rooftop of Plaza la Reina in Westwood. The MIB had been generous enough to stay over an extra day so we could play tennis on my birthday. Plus, he got to have breakfast at Henri in Canoga Park, but that is a story for another day.
I think the last time I was in Metro Detroit I was a little kid and my family was on its way to Windsor Ontario and points further east. This time the focus was on MIB’s and his home in Farmington Hills. After we got in town, MIB generously asked if we wanted to go to Ann Arbor.
“Fuck no, brother. This trip is all about spending time with MIB in his native habitat.”
Just when you thought it was safe to step onto a tennis court with a confident stride, you see the MIB looking over the net at you. He’s a great player to warm up with. He likes to start close to the net, refamiliarizing his racket and hands to the variety of shots he likes to play. Then we hit soft volleys back and forth. Then we worked our way back toward the baseline and started to rally. That’s when the MIB Effect starts to take hold. It often seems like his feet don’t interact with the ground with the full force of gravity, he moves with such great ease. His strokes are fine, especially on the angles, but it’s always his footwork that is so fun to watch and listen to. Even the squeek of his Nike Air Zoom Vapor Cage 4 occurs at a higher pitch and amplitude than normal. I especially enjoyed returning serve from MIB (a minor strength of my game). In the end, though, playing with MIB is a reminder of the harsh differential between our games. Still, it was a lot of fun.
I thought about what it was like to play with MIB all the way home to Los Angeles. I knew there was no hope of reducing the differential to zero. Then again, that was never the goal. What I wanted to do was identify as many things as I could to improve in the specific areas that playing with MIB had exposed. So, I did what I always do. I asked my coach, Caesar, he with the unlimited answers to my limitless questions about tennis.
The first thing he said was to focus my attention on the racket of my opponent rather than simply on the ball as it crossed over the net and onto my side of the court. Caesar told me that would help me to identify the kind and the pace of the shot that was likely to be coming my way. That awareness was the first step in preparing for the shot I would need to play very, very soon.
Then he told me of the benefit to moving quickly early and slowing down into the shot. “Bad players are constantly running and stopping. Good players flow to the ball and flow toward their next shot,” he said. Of course, my coach had told me this many times before. But this time it was more urgency and relevant since I’d recently learned I was working too hard creating too little effective movement.
It came as no surprise that three days hanging with the MIB was just not enough. No sooner than we touched down at DTW it felt like we were on our way home. Though time was far too short, I’m glad we made the trip and look forward to sharing a tennis court with MIB again. I will be a little better prepared when that day comes.
A couple weeks back I was lucky enough to catch a couple lessons with Laura Sax at Del Norte in Sacramento. Laura is a super tennis coach. I always try to show up with a specific issue so my lessons with her can exist in kind a parallel universe to what Caesar and I continue to work on.
As we drove from Los Angeles I tried to come up with something. What I finally came up with was my need for more consistency when I’m serving. So, Laura asked to see me hit a few serves.
She said, “Those are kinda Ok. Lotsa pace. Now, show me your second serve.”
I looked down at the court and sighed, “I don’t have one.”
Laura said, “Well, show me what your second serve would look like if you actually had one.”
I sighed again.
Then, I hit something like a flat serve with the pace turned down. It hit the net with authority. Kind of…
Laura said, “Ok, follow me up to the net.”
Over the next few minutes she had me first hit the ball over the net with the edge of the frame while choking up on the racket. That’s not as easy as it sounds, by the way. Then, Laura had me hti the ball over the net with only a downward snap of the wrist. As with an overhead, this was done without the arm or torso bending forward, or following through. A secondary object of the game was to have the ball hit inside the service box, so a distinctly downward strike was in order.
It was kinda fun. I spent much of the rest of the lesson hitting those spikes from the net and out toward the back of the service box on my side of the net. It wasn’t until Laura had me back up to the baseline that I saw the point of the entire exercise. I was hitting a slice!
Who knew?
As the racket snapped, it also rotated left with the ubiquitous pronation that everyone is so excited about. The force of the strike was a combination of the wrist snap multiplied by the racket’s rotational energy. The result, when the ball was struck as the racket was driving forward but still not completely open (read: flat), was a serve with rotation that curved it left (from me) a right handed player.
I’m not very bright so it was not until that very minute that I understood what the totality of the exercise was about. As I said, Laura is a fantastic coach.
On the long drive home I tried to reimagine the movements and, more importantly, the feelings of my two lessons with Laura. I had a fairly decent grasp of what I was trying to achieve but as with all things tennis the goal was fogged by age and lack of significant athletic ability. Still, when I got home I could still feel it although I was triyng to hit the ball too hard (don’t I always?).
