Due to some injuries I sat out this year. Jackie played a few matches, lost every match, but had fun, which is what it's all about. The Men's pro was again the focus of the tournament, with the #1 indoor player Jack Huczek joining the fray.
The draws were pretty standard with no suprises. Rocky, like last year, was looking especially sharp. He is the new Brian Hawkes, and it's a shame that Hawkes won't get in there now to play. He advanced through the tournament pretty easily to meet Jack in the finals.
The Jack Huczek and Greg Solis match was a little suprising as I thought that Greg would have beaten Jack. Greg has way more experience outdoors, but he looked really nervous or overconfident or something... Either way he played pretty badly, all the while Jack just kept the same heading of getting a few more points than the error prone Greg.
We were going to take off after that match, but then Jack and Rocky decided to play early. Was a nice deal for me as there were no jumpies on Sunday for the kids (one of the jumpies had died, and the kids were trapped or something on Saturday) so it was hard to justify sitting around for 2 more hours watching them.
Rocky played outstanding against Jack. I wish he'd show the same amount of confidence and resolution in indoor. His serves were masked extremely well, appearing just over the short line and within the wide serve line. These prove especially difficult to retrieve, and Jack was having a really hard time doing that. Outdoor singles gets very frustrating because if your serves aren't on, you're going to lose. Jack early on showed some great gets but Rocky's outdoor experience would have Jack scrambling and then Rocky hitting excellent out the door shots. I actually saw Jack "give up" on 2 shots. He looked beaten later in the game, and Rocky just kept pounding away.
The crowd was also wanting Rocky to win badly. I felt like shouting out some helpful hints for Jack but didn't think he'd listen, plus I'd be the only one cheering for Jack (Hey, I gotta live and play with these dudes the rest of the year :)). The last match point was particularly uneventful as Rock pounded a head high serve, Jack returned and Rocky dinked it to the corner to finish it out.