What up, DIII tennis community!
There was a period a couple of weekends ago where you may have noticed me tweeting about something called the #BURNChallenge. I actually didn’t explain what I was tweeting about and you all were probably thinking that I shouldn’t be using my D3AS twitter for my personal tweets. Well, if you thought that, you were mistaken. Little did you know that us bloggers actually got an invite to the Wilson BURN Challenge that was held last week at Indian Wells for the BNP Paribas Open. Since none of the bloggers were able to make it to the event (it was on a Monday/Tuesday) we decided we’d send someone else out there so they could enjoy the experience. Now, who has done some blogging for us before, played DIII tennis, and lives around the area? You got it, none other than Nick Ballou, the man who coined the phrase “Let the Rackets do the Talking.”
Overall, the event had a ton of other blogs/people/tennis fans there, most likely because Simona Halep and Kei Nishikori were there to meet and greet with the participants. In case you only follow DIII tennis, those two players are top 5 players in the Women’s and Men’s circuits right now. Halep even went on to win the whole thing! Here’s a nice picture of Nick hanging out with my boy Kei on Tuesday of the event. Look at that smile!
Picture with Kei Nishikori #4 in the world #IndianWells2015 #burnchallenge pic.twitter.com/UpuagNMG48
— Nicholas Ballou (@NickBallou) March 10, 2015
Other than meeting famous people, participants were given the opportunity to learn about the new PlayerID System as well as Sony’s Smart Sensor. After the educational portion part of the event (yes, we sent Nick back to school… he may or may not need it) the participants were then given the chance to participate in the BURN Challenge. The BURN Challenge consisted of the following activities:
- Eight groundstrokes from baseline, alternating forehands and backhands
- Touch three cones located in the left alley
- Run through agility ladder
- Touch three cones in right alley
- Complete five (5) air squats
- Complete three (3) push ups
- Hit one (1) serve from Deuce court and one (1) serve from Ad court
Knowing his competitive nature, Nick went to let his racket do the talking and participated in the event. He currently is placing #44 in the world with his score of 441 points. Nick decided to bring the big guns and belted out a 142 mph serve as his fastest serve speed. I’m seeing some 150s for the other contestants, so I’m starting to second-guess how accurate this Sony Smart Sensor is! (lol joking, joking). EDIT: It looks like it’s in Kilometers/hour, what a disappointment! The link to the scores can be found below, take a look at all the contestants! Click on the link and then go to “Rankings” to find the results.
http://burnchallenge.wilson.com/
The BURN Challenge will actually be run at all the Grand Slams and some ATP Masters 1000 events, so if you are at an event and want to finally shut Nick up, join the event and beat him! Be sure to tweet me about it so I can make sure to relay that he was beaten by one of you guys. Let the scores do the talking!
Anyways, that’s all I have for you regarding our random lives outside of the blog. If you’re looking for a new racket, I’d personally try out the BURN or BLADE – check out the sites below. That being said, I’ve been a Wilson dude all my life (other than my shoes, the Adidas Feather used to be dopeness) so you don’t need to always take my word for it. Who knows, I might be getting a BURN in my near future and I’ll let you all know how it goes!
I’ll leave you with a picture of Nick holding a racket that can actually handle his ego… the great things being an honorary blog member can do! Remember to check back tonight, because I’ll have a Pool C Historical article going up for your #HumpDay pleasure.
@d3AtlanticSouth I'm switching racquets!!!! pic.twitter.com/psnGrB9YvT
— Nicholas Ballou (@NickBallou) March 10, 2015
+1 for the ego comment #differenttypeofburnchallenge