Hello everyone,
It is good to be back and I had a great time during last week's training, watching players begin this year with awesome intensity and focus. What a start!
During my absence in last couple of weeks. Coach Brad has been focusing on lots of fundamentals, volume, movement in order to get everyone back on track after the holidays. He also pushed the players to strike the balls cleanly with effortless strokes, and worked on serve/return with more emphasis on return positions. Great job coach Brad, Sam and Kyle! Thanks for your awesome work!
For this week, we will be focusing on hitting "quality" rally from the baseline in order to break down our opponents or forcing them to come up with weak shots or out right mistakes. We will help players recognize the effects of their good quality rally, so they can decide when to move closer inside the court and taking a stronger offensive position as well as looking to use their weapon to attack their opponent.
We will continue to develop serve and return game, making sure there are lots of volume and putting more focus on return of 2nd serve this week.
Let's have a great week. See you on court!
Peter Liu
Monday, January 18, 2016
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Happy holiday and things
We had a great wrap up this week before heading into Christmas and New Year. We focused on transition game this week, a lot of short balls were received inside the baseline and created movement towards net, players were pushed to take tons of volleys and smashes! Energy was high and it was great to see everyone having fun and be creative.
I want to take this time to thank and congratulate every single player for their hard work, effort and commitment during last 12 weeks of training. I think everyone did a great job and we have made lots of improvement in a very short period of time. I'm really excited to see what everyone will bring in the new year.
Holiday season is right around the corner, I hope everyone get to rest or take a vacation somewhere, spend time with family, friends and enjoy good food. Oh! Don't forget to go watch STAR WARS!! =)
I am sure some players are sticking around and would like to setup some private lessons. I would suggest contact Brad, Kyle or Rouba to see if one of them are available. Of course if you are already working with a coach and have setup some lessons for next couple of weeks. Great job to you!!
I would also encourage anyone who is not traveling away to think about playing a tournament. We have our own George Carter junior tournament at ORC in January and there will be tons of tournaments happening around the city in next few weeks. Have a look on the OTA website!
That would be all everyone! I want to wish everyone Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I will see you in January 2016!
Peter Liu
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Week 11
Hi everyone,
Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and maybe getting started with your Christmas shopping!
For close to two weeks we had been focusing on competing, which was done in some type of situation points play or match play. Over all, I would say players did a good job, but I would still like to share some of my thoughts.
I thought some players competed really well, even though they know this is just training matches, they still took it seriously and played with good intensity and focus. They understand how to perform under pressure or under the restrictions I had given them. They managed mistakes well and most importantly, they were also able to play while maintaining the skills we worked on for the last 10 weeks.
I felt the biggest difference between players that did well and some that needed improvement really came down to the lack of match play, tournament experience, and mostly that "fire", "intensity", "edge", or that strong "competitive mindset". Of course there are other factors too such as over all consistency, technical skills, physical abilities, etc... but even some players had all those skills, it was still very clear to see who had been out there playing and was the "Veteran"... tougher, resilient, knows how to manage mistakes, and strong determination. Or who were the "greenhorn"... inconsistency, breaks easily, gave up a bit too quickly, poor body language after mistakes (sometime just after ONE mistake!) and suffer performance drop quickly due to nervousness which were not able to bounce back...
Now I am not suggesting that we should push players into competition right away and start to toughen them up, after all this path does take time to build... but I do think that some healthy amount of tournament play and match experience needs to happen sooner than later for some players. They need to see what's out there in order to be inspired to get better, they need to go through some tough situations in order to be resilient and build stronger characters. It's not going to be easy and there will be tears, but so is LIFE!... Just remember this. Tennis is a game, and game is meant to be played. So I encourage everyone to get out there and play tennis!
---------------------
Back to our plan. This week we will be working on generating topspin as well as finding ways to create more racquet head acceleration. We will explore the techniques in order to make this work and use it to open up the court with sharp angle cross court forehand or backhand. It is a important shot in tennis and I believe it will also help some players loosing up their wrist and arm during their swing.
That's see how it goes. I'll keep you posted!
Peter Liu
Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and maybe getting started with your Christmas shopping!
For close to two weeks we had been focusing on competing, which was done in some type of situation points play or match play. Over all, I would say players did a good job, but I would still like to share some of my thoughts.
I thought some players competed really well, even though they know this is just training matches, they still took it seriously and played with good intensity and focus. They understand how to perform under pressure or under the restrictions I had given them. They managed mistakes well and most importantly, they were also able to play while maintaining the skills we worked on for the last 10 weeks.
I felt the biggest difference between players that did well and some that needed improvement really came down to the lack of match play, tournament experience, and mostly that "fire", "intensity", "edge", or that strong "competitive mindset". Of course there are other factors too such as over all consistency, technical skills, physical abilities, etc... but even some players had all those skills, it was still very clear to see who had been out there playing and was the "Veteran"... tougher, resilient, knows how to manage mistakes, and strong determination. Or who were the "greenhorn"... inconsistency, breaks easily, gave up a bit too quickly, poor body language after mistakes (sometime just after ONE mistake!) and suffer performance drop quickly due to nervousness which were not able to bounce back...
