Recap

Last week was intended to be the final week of play for the quarter and year, but a few diehards wanted to get in "one more game." Apparently other (non-club) players had this thought as well, as there were another 4 court-hopeful players wandering the hallways, so we let them use one of the courts for the first hour. Club stalwarts: Matt, David, Jarnail and ... Aaron "Pretty Boy" Plotnik making his debut after his Hollywood Makeover episode.

	(Left): “Pretty Boy” Plotnik attracts a fan club with his precision shot placement. (Below): Video clips from the Plotnik / Medina game.

A Matt and David game has become the typical start to a club practice. Matt stuck to lob and half-lob serves and ran up a big lead before David showed up to play seriously and started his comeback. A little bit too late, though.

Jarnail next took David on. David was cranking on the ball, leaving Jarnail wondering what he was doing wrong. Of course, there is no simple answer, but three observations were made: constantly strive to get in position for good court coverage, don't give up on a ball, and don't let your drive serves set up off the back wall. Especially when the other player is hitting hard, many of these shots will come off the back wall and you'll have a second chance to hit them. Hustle and make the shot. If you watch the pros, those guys are hitting at 150+ mph, but anything that hits the front wall a foot or higher ends up coming off the back wall...

Aaron showed up--his first time playing in many, many weeks. There was much anticipation about the matchup between him and David, but the tension never materialized. Aaron missed a few careless shots, but there didn't seem to be much rust as his overall shot accuracy was quite good and David never got into the match. From the balcony, Jarnail was taking avid note of each of Aaron's well-placed shots, and muttering "nice shot" to punctuate each.

When Aaron played Matt, it was like a lamb to the slaughter. Aaron's first serve to Matt was a lob to the backhand. “Uh oh... nice lob,” Matt thought to himself as he barely managed to hit a weak ceiling return. Clearly Aaron hadn't come to roll-over. Matt never got rolling, with his passes looking a bit sloppy and giving Aaron too many setups near midcourt. Aaron still doesn't miss many of those, and ended the game with an ace serve. Stinker. After the game, Aaron revealed that he had spent the time off doing video analysis of the game from the club's video night, and had solicited external input from his coach and mentor, his Dad. Clearly this gave him an unfair advantage (did we mention that he gave Matt a donut: 15-0?). In the future, the club ladder rules will clearly have to prohibit this type of unfair coaching. ;-)

During one of the later games between Matt and David, Matt had run out a modest lead when David had started to find new spirit and started to battle back. Anyone who has played David battling back knows that he likes a fast tempo -- he pretty much jogs back to the service box and calls the score mid-way through his service motion. When you are young and energetic (ie, an undergrad) and you have some momentum, you want to keep the tempo up and not give your opponent much time to rest or recuperate. In contrast, anyone who is starting to give up points and the elderly among us (ie, grad students) who fondly recall their past days of youth and vigor will want to take a more measured pace to the game. In tournaments, you get some timeouts that you can use if you want a bit of rest or really need to rethink your game. Also, between rallies you (as server or receiver) can take 10 seconds after the score is called before starting the next rally. For the receiver to take this break, you have to signal that you are not ready (see the note below):

Racquetball Rules:   checking the receiver

Before serving, the server must check the receiver after the score is called. The server may not serve if the receiver is signalling not ready. Only two signals are officially recognized: the receiver's back is turned completely, or the racquet is raised over the head. The receiver has up to 10 seconds after the score is called to get ready, at which point the server can serve. Also, if the server checks the receiver and no signal is being given at that time, the server may go ahead and serve (the receiver may not later signal not ready). Serving without checking the receiver is a fault serve.

This rule will be enforced at tournaments, so be aware of it. In addition, respect your opponent: wait for them if they are not ready, even if they are not making the correct signal (e.g., if they are wiping off their eyeguards or tying a shoelace, but their back is not turned)

Trivia tidbit: once the server has checked the receiver, the receiver may not later signal not ready. However, the receiver can stil stop play by calling a time out. (The time out call must be made before the service motion starts.)

In other news, protests were raised--apparently the ladder had not been properly updated with the May 25th results. The hard(ly)-working staff here at Stanford Racquetball think they have it squared away now, and promise to do a better job next year!

Ladder Points

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

Previous		Player	Today
Rank	Ladder Points		W-L	Ladder Points	Offense
1	102	Matt	4-1	+9	60
2	78	David	2-4	+8	56
6	29	Jarnail	0-5	+5	26
7	27	Aaron	4-0	+16	60

(*) 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	--	15-11	Matt (+2) David (+1)
David	Jarnail	David	--	15-4	David (+2) Jarnail (+1)
Matt	Jarnail	Matt	--	15-7	Matt (+2) Jarnail (+1)
David	Aaron	Aaron	++	15-4	Aaron (+4) David (+1)
Aaron	Jarnail	Aaron	++	15-4	Aaron (+4) Jarnail (+1)
Matt	David	Matt	--	15-8	Matt (+2) David (+1)
Aaron	Jarnail	Aaron	++	15-3	Aaron (+4) Jarnail (+1)
Matt	Aaron	Aaron	++	15-0	Aaron (+4) Matt (+1)
David	Jarnail	David	--	15-8	David (+2) Jarnail (+1)
Matt	David	Matt	--	15-3	Matt (+2) David (+1)

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