Then I remembered something else Laura said. She said that when serving the wrist should be completely at ease and the racket held with the very lightest of grip.
Now, let me tell you why this made sense:I have always, and I mean always, since the time of my first serve, had a difficult time warming up with my serve. I can throw a baseball softly enough that a newborn could catch it with his offhand (Ok, maybe that’s an exageration) but you get the idea. In contrast, I have a very difficult time warming up to serve. My motion, and the overall pace of my early serves are, far too fast and too hard. Who knows why?
But, when I deliberately keep my arm, wrist and elbow relaxed I can hit early serves at Speed 1 and then Speed 3 and so on. It is almost as if I can coordinate the speed better because I am managing the tension (or lack) in my serve (note that I do not write, hitting) arm. Simple, but remember that simple does not always equal easy. Perhaps it never does.
Then, and I hope this doesn’t appear to suplant Laura’s contribution but I stumbled on this video by Patrick Mouratoglou. The looseness or softness is counterintuitive to someone like me who was born to throw a baseball (5.25 ounces at the end of the fingertips) rather than strike a tennis ball (2 ounces, plus or minus) overhead and with an added 27 inches of the racket.
Yes, it’s still (obviously) a striking motion but a very different one.
So, there I am and happy to be there. I have been playing tennis since September of 2023 and I now have a developing the tiny bud of a second serve. Now that wasn’t so hard, now, was it? Tt
I learned about tennis professional Long Dao while researching an article about the rise and fall of the Pierce College tennis team. I have come to think of community colleges like Pierce as stepping stones for students who lack something they need to go directly to a four-year college or university. Sometimes what’s lacking is financial, other times it’s academic and often it’s a combination of things that bring students to a school like Pierce. As a guy who went from Pierce to UCLA, I’m very grateful the school was there for me in all the ways it was. As I think back on the professors I had both at Pierce and UCLA I am pleased to think that, in many ways, it was the professors at Pierce who had the most consistently positive impact on me.
I didn’t play intercollegiate sports while I was at Pierce but I knew they had a great tennis team. By the way, I went to Pierce in 1980 so we’re talking about a good long while ago. Finding out Pierce no longer had a tennis team was a real shock to me. You see, a couple years back I took up tennis and this has brought me to consider a lot of tennis playing what-ifs, one being a musing about playing tennis for Pierce back in the 80s.
But, let me connect my first thoughts about community colleges generally to intercollegiate sports. It is more than a shame that Pierce College does not have a tennis team. To me, it points to an institutional failing that may be centered at the Los Angeles Community College District or it could be a home-grown failing with the administration of Pierce College in Woodland Hills. No matter. It is a very unfortunate example of Pierce College failing its students.
Even though we’ve just reached the day when colleges are able to directly pay their so-called student athletes it’s important to acknowledge that only the most elite athletes playing for the highest-profile colleges are likely to see much of anything in terms of financial compensation. One can argue this an elevation of student athletes at all schools but I would argue that what it really does is create an even greater separation between elite athletes and the kind of true student-athletes who have always been a part of competitive sports at schools like Pierce, or even Division III athletes. More is the pity.
I am very grateful that Long Dao, the last coach of Pierce College, has been generous enough to be interviewed by Tennis thing.
Thank you, Long!
Coach Long Dao with student athletes at Pierce College, 2019 (Photo by Chris Torres)
Tennis thing: Tell me a little about how you got started in tennis. Who got you into the game and where did you first play?
Long Dao: My first exposure to tennis was around when I was five or six years old when my family (aunts, uncles and cousins) would play and I would tag along. But I never did any serious training until I got to high school. Essentially, I did not start my tennis career until I was 14 years old.
Tennis thing: By the time you became a student at Pierce, had you ever heard of Coach Paul Xanthos?
Long Dao: I had not heard of Coach Xanthos until the first day of fall practice when I joined the team in 2005.
Tennis thing: How long did your own playing career extend? Did you continue to play while you finished your education at UNLV and Long Beach?
Long Dao: Competitive tennis ended for me right around when I transferred to UNLV. I may have played a few tournaments here or there but training and regular tournaments practically ended around then.
Tennis thing: I know you were an assistant at Pierce before taking over the team yourself. What were the most important lessons you learned from Coach Xanthos? Also, what did you have to learn for yourself the hard way, from your own coaching experience?
Long Dao: Simplicity. Coach Xanthos would always try to simplify the game for us as players. That is something to this day I try to do for my students.
As a player, I was always one to drill and drill, be extremely repetitive in training, till I reached my goals, whether it was to perfect a shot or execute patterns. I was relentless in how I went about that. I have come to learn that many students, especially the younger players that I have worked with, learn and process things differently than I do. So being able to change teaching styles to reach and connect with different players was something that I had to learn over time.
