Yale College Showcase Day 6 (30 June) Today was the last day of the showcase and our girls did really well. Only the girls played today – each player played 2 – 3 matches – only Heather didn’t play as she was down with hip injury. Our girls went to the court at 630am after leaving their luggage at the hotel because after the showcase ended we will be driving to Boston. In the morning before the matches the organizer held a short meeting for the players to ask questions to Division 1, 2 and 3 coaches. It was a very informative meeting. All our players did much better than yesterday. They were mentally more prepared today and all of them gave a good performance in their own unique way. A lot of coaches came to watch them play but Michelle who gave one of her best performances this year received a lot of attention from coaches. Kuang Chi played much better today despite a slight pain on her knee. She gave everything she had and played with a much higher intensity today. She’s still a very nice girl on the court but definitely today she showed some of her aggressive side too. She played well in both singles and doubles and her opponents were tough. Kuang Chi showed excellent technical form and she hit the balls very clean today. Definitely something that coaches were attracted to. Both matches went to the distance but she held her nerve really well, executing big points calmly and confidently. I was happy I was able to see the more aggressive side of her today. Michelle played 2 great singles matches. Due to her fighting spirit and competitiveness many coaches came to watch and were impressed by Michelle. The good thing is she won both of her singles matches against highly recruited American players. Everything just click for Michelle today. She served well – some of the best serving game I’ve seen from Michelle – and her forehand was just dominating both of her opponents. Michelle seem like a girl on a mission and nobody was going to stop her achieve her goal today. She was that focused. At one point I was talking to one of the coaches who was watching Michelle and he said he could see Michelle just switched her mind set and decided she’s going to win this match. Michelle finished the showcase strongly and got what she came here for. Jesse did all she could and gave everything she had but it wasn’t enough to win her matches. Although she lost her matches she played reasonably well and she gave her full effort. She played 3 singles matches so by the end of the day she was very exhausted. The problem with Jesse’s game is her shots from the backcourt are not capable of hurting her opponents. I told her playing tennis is like fighting in a boxing ring. Each stroke is similar to each punch. Every punch that Jesse throws does not do any damage to her opponent. Basically her strokes are either too short, too light (lack of heaviness) or lack of pace. Jesse could move quite well but her punches lack of substances. She has a good forehand technique but the ball that comes out her racket is very light and lack of depth. Jesse needs to work on this when she returns home. Zhang Ran did well today. Although she didn’t play her tennis but she gave everything she had. I could see that she’s fighting hard, chasing every single ball and pumping her fist. She’s only struggling with making the right decision for each ball she hit. If she could get more match play under her belt I am sure she will be a much higher level player. She’s talented and she hits the ball clean but she does not have enough match experience. Match experience cannot be taught, it must be done, you have to do it and there is no replacement for match play experience. Overall she had a great showcase and I know some coaches are interested in her. Rachel played much better today. She was less nervous and was able to focus more on her tasks. She certainly could play better tennis but she did everything she could today. If anyone watches Rachel for a short period of time one would be quite impressed with Rachel. However if one watches her for a longer period of time and pays attention to details one could see that Rachel has a lot to improve in her game. She hits the ball well, technically strong and she looks good on the court but if you watch her longer you can see Rachel is not able to put together her game. It is almost like she just hits every ball back coming her way without much consideration for the shot before or the shot after. Structuring each point and connecting each point is a very important element of a tennis player. Rachel needs to improve her decision making skills or shot selection skills. She basically can hit the ball but she can’t put them together as a point. Nevertheless she played quite well today and she got some attention from coaches. After the last match finished we had our dinner and drove about 2 hours to Boston. Tomorrow we will be visiting Wellesley and Harvard. At Wellelsey we will meet our long time friend coach Brian Kuscher and at Harvard we will see college tennis legendary coach David Fish. The showcase was very successful for our team. All our players get some kind of attention from coaches of different schools. Now the kids can be more relax because from now we will only be visiting schools and driving from one city to another city! We will try to make time to see some of the local attractions too if time permits.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 12:09:33 +0000
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