Early Bird Catches The Worm

1. Wake up alarm : (snooze the darn thing thrice and then off goes the backup alarm which again takes the snooze route)
2. You overslept  and therefore you skip the planned early morning walk with your wife
3. You read the newspaper leisurely and by the time you leave your home, you know you are behind the clock to get to office.
4. You get into the car and put your foot down - 100 ft of driving and lo behold! Traffic jam greets you sooner than you think. Colourful expletives is what you can think of!
5. On the way to office you get calls which you would like to take after you have opened your laptop, checked some MIS reports.
6. Each traffic light is programmed against you or so you feel. The red light durations  feel excruciatingly long
7. By the time you park your car in the office parking, cursing the fellow drivers,  the roads, most of the morning positive energy has already dissipated
8. You have planned to make a To do list but you get a call and a new task even before you could start planning on the list
9. In all this, the time you had planned on planning the day is gone and you are just playing catch-up for the best part of the day.
10. It is 6 PM and you still  havent started on the presentation for noon the next day. You feel you have done a lot of work but when you think over the day's proceedings over a cup of tea, you can barely remember a few simple tasks that you have done.
11. It is 7 PM and you get a call from your wife to get medicine on your way back.
12. It is eight thirty on the dials of your watch and still a long way to go. You say to yourself -Well i shall go home and finish the work left.
13. By the time you are home, it is 9:45 and you are exhausted. You watch TV while having dinner and the "home work" gets pushed to the next day.

Much like the tennis serve - if your ball toss goes haywire, your balance goes haywire to reach the ball, you don't watch the ball closely enough as you normally would and the contact point goes wrong and the serve gets buried in the net. The root cause - one of the links -the ball toss went wrong.

"Early bird catches the worm" - Need not be true - what if the bird is dumb and doesnt take advantage of the start.

Early Bird Likely to Catch the worm - that makes more sense. More on this in the next post.

Tennis - A beautiful game

Pete Sampras's serve, Roger Federer's forehand, Richard Gasquet's backhand - all three had one thing in common - grace. Infact almost all pros have that poise just before contact. Even Marat Safin's booming serves had that quality; it is that quality that separates the wheat from the chaff. By grace, I mean looking unrushed which means getting into a position early. Federer at his peak looked the most unrushed player on the circuit, yet his court coverage was on par with the best. How? Because he could anticipate the ball so well, his first step gave him the extra time.

It makes sense to do better than to do more.

As an amateur tennis player, I remember our coach shouting at us to make the groundstrokes look effortless. Two years on, i feel it is the single most important thing in tennis. Ofcourse you would need a sound technique to make it look "effortless" whether its a serve, or a groundstroke or a volley.

It really is a beautiful game. Tennis with its subtleties can sound too complicated, I find it fascinating. There is biomechanics intertwined with a feel for the ball. Andy Murray with a "drop shot here, a drop shot there" has an amazing feel for the ball. It is scary the control the pros possess. They can virtually place the ball on a coin.

Its a real shame that tennis in this country is an elitist's game. I mean for proper coaching and membership of a club, you have to pay through your nose. The last few years have seen many academies opening up trying to bridge this demand -supply gap. With greater awareness through media, rising disposable incomes and most importantly increased emphasis on fitness, tennis is only going to grow here. As with just about everything in this country, pricing will be the key.

2010: The year that was

Ten Memorable moments/events of 2010 (not in order)

1. Spending new year's eve and the new year with family
2. 3000+ kms ride from IMT Ghz to Vikramgarh and back(RMX)
3. Sachin Tendukar's 50th Test ton
4. Nadal winning at Roland Garros and Wimbledon
5. Me hitting 25 runs in an over!
6. A week long sojourn at Bangalore and another one at Hyderabad - two places I love
7. Bro getting final offer from Bain & Co
8. Saying no to Infi and IT
9. The prospect of me having a career in automobiles
10. Winning the Tennis leg of LoT

PS: Wishing everyone a very happy and successful 2011

League of Titans: Tennis Final

"You could cut the tension with a knife"

Apropos the LOT Tennis final 2010, the above statement best describes the final.

We, B1, were pitted against A(junior section). The format of the tie -three singles( 2 men's and one ladies' singles) followed by men's doubles and mixed doubles. Team winning first three rubbers would win the tie. Each rubber was a best-of-7 -games with a minimum difference of 2 and a tie breaker at 4-4.