Now I am not suggesting that we should push players into competition right away and start to toughen them up, after all this path does take time to build... but I do think that some healthy amount of tournament play and match experience needs to happen sooner than later for some players. They need to see what's out there in order to be inspired to get better, they need to go through some tough situations in order to be resilient and build stronger characters. It's not going to be easy and there will be tears, but so is LIFE!... Just remember this. Tennis is a game, and game is meant to be played. So I encourage everyone to get out there and play tennis!
---------------------
Back to our plan. This week we will be working on generating topspin as well as finding ways to create more racquet head acceleration. We will explore the techniques in order to make this work and use it to open up the court with sharp angle cross court forehand or backhand. It is a important shot in tennis and I believe it will also help some players loosing up their wrist and arm during their swing.
That's see how it goes. I'll keep you posted!
Peter Liu
Upcoming tournaments
Hi everyone,
Just a quick update on some upcoming tournaments and players that are planning on entering (as far as I know of). It would be great if players from our U12 program can join up and attend some of these tournaments together!
I also know some of players have not been very active on playing tournaments for the last couple of months. I would recommend you to check out the rookie or transition tour tournaments below and see if you can make it.
Good luck and have fun to everyone that is out there competing! We are proud of you!
-----------------------------------
ACE U12 Provincial Circuit *** (3 Stars)
Blackmore U12, U16 Transition Tour **
Thornhill U12 Rogers Rookie Tour with Green Dot ball
Just a quick update on some upcoming tournaments and players that are planning on entering (as far as I know of). It would be great if players from our U12 program can join up and attend some of these tournaments together!
I also know some of players have not been very active on playing tournaments for the last couple of months. I would recommend you to check out the rookie or transition tour tournaments below and see if you can make it.
Good luck and have fun to everyone that is out there competing! We are proud of you!
-----------------------------------
ACE U12 Provincial Circuit *** (3 Stars)
December 11th-13th
ACE Burlington
ACE U12 Provincial Circuit *** (3 star)
December 13th
ACE Burlington
December 18th-20th
ACE Burlington
December 18th-20th
Blackmore Tennis Club, Richmond Hill
*** Daniel Cancilla from our U12 program is signed up ***
December 26th-27th
Thornhill Park Tennis Club
December 26th-December 31st
ACE Burlington
December 27th-30th
Aviva Centre, Toronto
OTA Entry Link
*** Jackson Podolsky from our U12 program is signed up ***
Peter Liu
Monday, November 30, 2015
Tournament result: 2015 TDC Cup
Congratulations to ORC Team #1 on winning the 2015 TDC Cup at Aviva Centre this weekend!!
Our team #1 consisted of 4 players and they were Matthew Yang, Even Van DerStarren, Bailey Muller, and Ola Andrea Irla-Bartyzel. Our players competed extremely well and also shown great support to each other. I am proud of what they did and I'm sure all players learned a lot from this experience.
Our team #2 had to withdraw from the tournament due to illness on couple of our players. It is unfortunate, but we can only move forward as I know there will be other opportunities in the near future.
Special shout out goes to Claire Podolsky. Claire played for Veneto Tennis Club this past weekend. She did a great job and shown great sportsmanship on and off the court. I'm sure Team Veneto was happy and thankful for you being part of their team. Well done Claire!
Big thanks to all the parents for bring players to tournament on time and supporting, cheering for our players. I hope you all had a great time watching your child compete, learned and gained valuable information from this event.
If you have any photos to share. Please email them to me so I can post them here and in our newsletter.
If you have any photos to share. Please email them to me so I can post them here and in our newsletter.
Go ORC Go!
Peter Liu
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Tournament result - Congrats to Stefan and Jackson
Hi everyone,
Just a quick update on tournament results for pasted couple of weeks.
We also have Jackson went down to U.S. again for his last U10 tournament EVER as he will be age out to U12 in few days. It was a tough fight for Jackson in the final against his opponent as he was losing 1-4 and managed to come back and win the match 6-4! I'm sure he was focused, kept working hard and never gave up! Great job on your win again Jackson!
That's all for now. It's great to see our players getting out there and compete. Please feel free to send me any tournament updates, results and pictures. Thanks!
Peter Liu
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Week #9
Hi everyone,
This week's plan is simple and straight forward! Every class we will start with physical warm-up follow by 20 minutes of good tennis warm-up, then we will jump right into match play and see how players play and if they are able to ultilize what they worked on for the past few weeks.
Our main focus during the match play week will be helping players with their game plan, develop basic routines, feel comfortable with game play, rules, counting score, change end, dealing with line call, etc... This should be a great week for all players to experience different levels of competition and hopefully inspire them to get better moving forward.
See you on court!
Peter Liu
This week's plan is simple and straight forward! Every class we will start with physical warm-up follow by 20 minutes of good tennis warm-up, then we will jump right into match play and see how players play and if they are able to ultilize what they worked on for the past few weeks.
Our main focus during the match play week will be helping players with their game plan, develop basic routines, feel comfortable with game play, rules, counting score, change end, dealing with line call, etc... This should be a great week for all players to experience different levels of competition and hopefully inspire them to get better moving forward.
See you on court!
Peter Liu
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