Riders of the Storm… and Heat Wave.

Surviving summer in Montreal is not an easy task for the tennis warrior. By the time Valois hits the journeyman’s calendar, the all mighty Sun is at its peak of power and makes life miserable for those who dare to face their destiny on the grey outdoors arenas.

This season the tournament in general attracted far more players than the 2013 edition and the +40s draw wasn’t the exception. With names like Montoto, Skerjl (winner in +35s last year), Heck, Salhany (defending champion in +40s), and Lacombe, as seeded players; the tournament promised a lot of action and some potential blockbuster battles on the second week.

Montoto (Charlie), as first seeded, started in quarterfinals against and old friend and foe… Francis “The Terminator” Demers. They’ve played a few times this year and for the third tourney in-a-row, they would meet again. The Beaconsfield resident had his tennis bag full of rackets and confidence. He (literally) wiped-out Sébstien Larivée, on his debut, with a 0 and 3 win.

The quarter final match did not go as Francis expected as he was slightly off-timing; paying a high price against a player like Charlie. Montoto is in great form this season and he is aiming for the #1, once in the court, he’s all business. Yet a good performance for Demers that climbs to the 10^th spot in this month’s ranking. With a little bit of luck in the draw, he might be able to run deep and do some damage in future tournaments.

Felipe Heck and his beautiful Charger

In the meantime, Salhany gave W.O to Boivin, something that 

Felipe Heck used to his advantage beating Marc and reaching for second year in a row the semis. Never so far conqueror of the Argentinian native, Felipe played a solid game while his opponent seemed to suffer the extreme heat. The Brazilian step on the gas and took the lead with a strong 6-2 and 2-0 lead when Charlie called the day.

On the second half of the draw, Lacombe got the best of Phil Chalabi to earn his place among the 4 best players. He would face his old friend Yanko Skerjl. This time around Yanko kept his foot down and earned the right to play the final with a straight win 4 and 4.

Heavy rain delayed the final match for a couple of days, but finally Skerjl got to defend his 400 points.

Montoto finally made it to #1 tying Olivier Borlée (injured) with 1,280 points. Lacombe is right behind with 1,200 and Yanko is 4^th with 1,040. Myself as expected; dropping to the 5^th spot. By the end of the summer, I should be out of the top ten.

Next stop, Côte St-Luc, provincial designated tournament.

Meanwhile at Frank Hornig’s Secret Lab… (aka. Baie d’Urfé tennis club)

Oussama "Roger" Azizi

Oussama and myself, kept adding hours developing the new technique that will eventually bring us many years free of injuries (at least from those of a poor technique origin) Frank is very thorough and takes all the time and resources needed for us to get it right. Even his daughter Lauren (a top junior in Quebec) is helping us. 

We are making some good progress. After 45/50 days, I can see a major improvement on Roger’s volleys and the length of our rallies has tripled what we used to hit. His backhand is more solid than ever before. On my end, my ground-strokes are rising with an unusual amount of spin, and slowly I’m getting there with the backhand slice and forehand volley. It’s going to take time and patience, but we are in the right direction.

We are watching a lot of videos from different players and reading a lot about technique and tactics, understanding better what we are trying to replicate in the terrain.

Maher Diab’ help is at the same time capital to this process with infinite patience to feed me countless balls to reinforce these changes. He sees some evolution as well, and he’s very optimistic about what this will bring.

Have to start working on my stamina and hit the gym again to get fit again. Pain is almost all gone. Still when is humid, I feel some discomfort but not to the point of not being able to hit 450 balls in an hour. Led by Guillermo Vilas example… How much time do we have to practice? Until there is no chance of error.

Practicing partners… The usual suspects… plus 2!

Since I’ve decided to make these changes, in the list of regular hitters we have Oussama “Roger” Azizi, Francis “The Terminator” Demers, Carlos “Charlie” Montoto, Anicet Fotso (The prodigal son is back in the gang), and last weekend we were extremely happy to get Olivier “Oly” Borlée who is starting to hit the courts again. We hit for about 2 hours on Saturday and he looked as if he was still in competition. Simply unbelievable. Watching him connecting those shots with a grin locked in his face is extra-motivating. I’m sure next year he will renew his fighting for the top.

See you in the hunt.

Yours,

IRON GAUCHO