Longing for real clay-courts

Just wanted to share my hunger to play on a real clay-court,, u know the red clay they use in all Europe except Sweden (well, Båstad have it, but that´s another story..)

Here we have a brown type of "clay" or dirt, gravel, earth or whatever you can call it. It´s harder to slide on, the bounces are worse, everything is slower on our type of clay-courts..

On those fantastic red clay courts u find in Europe it is so much easier to play good tennis. Sliding is a piece of cake and everything is so much more fun. Just take a look and see how much more fun it looks like when I play in Croatia by the beach or when i play on a windy court here in Sweden,,,,

Porec, Croatia;



Jönköping, Sweden;



At the moment I´m longing extremely much for the Croatian tennis-courts. Hopefully I will go down there week 35/36 to play the Croatian F8 ITF Future in Zagreb and then go to Makarska in Dalmatia for a week of hard work on the red dirt :)

A couple of new stringing-machines,

I have strung my rackets the last 8 months on a Pro´s Pro Pilot with a Wise Tension Head. It have been a very good solution, but i felt i wanted to try something new. So I ordered the new V888 from Pro´s Pro. A very technical machine with a cost 3 times as much as their previous most expensive model.

When I got it it it felt very solid and heavy (50 kg´s/110 lbs) and everything looked good. Only problem was some string-slippage in the linear string gripper so I´m waiting on a new linear gripper and will not make a review until then.

It looks like this BTW,, very similar to the Wilson-machines they used at the 2006 US Open. Maybe the same OEM??

I also found a 5 years old Prince/ Ektelon Neos 1000 machine, the GOAT of all manual machines. This machine was in amazing shape and this is a pic of it:

This machine is the fastest machine of them all. When I use my Babolat Pure Storm Tour I unfortunately brake strings pretty fast and it is nice when i can use this fast machine when I need to pull of a 12 minute string job.

What else is new?? Some new equipment is ordered and some of it have also arrived. I wanted to try the new Babolat Propulse 2 shoe and tried it indoors on Thursday. The shoe was very solid, but I was amazed on the lack of cushioning. The front part of the shoe felt like a claycourt shoe and for a heavy guy like me it was simply to little.
Therefor I orderd a Adidas Barricade V shoe in dark, dark blue color, looks like a black shoe almost and also a light blue Adidas crew.

Any oncourt action this week? Not so much,, Just played tennis indoor thursday (heavy rain outside) and outdoor on clay today Friday. I also did a 2 hour session in the gym. VERY needed!!
Next week is the Swedish Open ATP in Båstad week but i have to work so I will only see the final live in Båstad. Next week I hope to play tennis 2-3 times but I have to workout 3 times in the gym, those sessions are so important....

That´s all for now!

Another tournament victory

The taste of victory is sweet! Specially if you have lost a final in that very tournamnet 4 times in the past....

This year it was my turn to win the Smålands Wimbledon in Anneberg. It´s a tournament played on sandfilled synthetic grass or omnicourt as it is also called. I was no 1 seed and had the presure on me, but i played extremely well in the heat and only lost 5 games on 3 matches.

It was very very hot that weekend and the temperature on court was a sweaty 46 degree celsius during the final. I play better and better for every degree the temperature rise so it was not a problem for me ;-)

Now it will be resting a couple of days before the workout in the gym and on court kicks of again..

A short update

A short update of things; I played 2 league matches for my team Hagafors. won both singles,, Against Åkered 3-6 6-1 10-8 and against Anneberg i won the 2:nd single 6-1 6-1. Against Åkered we also won a tight doubles match 7-6 2-6 10-5 and against Anneberg we lost 2-6 5-7..

Then I played a tournament in Vetlanda, Östanåspelen on a ,, well, claycourt, but it was more like a battlefield in WWII or so,, the court was a mess and i could not push of anything before the court collapsed under my feet.. Same for both players though,, lost 2 straight sets in the semi final against a college-player. Strange match,, took 2 hours and still lost 3 and 1..

Well,, not much to do. Next week I will play the Smålands Wimbledon in Anneberg on art. grass and i will play both doubles and singles. I really hope i will win a couple of matches in that event.

I will also do a minor customization to my Pure Storm Tours after all. I will add a small amount of lead in the top and bottom of the frame ,, maybe a total of 10 grams, and this will hopefully make my slice a little bit better. As it is now the frame is a little bit to light to bite the ball good enough...

