Wimbledon 2022 Day 8

I was cheering on Watson and Dart in the Women's Doubles today, but Ostapenko and Kichenok beat them in three sets. The last game of the first set went on for over 10 nail-biting minutes and was won by Watson and Dart which gave them the set. Nevertheless, they went on to lose the next two sets. I didn't realise that Ostapenko and Kichenok have played doubles together since ITF days! This helps them really understand each other without having to constantly bolster the other's confidence routinely after every point. Mind you, I'm not sure Eastern Europeans feel the need to over-encourage their partner. That's an American style of doubles and a good one, especially if you don't know your doubles partner very well, to create a team spirit 👊💪or if your doubles partner is stressed and feeling down. 😣🎾🙂🎾

I played doubles with my mother in practice (no bolstering up just pressure to do better!) partly because I tended to train under pressure recreating match conditions in both singles and doubles. In singles I played against her and my father (on occasion) all 6'1" of him at the net. Although he couldn't (still can't, I'm sure😂) play tennis, nevertheless his height and wing span meant I had to figure out a way of getting past him which included lobs, and down the liners. The trouble was that once past him I had my mother waiting at the back of the court. Now she can play tennis and has excellent placement. She was also busy trying to coach both of us in different ways since my father had little idea what he was supposed to do. My mother had him bomb down serves at me as well while he was standing just inside the serving box, or sometimes right in front of the net, hence I'm a very good returner of serve. I would stand either inside the baseline or, to make it harder, just behind the service box so the ball would have even more pace and I'd have less time to react. 

I discovered that the women I was playing against who were my age or a few years younger (16-21, most had a WTA world ranking, often around 500, one ended up at 282 two years later!) hit just as hard as him even though they were serving on the baseline and I was behind the baseline on the other side of the net! It never occurred to me that could happen. And I had just as few seconds to read their serve, react/run and hit it as I did with him at close proximity. Other than the women disguise their placement and hit with more spin so generate that pace using a much more awkward arm position which takes more strength. But since he hit very flat and struck the ball like a loose cannon, it was excellent match preparation and it held me in good stead, I executed fabulous return shots and I could weather the storm better. Being a confident returner meant I could strike winners on all games, as opposed to favouring my service games. 

So I don't for one second believe women are much weaker than men. Therefore, from practical experience I can confidently say that young women are perfectly capable of competing against transwomen who, unlike cis men, have higher female hormones due to their transition treatment. This in fact weakens them because as they transition their body is underpowered for their frame. Rather like putting a small engine into a large car, if you pardon the analogy.

My mother was, and still is, a very good coach with zero sports training. She's just good at sport, having played a variety of them at school and reached a good standard in golf post-school, understands tennis and uses her excellent teaching skills. So I think it's ridiculous to insist coaches need qualifications. Parents can make excellent coaches, especially the mothers, and often double up on the psychological aspect of the game and are not clock-watchers. This coaching qualification also excludes young girls from tennis who by and large end up with male coaches because there's too many of them and too few female coaches. This inevitably causes problems. It also limits opportunities for girls whose parents are not wealthy enough to afford private one-on-one coaching. And as we can see with Dart she was still sharing a coach with two others in 2018 when she is in her very early twenties! To put it in perspective, Iga Swiatek is 21 and number 1 in the world and has the record number of consecutive match wins this century having also won RG twice! Explain how the British public can expect Dart to beat the likes of Swiatek. It's not an equal contest. It's not that Dart can't do all the shots just like the top players. It's more that she doesn't have the opportunity to play top players, week in and week out, so when she gets into a tight spot in a match she can't go on automatic as top players do. This makes all the difference between a win or a loss.

And the idea that working on your psychology is a modern phenomenon is inaccurate. Five time Wimbledon champion and twice gold medallist,  Charlotte Cooper (see previous post) had not only numerous coaches who concentrated on her physical game 💪 but also worked on strengthening her psychological 🧠💭 frame of mind when playing competitively. She was innovative in many ways e.g. serving over-arm, and playing an aggressive net game. Charlotte Cooper (1870-1966) and other women of her era were playing in corsets which was both dangerous and painful because it caused punctures and bleeding 🩸but these women still played on. So how did that work in white clothing at Wimbledon?🤔🤷