2010 USTA 60s Hardcourts Doubles Final: Brian and I lost 6-4 6-4 to Tommy Connell & Tony Dawson.
Brian and I lost his serve at 4 all in the 1st set and then the opening game of the 2nd set. 
And that was all she wrote. We had a couple of break points in the first and only one in the 2nd set (when Tony was serving for the match at 5-4, and of course he hits a nonreturnable serve to me right on the “T”).
A matter of not winning 3 or 4 points during the entire match and you get routined 4 & 4.
Tommy & Tony played flawless tennis, especially with their volleys once all 4 players started to converge on the net when points would develop past the server’s first volley.
And Tommy Connell was a master out there. Every volley was perfectly bisecting the space between me and Brian right down the middle.
I mean come on, how often have we all heard that really good high percentage doubles is played right on down the middle? Tons of times, and yet, we still think for some reason that we’ve got to go behind a player, try to go up their alley, try a lob volley, all of these shots being considered low percentage shots.
Not with the Tommy Connell and Tony Dawson who trusted that their volleys aimed right into the middle of the court would work.
And not that Brian and I were trying lots of low percentage shots, it’s just that our middle volleys weren’t quite as accurate as our opponents’ volleys were in the finals.
It’s one thing to generally play shots into the middle, but it’s an entirely different thing to actually bisect that space right between your two opponents.
This takes practice and guts to have the faith that the middle is going to be OK.
My hat goes off to both Tommy & Tony for not only handling us in the finals, but also for their big win over the #1 seeds Newman & Turville in the semis.
2010 USTA 60s Hardcourts Singles Final: Larry Turville went through Brian Cheney 6-1 6-2. You read that right, 1 & 2.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time in this post analyzing just exactly what happened, but let’s just say that Larry played in a league of his own all week. He faced one break point on his serve the entire tournament. That’s a little frightening…
I’d never seen Larry play before so I was eager to see what the fuss was all about.
Uh, OK, I get it now, wow…
An all court player who starts the points as a baseliner, Larry doesn’t really serve and volley much at all.
A hard firm backhand slice that he can place anywhere on the court at will, and his forehand is a continental gripped medium topspin that has a lot of net clearance for his rally ball. 
He’s calm and doesn’t ever rush the moment. He simply plays shots that look as if their neutral in terms of not giving him nor his opponent really any obvious advantage.
And then the fun starts…
If you serve and volley against him, Larry has no problem playing a soft slow slice down to your feet so you’re always volleying up.
Always up, never a good contact point to get a clean volley to a corner.
His passing shot attempt looks pretty ordinary, but the problem is he rarely if ever misses. He waits and holds his racket to the very last nano second to execute his shot and if he doesn’t slide it by you on one side or the other, he’s happy to roll it up so if you do get to it you’ve got a really high volley to have to deal with.
Not a lot of what I might call fun.
Look, Larry Turville was at at another level this past week, and I’m still going to be thinking about what he does that the rest of us might try to copy and model.
Mai and I drove home yesterday back here to northern California and Larry’s tennis game was on my mind off and on throughout the drive.
Let me process some more and I’ll get back to you…
We’ve got to start working on that transitional shot in doubles when you’re serving. I got a ton of feedback over the past few weeks in response to my question about what’s your #1 challenge in doubles when you serve and then move on up to net. We always have to play that mid court (no-man’s land) transitional shot which is either volley, a 1/2 volley, an approach shot, etc.
I’ve got a tip for you later this week that I’ll send to you.
In the meantime, my best to you and hope you’re getting lots of tennis court time recently.
Brent
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- Doubles: ”Why & When To Be Where On The Court” - Click here
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Brent, congrats on your silver ball in the dbls draw. I enjoyed your updates and found that your comments during the week were informative. I know Doug Ruffin very well and have lost to him many times. I lived in the PNW for 12 yrs. Good player. Nice guy.
Hope to see you soon on the Big Island.
Aloha,
Hector
Hi, Brent. I enjoy your tips very much. I’m a 3.5 player and just played in a 4.0 USTA men doubles tournament in Michigan.I just noticed how much better the 4.0 players were. More consistent shot making, crisper volleys and better transition game. I realize that I have a lot of work to do to improve before I can start to win at the 4.0 level but at 56 years old I have an uphill battle.
Hi Brent…
yes, regarding Larry Turville (Turville New 2009 Super Senior Circuit Chairman, lovingly called the Super Senior Grand Prix — here’s a good link for more info: http://flsupersenior.wordpress.com/about/), I had the privilege of officiating the finals at one of the Florida SW tournaments this past year, where Larry played Paul Kronk (The right-hander reached his highest singles ATP-ranking on 25 April 1976, when he ranked number 78 in the world.
