Leaking Mojo and Demonic Possession

Sets 78-79 (of 365):

Stuart vs. S. Winner at South Austin: Stuart 6-1, 7-5.

My Mojo: Steady but Slowly Leaking And Turned to Goo at the End

The first set, my serve was totally on. My ground strokes were positioned well, but I was not getting as much topspin as I would have liked, and I was not getting power. But my serves were doing almost exactly what I wanted them to. I got most of my first serves in, and even hit some winners on second serves. His serves were powerful but did not seem terribly accurate, and I was thinking to myself that I bet his serves would be a lot better for him if he backed off on the power just about fifteen percent and concentrated more on placement. It seemed like he was relying on raw power for his serves. When they worked, they were awesome, though I had enough mojo at first to return most of the faster ones that went in. I felt like I won the first set on strategy, though it did seem like he was making a lot of errors.

The second set was marked by a combination of me losing focus a little bit and him tightening up his game and improving his accuracy. For a while I just felt like my mojo was leaking. His errors went down and his shots became more accurate. He also got more of his irst serves in, and I just didn't have as much there to get the harder ones back. i was hitting some of his fast serves a little late so they were going wide. So I made an attempt to stand a little farther back and hit the ball farther forward. This adjustment helped a little. I drifted in and out of being tense as well. I won the first three games, and then he won two, I won one, and he won the next two to even it up at 4-4. Then he won the next game and it was 5-4. At that point, we took a little bit longer break than usual (we had hardly been stopping at all on the changeovers) and I walked to the end of deuce court and noticed that my arm was really tense. Then I realized that my whole body was really tense. I made an attempt to loosen up my body from my arm out, and I "concentrated on relaxing", though that sounds like an oxymoron. But it weemed to work. I started hitting with a more relaxed swing, and each stroke had a purpose that was not bothered by tightness and lack of focus. I won the next two games to bring it to 6-5.

On that changeover, we took another long break and had some conversation. Something weird happened when I got back. I was a total spazz in the last game. I was not hitting anything right. It was like a changeling took over my body. I couldn't focus, I couldn't relax, I couldn't hit. Very few of my first serves went in and my second serves just were efforts to get the ball over the net. We got to 30-all, and amazingly, I won the next two points even though I was not there. I have no idea how that happened. Like I said, I wasn't there, even though I was there. Suddenly I returned to realize that I won the match.