I have signed for 2 summer-events,,, after all

I though I shouldn´t have any time over to play any more outdoor events this season, but if you don´t have time you take time ;-)

I will play Östanåspelen in Vetlanda on red clay, june 12-14 and the Smålands Wimbledon in Anneberg on art/mod-grass the week after. I have one goal with those 2 events and that is 2 tournament victories...

This week have been extremely good in a fitness perspective.. Started the week with 2 hours gym and 6,5 km running.. Then I played 1,5 hour tennis on tuesday,, had a rest on wednesday and then 2 hours gym on thursday, friday and saturday. Tomorrow Sunday I have planned to go to Järabacken, a pretty good ski-slope a kilometer from our house. It will burn fat and build stamina and I will feel good but totaly exhausted after that.

When I got back home from Croatia 3 weeks ago I was up at 108 kg´s and after hard work and a lot of sallad and protein i´m now down at 103 kg´s.. My goal is the 100 mark and I think i will be there in August this year.

More of that race later,, now it´s time to turn on the TV for the final of the show "Robinson 2009"

Salút!

This blog as you know it is dead,, it will continue in another form from now on,,,

I feel that write only about my own tennis will limit the posts in this blog pretty much. I don´t play that often to make this blog enough alive and therefore i will change the purpose of the blog a little bit. I will from now on focus more on fitness and other fun things and only post tennis when I have played enough matches, tried any new material or similar things,,,

My last week was both up and down on the tennis court. After the victory in Tranås Clay Court Open I took a rest for 2 days and didn´t play anything before the 1:st rd match in Bravida Tabergsdalen Open main draw. I had a late 6 pm start and i felt dizzy the first set and start of the 2:nd. Before i could say Go i was 1-6 , 0-2 down and on the verge of being kicked out of the event but a cup of coffee , change to a new fresh shirt and turn the cap around I slowely started to turn the table and use the routine to take over the match. I won 2:nd set 6-4 but in the 3:rd set i felt very tired. I had to fight to hold serve and my opponent held his easy,, then at 3-3 i made a move into the court and smacked the ball much harder. That left my opponent standing on his heels and i jumped to a 4-3 lead,, then hold serve for 5-3 and then raced to 15-40 , jumped a doublefisted backhand down the middle that my opponent couldn´t hit back and i was through after 2 hours, 45 minutes,,, In the quaterfinal i faced the No 1 seed,, a very good top nationranked ITF junior. He was simply to fast for me and won easy 0 and 2,, not much to do,,

The day after we played a league game in Dalsjöfors,, I was still heavy from the tournament and lost 3 and 2, but played pretty well despite that..

Since then I had a hit on tuesday this week, but i will rest from tennis for a week now and focus on fitness on the gym instead.. The smålands Wimbledon in Anneberg is approaching and kick´s off june 22 and i hope to win that event this year. Think I have lost atleast 3 or 4 finals there in the past.

My team have 3 more league matches outdoor that will be good motivation raiser for the fitness work.

About fitness,, I have stepped up atleast 2 gears at the moment.. I try to lift really heavy weights on the gym and it feels fantastic when you see the result of more swollen muscles and a stamina that wont let you down ;-) I reckon that by the end of the summer i will have a fitness that would have impressed a US marine-corp officer ;-)

Champion

Finally!! The title drought is over. Ok, I had almost a 4 year absence from tournaments up until last season, but anyway. The first singles title since 2005 is secured. I won the Tranås Claycourt open this weekend after 3 decent matches. 1:st rd 6-4 6-1, Semi 6-1 6-2 and the final 6-0 6-3.

Feels good to win again. I needed it =)

This was also the first matches with my new racket, the Babolat Pure Storm Tour. I only had 2 hours with them before the event but the felt pretty solid from the start so no dramas there...

Next tournament is already this week, the Bravida Tabergsdalen Open kicks off wednesday with a very tuff 1:st rd match and if i win that i face the no 1 seed in the Qf. Gotta play very good there to do any kind of damage!

Then our team have a league match on Saturday, Dalsjöfors away, a very hard match. They are the best team in our division so we gotta play really well..

Hopefully the weather will better. Today we have + 8 degrees and heavy rain... as beachboys would have sung.. Fun fun fun... NOT!