Kronk won seven doubles titles and was a runner-up in the US Open Doubles on one occasion and a two-time runner up in the Australian Doubles.)…what a match…
Paul ripping cross court winners from the top of his shoelaces; the only player I saw give Larry any trouble at all….Larry prevailed.
As they say, he’s got game! For a big man, excellent ball control, good movement also, and I’ve always seen him to be in “match shape” – if he needs to, he can play 3 hard sets.
Congrats on your tourney results.
Best,
Bob
Congratulations Brent! Another excellant performance at the highly competitive level.
Thank you for the detailed analysis, I enjoy learning by reading your game analysis. The challenge is to spent the effort (include finding the right partner) to practice the tips seriously, on regular basis.
Have a nice rest and keep up the good work! Thanks Again.
Michael
from Oregon
Its the nature of the sport (a winner and a second placer:)) and its human nature to want to be on top. While there’s only one “winner” ( or two in the case of doubles) there are numerous quality players in each tournament or league. Maybe you would have come out on top if you weren’t busy making daily entries on this website – but the fact that you are provides your readers with valuable insight deep in a high level tournament – that is yet at the recreational level, whereas a blog from the pros is much harder to relate to. I appreciate so much of what I read on your website – your desire to better tennis players all over is a worthy goal and that you combine it with real life experience makes it all the more practical and valid. In that sense you win over and over again.
Appreciate the kind words Cindy, thanks.
Brent
I hate to say it, but maybe the way to play Larry Turville is with extreme grips and massive topspin to bounce that ball up over his low continental strike zone. (A player with extreme grips might want to focus the attack to Larry’s continental topspin forehand.)
Well, to be honest, none of us in the 60s can nor want to play with those grips.
Larry would have to play down in the 40s. And anyone in the 40s still playing with extreme grips won’t be playing that way when they turn 60.
Brent
Brent — Thanks for the great tips and congrats on a great job in the doubles final.
As a tennis director I will mention your web address in my next Tennis Newsletter. You provide a lot of great tips and other info players will find interesting. Good luck and keep up the good work.
Howard Wand
Grants Pass, OR
Larry Turville’s slice backhand is Roswallesque. I am sure that you know that he went through Roscoe Tanner twice this winter in Florida playing down in the 55s!
Brent,
Of course didn’t see the match, but your description makes me think I was there. Club level players will benefit when reading how players at your level respect their opponents winning game. Thanks for taking the time to share your match analysis with us.
Roger Larson
Hi Brent,
Congratulations on a good tournament for you. I would love to see a little video of you actually competing in
one of your next tournaments as well as a minute or two of Brian. I really enjoyed your analysis of Larry Turville’s play in the singles finals. Larry was probably the best player with the best record ever for Georgia Tech’s tennis team. I played him in a very important singles match when I was a senior at the U. of South Carolina and Larry was a soph. at Tech. USC
won every match we played that year,but tied Tech. when
we were four all in matches and one set a piece in a doubles match and it became too dark to finish. The Tech coach didn’t want to finish the next day and we
remained undefeated for that year and Atlantic Coast
Conference champions. I beat Larry in the first set and lost the next two sets 6-3 in the third. He played just
the way you described. For a very big young man he
didn’t have any shots to over power you like I thought
he would, but he never seemed to cough up an unforced error. I played more of a power game with a big kick serve that I would vary in degrees of spin, power and placement that against most of my opponents would get me a lot of free points or set me up for putting away the return. Some time in the second set Larry caught on to my serve and neutralized it. I would really like you to think about this…or maybe ask Brian, did it seem like Larry being so tall and with such long arms
could reach every ball Brian hit him? I couldn’t get a ball by him when he came to net or over his head. He got to every ball in a rally at the baseline and all the drop shots. I don’t think I sliced enough balls at his feet when he came to net and I probably should have brought him up to net a lot more than I did with drop shots and angled balls. I just kept thinking, ” He’s
just too tall and too steady. But I think I would add
a couple more comments. He was also a gifted athlete and
he played very smart percentage tennis and stopped my
attack on the net with those little dink slice shots that were hard to cover and if I made the return I was always hitting the ball up and there was big Larry right
there all set to place away the next shot out of my teach. That was the only singles match I lost that year.
Even as a soph. and he was nothing flashy, he was the best player I ever played in college tennis. I would really appreciate a reply even if you don’t post it and make it just personal to me.
Thanks’
Larry
Hi Larry and well said.
Larry’s opponents just looked defeated from the get go.
It was a different look in their walk between points, their entire demeanor.
It was weird but fascinating to watch.
Brent
how tall is larry turville?
Excellent tips. It is always helpful to hear about the “axioms of doubles tennis” from guys at the top of their game like you, because it allows me to keep working at something that is not so easy to do, without giving up hope that I am on the right track.