Tennis thing: I didn’t know Pierce was forced to abandon their tennis program until earlier this year and I was very disappointed. As I point out in my article, it was hard to believe a school with an enrollment as large as Pierce could not field a team. I know it’s ancient history now but do you think Pierce valued its tennis history enough? Could the school have done more to keep a team under the school’s banner?
Long Dao: Short answer, no. I have some of the fondest memories there as a player and coach. I have had the pleasure of meeting wonderful people there from teammates, players and staff members to fellow colleagues and coaches from Pierce and other schools, many of whom I’m friends with to this day. Some of my favorite coaching memories happened there, taking the team from last in the conference to challenging for the conference team title and winning an individual conference doubles title.
But, it was shortly after that accomplishment I learned tennis at Pierce was, sadly, not valued as much as I had hoped. It simply was another class that was offered and if it does not generate the revenue from enrollment or participation than, like many other classes or offerings at the school, the program will end up getting cut.
Tennis thing: I’m sure it’s very different for you, being a tennis professional, rather than coaching a group of college students. Do you miss coaching a team and can you see yourself coaching at the college level down the road?
Long Dao: There are some aspects of coaching a team that I miss and others I don’t. Will I ever coach another college team? I honestly don’t know.
I just bought a LN GoPro Hero 10. It should be here, well, I’m not sure when. The purchase was somewhere between an impulse buy and a planned purchase.
Let’s Go…Pro!
It’s planned from the standpoint that my only current remaining camera is attached to my aged iPhone 11. My Nikon D300 mini-rig is living out its retirement in Michigan and being gently cared for by the MIB. My loyal, if lake-water-challenged, Panasonic Lumix LX3 is vacationing there, too.
So, I’ve been looking for a no-frills, rugged, very compact go-anywhere camera, preferably with a fixed lens. I just don’t seem to take P&S cameras along enough. They always seem a bit flimsy (motorized lens) while the D300 always seemed overly bulky, because it was.
I’ve also been looking for a way to record the horror show I call my tennis serve. Sure, I could bolt my iPhone to the fence but something about that doesn’t appeal to me. It took a while but the idea that a GoPro could address both issues came all at once. From a still-photo perspective, the ability to extract still images from a video at full resolution seemed like a real plus.
Ok, the BBB (Big Black Bag) is not really called the Big Black Bag. Man, you guys are sticklers. It’s called the Racquet Bag Pro and it’s on sale right now. I was excited to get the BBB, sorry, the Racquet Bag Pro to see how much progress Cancha has made since they made my bag, the now-discontinued Original Racquet Bag.
The BBB and my beloved Original Cancha
But, the problem is I am more of a small-bag kind of guy. Think of me as a tennis bag minimalist. Marie Kondo would approve, I’m sure. The good new is the Man in Black is a big-bag kind of guy, so I’ve seen the new Cancha to him. If I know the MIB, and I do, he’ll put the Racquet Bag Pro through its paces and then some.
My own observations about the Racquet Bag Pro are that is a much-refined bag compared to my Original. Material quality seems of the same quality and maybe even a bit more substantial. Everything seems well considered. Note how the horizontal carrying strap is angled. That makes the bag naturally easier to carry and lift without the bag feeling unwieldy. It’s and smart and logical feature. Now ask yourself why more companies don’t think of making their bags like this.
Interesting that even the BBB’s cross-section is larger than the Original’s
I’ve made it a mission of mine to fully utilize the Cancha’s attachment points. The company refers to them as RF Bonded Hypalon Molle Patches for Add-on Accessories.
Uh, yeah. Me? I’ve never used or even heard the term Molle Patch until after I purchased my Original Cancha. So, I started to research them. What I found were a lot of companies using the word Molle to describe a variety of very similar products, respective to their function. I have to admit I hoped Molle would be a more general ecosystem rather than one, primarly, suited to other products from the same company.
In other words, I dig Molle conceptually but have yet to make them quite as useful as I hope to in the future. For a while, I saw my Original Cancha as a do anything-bag if I could utilize its Molle attachment points to add space for shoes and clothes, when needed. At the time, Cancha Wet-Dry Bag was on backorder and I was getting ready to take a trip. I fantasized about modifying a generic shoe bag with Molle but I hit a lot of road blocks. I know. I should just buy the Cancha Wet-Dry bag. But I thought I was so, so clever that I could find an effective work around.
Anyway, I’m excited to get MIB’s take on the BBB and to see his video review. From where I sit, Cancha has another winner here. Will the other bag companies catch up? I’m not sure they’re even trying. Tt
Tennis thing 