Of Tennis And Metal Sculpting, a Story by Clay Hoffman

Clay Hoffman is one of the many wonderful personalities, who are part of Tennis Round, and in addition to playing tennis, he likes to build art from metal. Check out his cool YouTube video channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/artbyclay

Here’s his story in his own words.

“I had gone my whole childhood without every swinging a tennis racket. It was around 1976, after I had graduated from High School that I was at a neighbors garage sale, Pete had a fancy composite racket for sale and he told me “you will impress people just walking on to the court with this racket.” I purchased the racket for a couple bucks and headed down the road. As fate would have it, I stopped in at another garage sale and at this garage sale I found a paperback book on how to play tennis. Now I had a tennis book and a racket, my next step forward was finding some friends who played tennis. I was severely thrashed for the next couple of years until I got my game together. I will never forget this game I won, the other guy got so made at losing he smashed his racket on the court, breaking the frame. Now many years later, I have had many excellent matches with many excellent friends. I am not a super competitive person, but it is a lot of fun to get out there and mix it up.

About the same time I started playing tennis, I started metal sculpting. After High School, I took some welding classes at the local community college. A friend helped me get a job welding in a factory making wood stoves. This friend had a welding set at home and he let me come over and work at making metal sculptures.

metal sculpting

My first sculptures were little motorcycles that had spinning wheels, and rotating front forks. A neighbor liked my metal work and commissioned me to make a tree-scape for over his fireplace. I made a couple practice trees and got his okay to make a forest of them. Around this time I entered my practice trees in a local art show. I received first place for the nonprofessional sculpture category. So here I am, I got a paid for the commission, and I received a first place award at the show, I figured fame and fortune awaited me in the art world. Now over 35 years later I am still chasing the dream of fame and fortune, it always seems as though it is just around the next corner. I have achieved many personal successes, one of which is where I teach children in schools how to draw cartoons, and how to make wire frame sculptures. I have a web site http://www.ArtByClay.com that is in desperate need of major updating. There are a couple nice pictures of some of my earlier work, but nothing has been uploaded for many years. If you want to see the really new stuff, you need to come over for a studio tour.

How to String Your Tennis Racket – Reviews, Demos and Videos by Inspired Tennis

If you are seeking accurate and reliable information about tennis strings and stringing, we highly suggest checking out Inspired Tennis at www.inspired-tennis.com

String expert David Henry also has a YouTube channel on racket stringing, in which he has tips and hands-on demos on how to string your tennis racket, how to select the right strings, apply the right tension and make adjustments to fit your game style:

racket stringing videos inspired tennis

Inspired Tennis also provides valuable information about:
– Various types strings
– New strings on the market
– Recommendations on which strings to use for various styles of play
– String industry news
– Stringing tips and information

And…  Inspired Tennis regularly holds string give-away contests where David gives away FREE sets of strings for his loyal site followers to play-test.  In the past, David has given away hundreds free sets of string from brands such as Wilson, Luxilon, Dunlop, SOLINCO, Genesis, STILL IN BLACK, Alien, and others.

Additionally, if you want to learn how to string your own racquets, Inspired Tennis offers an incredibly comprehensive DVD course that can be purchased on the site.  Through this course, David has helped hundreds of people across the globe learn how to string.

Who is the king of Tennis – Nadal or Djokovic

Your beloved guys’ tennis players Nadal and Djokovic are trending now on Twitter and other social networking sites. Who among you have seen this nerve-wrecking and jaw-dropping moment on their showdown? Are you Team Rafa or Team Novak?

C’mon, both are beyond awesome players so it’s definitely worth-watching. But if you miss it, you’re losing half of your life.

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 Subsequent to Nadal’s return from an injury after seven months, as usual he did not frustrate his fans and just show that Rafael Nadal is truly inevitable. He finally gives you an idea about how he really plays and how he overpowered our Mr. Rank #1 with 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-7, 9-7.

In point of fact tennis life would be boring without these two remarkable players. Nevertheless, champion will be a champion so King of Clay always keep in mind – Do not be uncertain to go for the eight!  

