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Mike Dong's Discussions

So who got bumped??

Started this discussion. Last reply by John Spoerl Dec 7, 2011. 19 Replies

Yours truly sure did! :)) 4.5b baby

Have you ever had full body cramps before??

Started this discussion. Last reply by Yvonne Rodgers Sep 22, 2012. 12 Replies

I just got back from playing in a tournament in Yuba City.  It's REALLY hot up there!  This is the first time I've ever experienced FULL body cramps!  Holy @*&^$%!!...that was the WORST pain I've…Continue

Decisions...Decisions...

Started this discussion. Last reply by Hal Wagner Jun 24, 2011. 8 Replies

So, both of my USTA teams made it to the playoffs.  I had to make the decision of which team to play for.  I love my Club Sport team, great people and good players.  I had to break the bad news to…Continue

Post your bragging rights here...

Started this discussion. Last reply by Mike Dong Jul 25, 2011. 5 Replies

I won another tournament this weekend!  :)…Continue

 

Mike Dong's Page

Latest Activity

CoachV - William Vazquez replied to Mike Dong's discussion 'Who's the best looking tennis player?'
"lol"
Apr 22
Mark T. replied to Mike Dong's discussion 'Who's the best looking tennis player?'
"Let's not forget the beautifly Julia Goerges.  She is extremely beautiful. "
Apr 22
Mark T. replied to Mike Dong's discussion 'Who's the best looking tennis player?'
"Clisters is a little too thick for my liking. "
Apr 22
Mark T. replied to Mike Dong's discussion 'Who's the best looking tennis player?'
"Who is this?"
Apr 22

Profile Information

I am a:
Tennis Fan, Casual Player, Tournament or League Player
Random things about me (hobbies, occupation, tennis history, favorite band, etc.):
I started to play at age 11. I played #2 singles and #1 doubles in High School. After High School, I gave up tennis all together. It wasn't until year 2010 that i picked up the racquet again. I self rated myself at 3.5 and joined the USTA Laney Tennis team in Oakland CA. I played 4 matches and went 4-0 before I was bumped to 4.0 by the computer. Those 4 wins as a 3.5 player then turned into losses. There was only 2 matches left in the Laney 4.0 teams season, and I won them both. I was then recruited to the Hidden Hills USTA 4.0 team in Hayward CA, who had a chance to make the playoffs if they won their next two matches. I played those 2 matches for Hidden Hills and won. Off to the playoffs we went. I lost my first match of the season, which happened and had to be the first round of the playoffs. Because I lost that match, our team was unable to make it to the next round of playoffs. I was the deciding factor and let my team down. I choked! Since then, I have been working on my game and trying to improve as much as I can. I've been playing a few NTRP tournaments around the bay area. I felt like I should have won every tournament except 1. I felt like I was better than all the opponents that I played, I just choked, even in some of the earlier rounds. My plan is to try to win as many tournaments as possible, and hopefully get invited to the Grand Prix. Well, I made it to the Grand Prix and lost in the finals. I just got bumped up to 4.5b.
Favorite pro tennis player(s):
Nadal, Federer, Djokavic, Blake and Serena/ Venus Williams. Old school: Boris Becker(I loved how he dove all over the court to chase down balls), Michael Chang, Andre Agassi, Ivan Lendl, John Mcenroe, Stephen Edberg, Bjorn Borg, and Pete Sampras.
My tennis skill (please check your NTRP if you know it):
Pretty damn good, NTRP 4.5
On the court, I am a:
rightie, singles player, top-spinner, baseliner, gracious winner, gracious loser, tournament goer
My favorite local courts:
Montclair, Bushrod, MLK&Oregon, and now Dougherty Valley High, Emerald Glen, and Fallon Sports Park.
Relationship status:
Married
Favorite website:
http://laneytennis.org/WebStudioTennis-2010/playerPhotos.html
Get a playlist! Standalone player Get Ringtones

www.teamsimmons.com. If you don't already know about her, you better ask somebody!&f=Thank you&px=37.65&py=54.9&i=undefined&dom=http://www.satisfaction.com/teddy-bear/" quality="high" wmode="transparent" width="385" height="425" name="Teddy Bear Note" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="samedomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" />
Teddy Bear Generator

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Mike Dong's Blog

Tennis changed and saved my life...

