David Mathiesen
May 7, 2024
Lucas wins his first tournament...
In this newsletter:
Results
Mathiesen Tennis Coaches Education
New FUNdamentals kids program
Near future: Champ Of Collins tournament, more newsletter updates.
I already know what everyone wants to hear so let's just begin with the sexy stuff.
Results
Lucas Cobos wins his first tournament
Lucas and his brother David just turned 13 and have therefore moved into the U14 tournament competition. They've started out this years tournament season with competing in Lewis Tennis' level 7 tournaments and Lucas won the first one of them with good performances. Both brothers are doing great work on and off the court and it will be fun to follow their development this year. We have especially worked on their athletic foundation and they are making good progress with that.
Also, we had participation from Lissette (her first yellow ball tournament) and our new players Wynn and Vas who all performed well.
Tyler Van Tassell continues development
Winter is a bit slower with high level tournaments in Colorado, so some of our players need to travel more for tournament participation during this time. Tyler has been very active this winter since he is to leave us for college tennis in August 2025, and he is determined to develop as much as possible until then. He has been able to get into higher level tournaments and get a lot of good experience playing other players that are UTR level 10 and higher. Tylers current UTR level is almost 9 and he got his (and Mathiesen Tennis') first ever win over a UTR level 10 player and a bunch of level 9's, so good job Tyler. The focus lately has been to trust and enforce own game style, and play to own strength's regardless of the opponent, and keep that focus and discipline in practice. The higher the level of tennis the more the details matter, so focus need to be locked in both in training and match.
The reality is, that we can not control our results, but we can control our performance, and a great performance is what we, in Mathiesen Tennis, define as success. If we perform with full deliberate focus and effort every time we step in on the court there will be development, and if there is development the results will follow.
Irene Cobos
Irene who joined us last year with her brothers are currently in high school season playing her freshman year. She's the 2nd singles on the Fossil Ridge team and won regionals last week in Loveland and will be playing State championships this week.
Mathiesen Tennis' Coaches Education
Mathiesen Tennis is growing fast and we are at a point where it is hard for me to take in more players without sacrificing quality for existing players unless the new players fit into one of our current groups. Our long term goal in Mathiesen Tennis is to have a small tennis environment with high quality year-round tennis practice in all development stages until college, and to do that we need good assistant coaches in the program. Therefore, we started our own coaches education with our best players so they can become assistant coaches. They already know the training philosophy so it is a way that we will be able to provide the program we want to down the line with more quality training for players in all development stages up until college. Also, it is a great way for the performance players to better their understanding of their own tennis and learning life skills through the coaching craft.
Below is a couple of pictures from our first education course that was a mix of theory and practice. The main themes were how we want to develop a good tennis human, healthy long-term player development with focus on the FUNdamental kids stage, and how to develop athletic-, technical-, and tactical skills using an integrated teaching approach in this stage.
"FUNdamentals" kids program
This brings us to our new FUNdamentals kids program which will begin this summer. You can read more about it in detail here, so please help spreading the word if you know anyone that would be interested.
Near future
Champ Of Collins tournament May 10-12
Already this weekend we have our very own Champ Of Collins tournament in Rolland Moore Park, which is my attempt (along with Larry Lewis) to create more high level tournaments in Fort Collins, and for high level players in the area to come together. It is a WTN level-based tournament so both juniors, adults, girls & boys, and men & women can compete against each other in the same tournament as long as they are in the same level range. This means that potentially ALL high level players in the area can come together and compete.
All our performance players will be participating so please come and cheer for some good tennis (I know Larry will fire up the barbecue for spectators). Singles matches will be Friday afternoon and Saturday, and doubles tournament Sunday. The draws will be out Thursday.
More news
Now that we will be going into tournament season I will be reporting more results and news in the coming months, so all newsletter fans will have an opportunity to follow along with Mathiesen Tennis and all our players. We don't do social media, so this will be the place to follow along.
Thank you for reading and may all your shots catch the line!
Until next time,
David
