I asked Monster to make a separate thread for his CLC league in the Bay Area. CLC is a team comp held at his local club with a lot of company teams. Bay Area is known as Silicon Valley, where just about any tech company of significance has their HQ... and there are LOTS of good foreign and some US players working in these companies.
We have 28 teams this season. Teams play vs each other in a head to head 5 match ABC/XYZ S-S-D-S-S format. 3 match wins and team match is over. 3 points for a team vs team win, 2 points if a team is a no-show and defaults, and teams get 1 point for showing up, fighting, but losing.
TT Monster aptly named our team "Trouble Makers" and when I showed up yesterday to be introduced, I simply said I was William, just an out of town trouble maker. I drive 2 hrs to play on this team.
The far infrared heat belt I got can be plugged into an AC powered cell phone charger that has a USB or I can us a portable battery power pack for cell phones. I have been using this belt to try to add some of the far infrared wavelengths to get to where my muscle tear is, 4 cm or so deep below skin. I use it at work too. I have had a full week to try to heal up. The tear made it impossible for me to explode to the side or use my hips in an explosive manner to add power of spin. That made me be the typical old player parked at the table who takes only one step.
I played 5 hours at Monster's club before league and did just two doubles matches. (I was to play in game 5 if it got that far - it never did, we won both team vs team 3-0) I can say that I have healed enough to explode a little when I wanted. I see some progress now. Hopefully, in a few weeks I will be 80-90 percent there and can begin strengthening the hip a little before that.
I got paired with the same 2200 USATT level player, James, older gent like me, he had a great varied FH and nice flexible attack. I pissed away the first 4 points on the first game, an auspicious start to say the least. James was extra stable an carried us. He made up for when I wasn't landing, but later that game I contributed. I got better as the first match went by, game 2 and 3 I accounted for more than enough points, whether it was directly or setting up James. If a player like James wasn't in the match, it could have gotten real ugly.
Match 2 of doubles, went better, even though we lost game 3. We were in good control of points, some had viewer friendly extended rallies. Most of the time though, I was able to end it on serve receive. I did most of my damage there. Players there are not expecting a fat 50 yr old gent to BH flip their good serves with heavy spin or fast pace. Blocking got me a few winners too, who says blocking can't be an offensive shot?
All in all, after a start where my doubles partner could have justifiably tried me for severe incompetence/treason and sentence me to burn at the stake, I showed that I belonged on the team and can be an asset. I couldn't ask for anything more.
Monster, we have a lot of stories to tell, make up a CLC thread like you discussed.
This could also get other teams to tell stories and join TTD as well. Maybe we could make a flyer page with the URL and give it to the team captains we meet.
