USTA Camp Chapter 2

Today was the 2nd day of camp and I must say it was wicked tiring, but it wasn't so bad. All of the players were split up on a number of courts each with a coach working on 2 on 1s most of the time. My court however was a little different. It was myself, a player from georgia tech, and southern cal with a coach who has trained many top tennis players in the world. Literally 2 minutes into the start of practice we were drilling, we didn't even get a chance to really warm-up before getting run around the court. But the first drill was 2 on 1, and the one person had to work on depth, hitting past targets set up deep in the court. Well he wanted us to hit 30 balls past those targets and for every miss you would lose one in the count. It took me 10 minutes to get to 4. The most I got was I think 14. But in the time allowed none of us got to 30. Then the second drill was probably one of the hardest drills I've ever done. Here is the set up: the coach was on one side of the court up at net and there was one of us up at a time. We would hit everything back to him for only 1 minute but that 1 minute was hell. He would drop shot you, then lob you, then run you to one alley and then to the other. So you literally were running your ass around the court as hard and fast as you could for 1 minute while trying to get the ball back to him. After your 1 minute you had 2 minutes rest as the others girls took their turns. We did this for 30 minutes straight. My legs were like jello after the first minute. But I have to say once it was done you really felt like you got something out of it and that's a good feeling. The best part of the drill though was watching the other courts around us get like 7 water breaks, sitting down laughing and having a good time, as we were getting our asses kicked, unable to breathe or stand without the fence for support. I must say that was the best part. Then we switched courts, finally and we did volleys. I don't think any of us could keep our racquet's up we were so tired. But it was only for about 15 minutes so we pushed through it and completed the drill. And after all the drilling we had fitness, and to our surprise it wasn't running or lifting, just some abs, back, and hurdles. If it were anything else people would have dropped like flies, me especially. So that was our morning session. The afternoon was a simple practice match with a 10 point tiebreaker played if you split sets. So overall not such a bad day. But as I'm writing this I can feel the soreness beginning. I hope I'm able to walk in the morning, but we'll just have to wait and see.