Thursday, February 21, 2013

Do you "love" tennis?


Above: Jack Sock shows his powerful forehand. (Click on photos to enlarge.)

John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg, Andre Agasi, Pete Sampras, Jimmy Connors, Andy Roddick and more. These are the past winners of the U.S. National Indoors Championship of tennis, now being played at the Racquet Club of Memphis. Venus Williams, Monica Seles, Maria Sharapova, and Lindsay Davenport are some of the other past winners. That's a pretty good list.

Last night, I grabbed my camera and went. First I saw the Bryan brothers (Bob and Mike), ranked No. 1 in the world in doubles, destroy Tom Haas and Robert Farah, but the fun was only beginning.

In the featured men's match, Jack Sock ranked 168th in the world, upset Milos Raonic who is ranked No. 14. For all the rankings, see here. The three-set thriller was close all the way with a final score of 6-3, 5-7, 7-5.

Sock has a big serve and a powerful ground game -- he hits the ball really hard. Occasionally he'll come to the net, but Sock is mainly an aggressive baseliner. Sock's second-serve and backhand have a lot of spin. The twenty-year-old Sock skipped college to go pro. His biggest win so far is the Mixed Doubles at the (outdoors) U.S. Open (see here) in 2011.

You can read a full report of the Sock/Raonic match here.


Above: Sock gets high off the court to deliver his powerful serve.


Above: The 6'5" Raonic returns serve.


Above: Is the winner a rock star or a Sock star?

Photos taken with my Canon 40D.

8 comments:

  1. This is definitely NOT your theme song!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XL1vGOLmvM

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  2. Nice report. I happen to be a big fan of pro tennis myself. Nice that it was such an exciting match. I've never seen a pro tennis match in person, I wonder how much different it is from watching on TV.

    Are you going back? Are any of the big 4 (Novak, Federer, Murray or Nadal) in the men's field?

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  3. @Rob: They hit the ball really hard. Because they played on a hard surface, it made it look even harder. None of the players you mentioned were there. There's a big tournament in Dubai that has large cash prizes.

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  4. Uh ... please follow the lead of Lucki Duck and post pictures of sexy women, please. tyia ...

    ReplyDelete
  5. LOVE tennis? No. Like tennis. No. Heck I'd rather be sufflin' cards.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your action shots are wonderful.

    Is everything OK? Haven't heard from you for awhile. The last time I played tennis I tripped trying to run backward, hit my head and blacked out ... I thought I had died. The last time I played tennis is probably the last time I'll ever play tennis! :)

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  8. Hi Dave...nice to hear from you again. Hope that all is well. Did I tell you we moved into a house in Ocala? Our villa in Stone Creek is for sale - just in case you're interested... :))

    ReplyDelete