Recap

David and Matt got the ball bouncing as the early birds this week. In the first game, David altered his serve-return strategy from the previous week: Matt would lob serve and then poach in the front left corner, hoping for a weak return. With a more conscious effort to hit a clean pass (down the line or cross-court), David was able to get 4 or 5 side-outs off the serve return. Jack was haranguing both for too many cross-court shots mid-rally, though. (Down-the-line gives the returner less time to cover, and is usually a better choice.)

Jeff / David rematch... A pretty close score. Afterwards Jeff admitted that "some of those were points that I actually earned, the rest..." The attentive reader will note that David did not make last week's mistake of underestimating Jeff and letting him run up a big lead before trying to stop the hemorrhage. (Ditto this for Matt's play with David--no freebies here folks!)

Ryan and Jesse played a game--both taking the ball pretty high, but Ryan generating a lot more power (the booms were echoing through the dungeon corridors).

Getting a good grip: A couple of players have recently asked about keeping a good grip on their racquets. Not only is this important for hitting a good shot, but a poor grip can also cause a player to clench the racquet too tightly, exacerbating any elbow problems. The #1 secret is to keep the hand/racquet interface dry. For serious players, there is pretty much only one solution: a dry glove and a rubber grip. Players with large hands should also get the larger racquet grip size, as a too-small grip can rotate with any torque from an off-center shot.

The game of the night was Jeff and Ryan gutting it out on court #2. These guys must be old-school, as they played "win-by-2" rules. (current tournament rules are win-by-1, so first player to reach 15 wins). Both players are pretty athletic and can spank the ball, so it comes down to who gets better ball control and who shows the patience to keep the ball low. Jeff won in their last matchup (Saturday), and carried through to win again today, but Ryan is coming from a long layoff... Hopefully they'll have a third matchup before the quarter winds down.

Harvir dropped in to submit the results from the challenge games this past Saturday. He had some mysterious reason for not playing. We've assigned our entire staff of investigative reporters on to the case, and we'll soon bring you the details--particularly if they are scandalous or racquetball-related (and especially if they are both!).

Ladder Points

This table ranks players by club ladder points earned this evening.

Previous		Player	Today
Rank	Ladder Points		W-L	Ladder Points	Offense
2t	38	David	4-3	+11	81
1	65	Matt	5-0	+10	75
4	32	Jeff	2-2	+8	53
11	14	Ryan	1-3	+7	35
2t	38	Jesse	0-4	+4	22

(*) Rank - the club rank at the start of play.
(*) Start Pts - the number of ladder points at the start of play.
(*) Earned Points - the number of ladder points earned this evening.
(*) Offense - Total points scored in games this evening

Game Log

Player A	Player B	Winner	Upset?	Score	Pts Earned
Matt	David	Matt	--	15-9	Matt (+2) David (+1)
Matt	David	Matt	--	15-9	Matt (+2) David (+1)
David	Jeff	David	--	15-12	David (+2) Jeff (+1)
Jesse	Ryan	Ryan	++	15-2	Jesse (+1) Ryan (+4)
Matt	Jeff	Matt	--	15-11	Matt (+2) Jeff (+1)
David	Ryan	David	--	15-0	David (+2) Ryan (+1)
David	Ryan	David	--	15-6	David (+2) Ryan (+1)
Jeff	Ryan	Jeff	--	16-14	Jeff (+2) Ryan (+1)
David	Jesse	David	--	15-10	David (+2) Jesse (+1)
Matt	David	Matt	--	15-3	Matt (+2) David (+1)
Matt	Jesse	Matt	--	15-4	Matt (+2) Jesse (+1)
Jesse	Jeff	Jeff	++	15-6	Jesse (+1) Jeff (+4)

Upset - a (++) indicates that the lower-ranked player won