The False Aroma of Victory
Over the years we have enjoyed many good memories at the Brentwood Swim Club. Those memories include tennis, swimming, some great BBQ’s on the Horizon Smoker the pool owns and even one time maybe a nip of moonshine….
The memories began to fade as the courts deteriorated into unplayable condition over the last few years. We were very excited therefore when we had an opportunity to play one of the first matches on the newly renovated courts at the Brentwood Swim Club in July. The club has recently completed a host of renovations and of particular interest to us was the completely rebuilt tennis court. This court and the two adjacent pickleball courts were built with post-tension concrete by Vee Jay and McConnell and Associates.
This solo court is unusual we noticed as it was designed with a net post that allows the net to be raised for Volleyball play. We have never encountered anything like this and were concerned it could affect shots near the net post. We conferred for a couple minutes and pronounced a new rule that this tall post was in play if a ball were to strike it.
Warm up began with Stan opening up an early production can of Wilson Triniti balls. The balls are designed to reduce the amount of waste caused by plastic tennis ball cans and one time use of balls. The balls are not pressurized and are designed to last longer. The can is made of paper and will easily decompose or can be recycled.
Stan spun his racquet which was decorated with a tennisbutts.com design and Scott won the toss by picking the donkey and elected to serve. After a bit of a struggle Scott was able to hold serve. Stan started strong and won his serve on four straight points. Scott served again and finished at the net with a backhand volley smash down the line. 2-1 Scott. Stan served and Scott started drilling the backhand corner with some deep forehands and broke for a 3-1 lead.
Scott held with a cross court winner for a 4-1 lead and seemed to be in control of this match. Stan was determined to get back in the set and held with a nasty service winner out wide. Scott served again and quickly found himself in position with an ad point to take a 5-2 lead and more importantly to beat Stan for the first time in over 2 years on this blog.
Stan had other things on his mind. On that ad point Stan hit a short ball to Scott’s backhand setting him up for his favorite shot the backhand dropper which Scott hit perfectly and believed he had won the set. Instead the speedy Bulgarian flew up the court and pushed the ball down the line for the point. This was the high point of Scott’s match. He did not know it at the time but at this moment in time Stan, the Triniti balls, Brentwood Swim Club and the Universe became one.
Stan not only closed out this game to get to 4-3 Scott but the then reeled off another 9 games in a row to win the match 6-4,6-0. A tremendous comeback for Stan who really got focused and kept the ball in play making Scott work for every point and eventually causing him to crumble under the relentless pressure.
Fortunately the pool was nearby and we were able to take a quick dip in the pool to cool off and Stan was able to celebrate his victory with his first ever Choco Taco! A young fan from the Brentwood High School Tennis team named Charlie enjoyed a Choco Taco with us. Our conclusion on this court is the location is a 10 and the court is pretty close to a 10 only the strange net posts and a low net/strap kept it from a perfect score. So we will give it an overall 9.5 rating.
Lastly a quick comment on the Wilson Triniti balls. We found them to be pretty excellent. They bounce very consistently and the only difference we found is they had a slightly heavy feel to them which meant maybe serves didn’t have as much pop and touch shots became a little tricky. But hey if they help save the world its probably worth adapting!