Travel with Kris...

John Steinbeck wrote a book about his travels across America in 1960 with his dog Charley. A literary classic, by a classic American author. This Blogpost will be neither literary, nor as extensive!

As Blog followers know, Coach Kris has been fulfilling a personal quest by playing in a few entry level Professional Tournaments. These are $10,000 events held across the country. She has played Cleveland, Atlanta, and Evansville, with St Joseph, MO this weekend. I drove Kris to Evansville.

The way these Events work, sign in for the Qualifier is from 3-6pm on Saturday, then the draw is released at about 615, with play beginning early Sunday. So to break up the drive(8 hours) we left late Friday, and stopped in O'Fallon, on the Illinois side of St Louis. Saturday morning, I got in 4 miles of walking, and a quality cup of coffeehouse coffee while waiting for Kris to emerge from her room. (you know how those "pros" need their sleep!) The we drove the remaining miles to E'ville with a slight detour over the toll bridge to New Harmony. (New Harmony, Indiana was built by a communal German religious group)

Arrived at the tourney site, Wesselman Park. 12 concrete courts, a dewpoint of 78 degrees and temperatures well into the 90's. We practiced for as long as I could stand up(90 minutes) then went to check into our respective hotels. (Kris stayed at the player hotel which was very nice and had a great rate for players....I stayed a couple miles away in more affordable lodging!) We went back to the tourney HQs to check the draw.....and discovered that Kris had a Bye and did not play until Monday!

Sunday morning I enjoyed an early cup of Starbucks, then picked up Kris and we were on the court by 745am. We hit until 845, then Kris joined up with Simone Kalhorn(Syracuse alum, 2011) and they played sets until 1030. (since the practice courts are assigned with 4 to a court, that practice set was often interrupted by x-court practice and court changes) I was assigned the task of watching the match Kris would play the winner of; it was the 2nd match on court #7. Fidan Manashirova and Mayo Hibi were paired up. Fidan will be a junior at Ohio State. She played #5 and #6 singles. Mayo is one of the top two players in the country in the 2014 class. Hibi would win an entertaining match in 3 sets; 61 46 61. After scouting, we talked about potential tactics for the Monday match at lunch, then Kris went swimming, we watched the end of the Women's World Cup, then returned to the now-empty courts for another round of practice. I lasted an hour in the humidity this time! (side note-years ago, I lived and coached in Evansville. Not sure how I survived the Summers?.....Guess I was a lot younger!)

Up and on the warm up courts at 745am. Match was assigned to court #6 at 9am. I settled into my seat with two bottles of water to get me through the match.

Hibi plays extremely gracefully, with a one-handed BH, and beautiful volleys. Quite different from the normal topspin baseline bashing that is prevalent in the Women's game. Kris also plays different than the norm, with footspeed as her primary weapon. Since Mayo is 15 years old with a flat FH, and that one-handed BH, we had decided to try and elevate Kris' shots to shoulder height, hopefully to elicit some errors. Also when Kris came forward, the idea was to pressure that BH side. We were looking for long points, 8-12 shots, followed by a net foray by Kris.

101 minutes later it was over. Hibi won 61 60. While a scorekeeping 'blowout", keep in mind that the adjacent court finished at the same time with a score of 64 75! What happened? Kris was unable to keep Mayo off the net enough, not enough of the points went our goal of 8-12 shots, and since Kris' 1st serve percentage was abysmal(less than 20%) she spent ALL of her time playing defense. Kris was able to use her footspeed to frustrate the younger player and make her hit an extra two shots per rally, but to her credit, she was able to do so. On the bright side, the game plan worked to a degree, Kris played very well, and I think she is eager to return to practice and competition. To be successful at this level, requires a workable draw, a reasonable playing style matchup, and of course, execution!

I learned "tons" from being at the tournament. Watching professionals and aspiring professionals practice, and compete. I have a lot of notes about practice drills, emotional management, intensity, focus, etc. that I plan on sharing and implementing into our Kohawk practices.

As the Tournament progresses I will update Mayo Hibi's progress, and maybe I can get Coach Kris to add a couple of comments about her perspective on the tournament?