Posted on May 13, 2011 at 11:30am 7 Comments

I picked up the tennis racquet just last year, around this time last year to be exact.  I came back after a 20 year layoff.  I was poisoning myself with drugs, food, alcohol, and nicotine during those 20 years. Not to mention that I was hanging around the wrong crowd.  Oakland California doesn't have a whole lot of positive activities for youngsters to do.  One day, I thought to myself...I'm killing myself slowly.  I wanted to do something more positive with my spare time and Tennis was the…

Continue

It's going to be a very busy month for me...

Posted on May 2, 2011 at 10:00pm 3 Comments

I have 3 tournaments coming up within the next 3 weeks.  Not to mention that my mixed doubles 7.0 USTA team are in the playoffs.  And one of my 4.0 USTA leagues have a couple of tough matches coming up.  Good thing my other 4.0 USTA team has 2 weeks off with no matches!  Also, my father is playing in 2 senior national tournaments that I want to go see.  Busy busy busy month.

USTA leagues

Posted on April 23, 2011 at 7:26pm 2 Comments

I am on 3 different USTA league teams.  Laney MX7.0, Laney Adult 4.0, and San Ramon Clubsport Adult 4.0  I play #1 singles for both 4.0 teams and #1 doubles for MX7.0.  Today I had a Clubsport match at 12pm.  I won that match and had to jam over to play for the Laney team at 2PM.  I barely escaped a default, and arrived 5 minutes late.  I was driving like a maniac just to get there in time.  I won that match also.  :) Playing 3 USTA league teams and juggling tournaments is wearing me down.  I'm… Continue

Comment Wall (127 comments)

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At 6:32pm on September 25, 2012, Coach Dudley said…

Hey stranger, how are you Mike?

At 7:26pm on May 29, 2012, tennisbum said…

where have you been, mike?  hope all's well with you.

At 2:37pm on March 21, 2012, Laurie Dahlgren said…

i WAS JUST LOOKING AT MY OLD MSGS AND DECIDED TO RESPOND TO ONE YOU SENT ME OVER A YEAR AGO ABOUT USTA RATINGS NOT BEING CHANGED IF ONE PLAYS DOUBLES.  I will say this, I did try to call USTA after my team lost the 50 & up Northern Calif. Sectionals when I saw that my rating went up from a 3.0 (that wasn't right either... more a 3.5 at that time, currently prob. a 3.0 due to one year out of playing re: injuries) to a 4.0  When I called to protest, the told me in fact that my rating changed due to the fact that my partner and I won almost all of our matches in that current year!  Also.... I have ONLY been playing dbls (almost exclusively mixed) for the past 8 or 9 years.   Just wanted to let you know that in fact, my rating did change from a 3.0 to 4.0 due to the ratio of games won to lost in that last year of USTA 50 & over team play.

Finally, also after recovering from a fractured ankle, and now after starting to run again & having recently moved to Alamo, I would be very interested if you know of a reg. group of players in the Danville, San Ramon area of which I can join.

 

any thoughts?

 

thanks, Laurel Dahlgren

At 12:58pm on December 21, 2011, Mark / The Mayor said…

Mike, I know you like free things!  :-)

This is going out only to my friends on Tennisopolis.  I'm trying to build some buzz on facebook for Tennisopolis.  I couldn't think of anything extremely clever, so I figured giving away cool stuff always works!  I need your help today;  To enter, just LIKE the post our our fb page.  And stay tuned, we're going to be having more giveways on fb in the near future.

Here's the link to the Verdasco autograph: 

http://www.facebook.com/tennisopolis

Thanks,  Mark

At 8:50am on November 6, 2011, John Song said…

Hi Mike, I just joined this network and looking for someone to play some matches on weekend, let me know and I am close the Doughty valley high.