The earth is really round, sometimes you are on top and sometimes you are at the bottom and we cannot do anything about it.  I guess we just have to say congrats to Nadal!! For sure a lot of people are very in high spirits with his victory.  Vamos Rafa and good luck to your career, Djokovic!!!

How to add tennis courts to your profile

We’ve had a few questions from people around how to add home courts. So, here’s what you need to do. First you need to register and create a Tennis Round account, of course. If you already have one, then you need to Login, go to Courts and select your home court. Just click on the button that says “Select as home court”. That’s it.

Here are the individual steps on the site.

1. Login to Tennis Round – https://www.tennisround.com/login

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2. Go to the Courts tab, find your courts and click Select as home court

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The home court will be added to your profile. If you ever want to remove it, just click the little trash can.

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Adding home courts is cool, because then people can see that you play at the same court. And conversely, you’ll know who else plays at your court. Imagine that.

The Williams Sisters on French Open 2013

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The French Open is up and about and can you guess who are going to play at the French Open? Who else but the astonishing Williams sisters – Serena and Venus and they will be partners for the fourth time at Roland Garros. A lot are asking if they are twins, FYI, they aren’t!

They both received wild card that’s why they are in this much awaited tournament. As per records, the sisters already won thirteen grand slams from the doubles.  If you can remember, they defeated Hingis and Kournikova last 1999 which opens the door to success. Then last January, they did not have the chance to get the victory over Errani and Vinci.  However, they both participate exceptionally as well as present a marvelous trick at all times that’s why they do not give up regardless of of losing on their last matches.

A total of 14 doubles teams will feed your eyes with remarkable strokes and serves on the upcoming amazing game as they were all awarded wild cards for the French Open. Let’s wait and see if the sisters will prevail particularly Venus as she is much skilled. We wish them good luck!

Anyone else here excited to watch the 2013 French Open?

 

Tennis Leagues Are Back! With a Social Spin. Get in the Mix!

By popular demand we’ve brought back the tennis leagues!

Apparently many of you liked getting matches lined up for you, so you don’t need to ping a whole bunch of people to see who’s in town, and who wants to play.

We ran these in 10 cities about a year ago and got some pretty decent action. People played their matches, reported scores and, of course, met new players. Some even earned prizes from our league sponsors and a cool trophy to prove they won their division.

We’re expecting to run the program in 50 cities this year, probably the bigger cities and metro areas. So, likely we won’t reach all 2,000 cities, where we have players. But there’s no harm in signing up. We won’t charge you anything if your city doesn’t gather enough players. We’ll just make a note that you were interested, and we’ll keep you posted if we get more players at some point.

A few things to mention about the Flex League format this year:

  • It’s a co-ed league. Open to both men and women. Don’t be surprised if you get an email that you’re scheduled to play the opposite gender.
  • People forget. We get it. We’ll remind you when you have a match lined up. But if you can’t make it, be a good sport and send a note to cancel or reschedule. People are counting on you to show up. That’s why they join the program.
  • You don’t pay upfront for this. We’ll just need your card for reservation purposes, but won’t charge it, if enough players don’t enroll in your area.
  • We’ve renamed the program Flex League, as they’re meant to be a bit more social and flexible with their timing. If you can’t make your match this week, play it next week.
  • We’ll match you up with players of similar skill level. Depending on your area and player density, you might get tennis players who are 0.5 skill level higher. Don’t skip that match. Take the opportunity and step up your game.
  • We’ve dropped the requirement to alternate between “home” and “away” matches. With public tennis courts being tough to reserve, we never know where we’ll end up playing. So we’ll leave that to the players to confirm on the day of the match.
  • Ah! How much? Just $29 to join the Flex League. And you’re covered for a whole year. If you don’t like it, just cancel within the first month to get a refund. You won’t get charged at all, if not enough players enroll in your area.

