Hi everyone, Who is going to this camp at the Ottawa RA Centre on Thursday February 12th, 2004. I might be going. It will be coached by: Jesper Larsen Joachim Fischer Neilson Mike Beres Kyle Hunter Andrew Dabeka Reaper
How the camp went (sorry for the delay =P) This is my post about training at the Ontario High Performance Junior Camp on February 13th, 2004 at the RA Centre in Ottawa, one of Canada’s three national training centers. The coaches there were: Mike Bitten Mike Beres Andrew Dabeka Valerie St. Jacques Stefan Wojcikiewicz Kyle Hunter Jesper Larsen and his partner did not come as one of them injured their backs. When we arrived there, we got to do half court singles, as Andrew Dabeka arranged the matches, he could not play because of a knee injury. My first opponent was Pan Am Games Bronze medallist, Kyle Hunter! We played for about a few minutes before Andrew wanted a rotation and Kyle beat me 5/0, and I was able to take serve back 4 times with net shots and my smashes. His judgement was excellent and I tried to get into fast and driving rallies with Kyle but he just drove it back at me and I was forced to make a bad reply, which he put away. My second opponent was Kyle’s partner, Pan Am Champion, Mike Beres. I got ONE point off him!! =D It was very tough playing against him. Then I played against Stephan Wojcikiewicz, and got totally destroyed, he wasn’t even trying. But then again, I play doubles, so I waited eagerly for the afternoon round. Then, after that was done, we got a demonstration of half court singles from Mike and Stephan, while Kyle and Andrew acted as “colour commentators.” It was a five point game but took a long time and it was really awesome to see these two top Pan Am players go at it. Stephan “won” that half court game. We then did a drill that is commonly done at the Canadian National Training Center, which is the L drill. In this case, the person at the back either smashes, clears, or drops from one place, without moving much, there is a person at the net to cut off replies and give net shots, but this person cannot drive or “kill” the person on the other side. The person on the other side can only do net shots and clears, it is like a two on one game. It is expected that the person at the back and at the net that they do not make mistakes, only one or two mistakes are tolerable. We were each broken up into groups of 4 based on ability, each group would have a national player watching and giving advice. We did the drill, which was really fun, and Kyle talked to each of us in length about what we are supposed to improve on. It was really cool. At lunch, Andrew Dabeka sat down and gave us a lecture on how to play singles, as taught by his former coach (and Gade’s former coach), Michael Kjeldsen. We learned about different zones in the game and different styles and how to play against them. We also talked about the players he has played in the past, including him nearly beating Anders Boesen in a Danish club match, like 17/16, 15/13 or something like that! After lunch, the best part of the day! Challenge the national players!! Right away, I got gutsy and challenged Mike Beres to a game of singles, he’s the reigning Pan Am Games Champion. I told him not to go too easy on me and he made me look like a “chicken with no head” on the court. I lost to him 15/2. He gave me lots of advice afterwards, which really helped me. But the big highlight of my day was getting 11 points of Beres and an elite junior in a game of doubles. It was fun to drive against Beres, I lost the battle most of the time. At about 3:30 pm, the camp was done. I can say that it has been one of the coolest experiences of my life, training at the nation’s top training center with some of the best players in my country and with some of the best juniors in Ontario. It really opened my eyes up to what is out there on the Pan Am scene. I got to talk to the national players, learn how they train, what kind of conditioning work they do, how they bare with being away from home during their European tours, and also how much $$$ they make! LOL Oh yeah, sorry no pics at this time. Didn’t get the opportunity to.