Match 1: Akash(A) vs me(B1)

I won the toss and chose to serve. The start was a lousy one for me with a barrage of unforced errors. Akash for his part played well. No errors while I kept making them. Serving too disintegrated and in no time I was 3-0 down staring down the barrel. That is when I decided to chuck plan A and adopt plan B. Plan A was to play my natural game which was just not flowing that day. So, over to plan B which meant I went with the top spin serve for both the serves and deeper ground strokes without going for the lines (which I was missing anyway), even if it meant longer rallies. The ploy worked and I managed to bring the score to 3-3. It was 4-4 and a tiebreaker ensued. The nerves were jangling alright. I got behind in the tie breaker too and had to fight my way back. Serving to save a match point in the tie breaker, my first serve went long. Return error from Akash on my second serve levelled the score and I somehow managed to eke out a couple more points giving me the match. What a relief! Personally for me, the win provides some succour after last year's agonizing loss in the final. That said my game was way below par for best part of the match. Just hung in there and got lucky to scrape through. Phew! Talk about getting out of jail.(i was 3-0 down after a lousy start). It was more of a grinding match, not the free flowing game with winners that you associate in a final. In that sense, I guess I would have disappointed my classmates/friends with a "slow match" interspersed with very few winners(none on the backhand side). Having said that its still a win and I ll take it. Hard luck Akash. You were almost there.

Match 2: Himanshu(B1) and Akarsh(A)

Himanshu was in great form in the semi-finals. However this match presented a different challenge to deal with Akarsh who was adept at chopping and coming to the net very intelligently. Himanshu tried his best to adjust to the lack of pace but could n't. Akarsh's movement to the net and the finishing was too good. Akarsh won this rubber 4-2 and levelled the tie at 1-1.

Match 3: Bhanu(B1) vs Deepti(A)

This was a crucial match for both the sides as the tie was poised at 1-1. Bhanu took the initiative early with penetrating shots and romped to an early lead. Deepti actually played well, quite well. It was just that Bhanu had discovered her A-game (no pun intended). 4-1 the scoreline in favour of Bhanu at the end of this match.

B1 in the lead at 2-1

Match 4: Devesh/Himanshu(B1) vs Akash/Akarsh(A)

Devesh got his booming serves going but returns kept coming from the other end. The unforced errors were coming from B1. A took the lead 3-2 after it was 2-2. Playing with confidence the duo Akash and Akarsh took the match 4-2.

It was level pegging at 2-2 now and the tie would go down to the last rubber - mixed doubles.

Match 5: Devesh/Bhanu (B1) vs Abhishek/Deepti (A)

It would be fair to say that B1 clearly had the edge in this match. Bhanu was playing her best tennis and matching Abhishek shot for shot and even managed to win a few rallies prompting one of the supporters of A to shout out to "target the man". The B1 supporters went delirious with laughter at this interjection. Devesh was solid as ever and we won the match 4-0 and with it the tie and the tournament. It was one humdinger of a tie. It was 4 AM by the time the match finished.

Huge relief after losing last year's match. Well played team - Himanshu, Bhanu, Devesh. The win was a complete team effort.

To my team mates:

Bhanu: You were overconfident in the semis and justifiably so given the dearth of competition in the previous rounds but you bounced back to win from 3-1 down. In the finals you surpassed yourself and took your game to a new level.

HSM: Fabulous show. Strong consistent performance throughout tournament. Your game in the semifinal in particular was excellent and it was a critical win given that the next match(of Bhanu) turned out to be really close

Devesh: It was great to have you in the finals. Your involvement mattered a lot in the final result.

To B1 supporters:

Thanks a ton for showing up, braving the cold. Your support made the difference in what was a pulsating final.

To my juniors - Akash, Akarsh,Abhishek and Deepti- you folks will win next year. Hard luck this time around. Well played!

To the chair umpire Baiju and the line judges good job done.

Last and not the least, SportsCom, well you guys rock!

Gajiabad Diaries-Part 1

11 AM, 1 Dec 2010

This is the conversation I had with the shopkeeper when I went to a sports shop to get my strings done

Me: Bhaiya, racquet gutting karna hai jaldi. Urgent hai. Tournament chal raha hai

Shopkeeper(smiling): Ho jaega ek ghante mein.

Me: Theek hai mai ek ghante mein aata hoon phir

Shopkeeper(smiles and asks): Chakravyuh chal raha hai kya.....

Me(taken by surprise): Woh hoga Feb mein.

I leave my racquet behind, give the specifications and come out of the shop chuckling.

12 PM: I call up shopkeeper and check if the stringing is done and true to his word its ready to be collected

PS: Ghajiabad is not that bad after all :)

IMT Open - Finals- Amit(senior) vs Me