John

At 12:38am on November 3, 2011, John Spoerl said…
Mike, check out the pigs in the background of this pic =)

http://tennisopolis.com/photo/name-tag-and-yuba-pigs?context=user

I remember you grabbed one this yr!
At 5:24pm on August 15, 2011, tennisbum said…

Just for you, Mike.  ;-)

 

At 6:45pm on August 12, 2011, Nathan said…
Hey Mike - just tried to add a photo but it didn't show up right away, maybe it takes a while to load?
At 8:01pm on June 27, 2011, tennisbum said…
At 11:13am on June 20, 2011, John Spoerl said…
I am the defending champ of the mens open doublles there. I love the piggy roast!
At 11:19pm on June 16, 2011, tennisbum said…

One more for the night...........  ;-)

 

At 11:07pm on June 16, 2011, tennisbum said…

It's been awhile.....  Time to paint your wall with Ana again.  ;-)

 

At 10:37pm on June 9, 2011, Coach Dudley said…
Hey bud, good luck with your tournament this weekend. As they say in Hawaii, "Give-um". Bring the trophy home. We can catch up later about you coaching for me this Summer. I will send you the 6-week course curriculum to review. Aloha Brah.
At 11:33pm on June 8, 2011, Laurie Dahlgren said…

Yeah, I know..... unbelievable.  I recently started running after finally having healed a bad case of shin splints.  Was ready to go re: getting back into tennis.  Gained a little weight so I guess that sort of leads to a variety of stupid additional injuries.  I'll ice, ice, ice, and  hope that in a week or two, carefulloy I'll be able to start playing.... especially after all of this rain. 

 

Prob. will come out to watch & meet you all next Tues.

 

 

 

At 11:10pm on June 8, 2011, Laurie Dahlgren said…

Hey Mike, Laurie here....

 

Well I was going to come out tomorrow evening for the first time, went for a run tonight, fell & thought I broke my ankle, but now thinking I've got a bad sprain. Drat! I was just getting back into running, tripped over something! 

 

After going to the doctor romorrow am, if I haven't broken it, I may hobbble out there just to meet you all and see you all play.  If not tomorrow, for sure next Tues.

 

I hope it's just a sprain!  Can't believe it.... just when I found a group out here!

At 7:48pm on June 8, 2011, Laurie Dahlgren said…

Hi , nice to meet you!

Yes, I definitely will be going tomorrow evening. Wanted to go Tues. but looked like rain. Surely that's all over now!

 

Anyway, I am a pretty competitive player,k but what I was trying to say is that although I am USTA rated as a 4.0, I think I really am more of a mid 3.5.  I really get annoyed at the way they change one's ratings all the time jsut if you  happened to be on a team with another partner, where you wipe people out.  Previously I was rated a 3.5, then played on a bottom of the barrel team, where we literally lost everything! It was horrible, but then I was lowered to a 3.0 because of that.  So.... the next two teams I was on, I was almost always partnered with a strong 4.0 man, and my not being a push over, we won every single match, which took us to the NorCal over 50 mixed finals. That was 2 years ago, now.  So, after a few injuries I am now playing recreationally still w/my old group in Stockton once in awhile. It def. is not enough and too far, but I was desparate to play.

 

Anyway I have a very strong serve, and somewhat lethal forehand , need a little work on backhand & some volleying.  Other than that, I just like to have fun, but fun is playing hard & w/passion!  Would be fun to meet up. I'll def. be there tomorrow evening.

 

Thanks for writing, see you tomorrow if you make it.

 

Laurie

At 4:42pm on June 07, 2011, Mark T. gave Mike Dong a gift
Gift
Because your the MAN!
At 12:13pm on June 7, 2011, Mark T. said…
Totally agree.  So in order for Rafa to stay, he needs to win Wimbledon and Chokavich needs to lose in the Semis again.  I can see that.
At 12:10pm on June 7, 2011, Mark T. said…
I just thought that maybe because you won, you were now a member of the board for this website, and therefore no longer allowed to be listed on the Leader Board.  : p
At 12:06pm on June 7, 2011, Mark T. said…
Dude, how come your profile is off of the Leader Board? 
 
 
 

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