Lots of folks asked us in the past “Are you going to match me up with somebody?” and also “I don’t really want to compete. I just want to hit with someone”. So we now came up with this program. The Flex League. A league with a social spin. Hopefully it’s more fun and less stress. We’ll match you up with other players and we’ll connect you with them. You just need to confirm your match and play it.

It’s also a good idea to report your scores. This will help us tweak the matching algorithm, so you get better tennis partners in the future. You’ll also get to see how your friends are doing through the season. It’s one of the first things players look up before they play someone new.

Make sure to grab a spot and register today.

If you’re new to Tennis Round, you can sign up here: http://www.tennisround.com/register

Good luck out there, play safely and have fun!

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Release Notes R3 to R6 – May 22, 2013

We’ve had multiple updates to the site in the last releases 3,4,5 and 6. Here’s a summary of the main ones:

  1. Collapse messages from same player into one conversation. Scroll through many conversations more easily. Toggle the show / hide button to expand a conversation. tennis-messages-collapsed
  2. Hide your age from your public profile. Check the little box and ta-da! Your age will be hidden. It’s in My Profile > Edit Your Details. hide your age from public profile
  3. Extended Player Profile – added new sections – About Me, Work, Nationality, Racket, String Tension, Favorite Pro and Tournament. This part has quickly become a favorite. People write some funny stuff about their game.rich player profile
  4. Added a Games tab, which will house different games, starting with Flex Leagues. Tennis players who enroll will be getting matched up by the program to different tennis partners of similar skill level.
  5. Added latest count of players at on Court Profile pages. That’s how many people have selected it as their home court. Right now, for example, 49 people have picked Golden Gate Park as their home court. tennis players at this court - golden gate park
  6. Displayed total number of players each each tennis court in the search results page. Gives you a quick idea of how popular each court is. For instance, Hayes Valley has 56 players, Jefferson Square has 26, Alamo Square 27, Dolores Park 73 (you can tell that might be a busy one, even though they have 6 courts there). number of players per tennis court

Meet the new Ambassador of Porsche

Whenever we spot car commercials, shows, car racing events and the like more often than not men market and drive it. It makes them look more mannish when they drive cool cars and that it is very unusual that we see women advertise it except this time, our favorite car brand Porsche made a big change in the history as they got a fresh and a perfect model for a high-end car. The lucky girl is no other than the wonderful tennis player Maria Sharapova.

 Sharapova Porsche

(Photo: Getty Images)

She is the very first woman who will endorse it starting this year up to 2016 and on top of that she has the magic and the she is the only woman who can take hold of this marvelous opportunity said Mr. Matthias Mueller, CEO Porsche. The no.2 Tennis player had the chance to be the ambassador of Porsche effective last April 22, 2013. Just so you know she shielded her title in the Tennis Grand Prix and took home a White Porsche 911 last year in Stuttgart. What else can she ask for? She already has Sugarpova then at the moment Porsche, what else can she ask for?

Beyond doubt it is raining blessing on her all this time. Can you guys tell what’s next? We will surely looking forward to your next success!

The Match of Djokovic-Haas that shocked the world

Tommy Haas

 

Who doesn’t know this incredible tennis player who is also an ex-schoolmate of Arnold Schwarzenegger that gave a jaw-dropping match last Tuesday in opposition to Novak. Who would have thought that he can conquer our rank #1 player after so many years? The ball is beyond doubt round as if you could remember, Tommy Haas was ranked #2 way back 2002. It is indeed true that once a winner, always a winner furthermore he did not let down his fans with 6-2, 6-4 score. if truth be told, age does not matter when it comes to playing Tennis!  Maybe it is to some players but not with Haas we all observed that he played just like those times when he was on top of triumph in the world of Tennis.

Everyone was surprised when they saw Djokovic performed awfully in which the no.1 player admitted so. Moreover he even said that “it is the worst match he ever played in a long time”. Truly he did well on this match and serves up perfectly and for sure the fans are all thrilled and will definitely don’t let pass the quarterfinals.

Does Haas really deserve this win? What do you think? Can Tommy also overpower the other top Tennis players?