On Thursday, we had the opportunity to learn from another highly decorated tennis player in Sara Scott. After a four-year turn at the #1 singles position for UCLA, Sara went on to be ranked as high as #400 in the world during her professional tennis career. She is a self-identified “aggressive baseliner,” and so her court was all about weight-transfer and driving through groundstrokes. After saying goodbye to Sara, we enjoyed a meal from Backyard Bowls before heading out for some more match-play in the afternoon.

During the last two days of camp, there was a dramatic shift in the Owl Points week-long competition, with Team Fresh 2.0 dominating the abbreviated format match-play in the afternoon and then fielding the top two doubles teams in the Friday morning doubles tournament. Coming from down 13-8, Team Fresh 2.0 ended up winning the competition 26-22.

Individual honors for the camp went to Taylor Kleine and Luke Williams, both of whom were models of competitive drive and sportsmanship.

Taylor won a number of doubles matches with different partners throughout the week and helped make the difference for his team on the last two days, going undefeated in singles and doubles play, earning himself MVP honors. Luke was our Coaches’ Award recipient, in part because of his strong play throughout the week, but even more so because he was a go-getter. Luke was ready to be challenged and to compete every day and was a total class-act in victory or defeat.

Harrison Fell and Ben Newton put on a spirited hat competition all week, something that has become a sort of tradition at Laguna Blanca Summer Tennis Camp. Who will be top hat next year?

We ended the camp with our customary pizza party and then moved on to the team award. As part of the team competition, the winning team got to take a photo with their coach in the owl suit, and despite protests from the losing coach, Tristan and I lined up for one round of “butts up,” during which not a single camper dealt a glancing blow. Luckily for us, not even coach Ben hit his mark. Maybe next time, guys!

On behalf of my staff, I ‘d like to thank all the campers, celebrity coaches and celebrity players that participated in our second Laguna Blanca Summer Tennis Camp. We’ll see you next year!

In an interview following the day’s events, in which Team Anti-Fresh swept the point-earning opportunities to go up 8-2, Coach Ben of Team Fresh was quoted as saying, “I’m not worried.” When pressed on the matter, Coach Ben explained that his team was conserving its resources in order to make a final push during the last two days of camp. Coach Tristan declined to comment for reporters about his team’s dominance thus far, but it is widely held that the presence of his dog Boo at today’s camp may have made the difference for Team Anti-Fresh.

In reality, today’s Owl Points were earned by the narrowest of margins. Team Anti-Fresh won the early-morning footwork relay race by one stride and followed up with a narrow victory in Around-The-World just before lunch-time.

In the afternoon, Team Fresh battled back from a 5-9 deficit in sets to reach 8-9 before succumbing 6-3 in the final set of our high school format dual match.

Then, during DJ Conrad’s guest music set, everything was up for grabs until the last possible moment, with the mini-tennis tournament points changing hands in the ninth and final round of the day.

Here are some photos of the day’s action:

Anti-Fresh has taken a 6-4 lead in the first of two dual matches to be held this week. The match will be completed tomorrow afternoon to break the 2-2 tie in the week-long competition for Owl Points.

In the morning, Team Fresh 2.0 put in a dominant performance untangling themselves from “the human knot” to take a 2-1 lead, but Team Anti-Fresh countered with a win during the footwork relay race.

During the early-day court rotations, we had the pleasure of welcoming celebrity coach Barbara Hallquist Degroot, arguably the most successful female player in USC history. After becoming the first female athlete at University of Southern California to receive a scholarship, Barbara went on to lead USC to four consecutive national titles, and another as a coach several years later.After her stellar college career, Degroot went on to reach #30 in the world after a quarterfinal performance in the US Open. She also reached the quarters twice as a doubles player.

Needless to say, the slice and touch-volley court featured a very talented and experienced celebrity coach today. I had the pleasure of coaching with her at Cate School for five seasons so it was great to be on the court with her again! Continue reading →

Day one is done and dusted, and what a day it was! Talking with our returning coaches Ben and Tristan while setting up this morning, we were all excited to reunite with our returning campers (Laguna campers are the best), but we also enjoyed welcoming some new players into the fold. Continue reading →

Ladder Drills – A bit of morning footwork to get things off to a good start Continue reading →

We are now three days into our inaugural camp and already it seems we’ve been together for weeks! The camp has been a pleasure for the coaching staff to put on and we feel the campers have been enjoying themselves as well. Here are a few photos of what we’ve been up to: Continue reading →