An Unfinished Match, A Lesson, And Late Night Panic on my Bike

Sets 65-66 (of 365):

Stuart vs. T at Pharr. Winner: To Be Determined 6-2 (S), 4-6 (T), 2-2, to be finished Feb. 3 at Northwest Park.

My Mojo: Back And Forth

This was a ladder match. He showed up about fifteen minutes late, so I practiced hitting serves for a little while. After he showed up, we warmed up some, and I let him warm up some serves and told him I had already warmed up serves. The only problem was that the serves I had practiced had all been hard and flat, because I had wanted to work on that type of serve. I didn't practice any spin serves, but then I hit mostly spin serves in the games we played. So my serves were a bit off and I double-faulted a little more than usual. I think I had four or five double-faults in the match, which doesn't sound like much, but it's a little high for me. And two of the double-faults were in the first two games that I served. Also, at first my serves were not as accurate as they usually are. In those first couple games that I served, I had to do some fine-tuning, but after that, I got my serve where I needed it to be.

Despite the minor problems with my serve, I was playing pretty well at first. I won the first set without much struggle, though he did break my serve one game. That was made up by my breaking his serve most of the other games, except for one, and winning all the rest of the games I served. My serves in the first set were mostly pretty strong and gave me good offensive game, which I was able to capitalize on well to keep an advantage. And when he served, I was able to return most of his serves solidly, anticipating most of them well, even though some of them were pretty hard. His second serves were markedly less powerful than his first serves, so I was able to step in some to get more advantage, and that worked consistently. I saw him doing the same for my second serves, so I started serving my second serves almost as hard as my first serves, and I was able to get him on some second serves by putting power behing them that I don't think he expected. Also, if I was up by two or three points in a game, I served some second serves almost identical to my first serves. But I did mix it up some and served some second serves softer, just so he would not get complacent about what I was going to throw at him. I'm pretty good about mixing up my serves in general, though I do tend to rely on a lot of spin.

Then in the second set we had some scoring discrepancies that kind of blew my cool a little. But we had to go through and figure it out. I don't think it ever got back quite right, but we finally agreed on a score of 2-1, where I was ahead (after a LOT of discussion, and coming back to it several times). I don't think that score was quite right, though, because we had already had our second changeover of the set sometime before we had the scoring problem. Also, I was almost positive I had won at least three games, and that he had only won one. The games in the second set before the scoring discrepancy went by quickly (they were pretty lopsided and didn't have many long rallies), and it might have even been 4-1 in my favor. I'm not saying for sure that I was ahead by that much; I really didn't know for sure, and now, with the passage of more time, I'm even less certain. So agreeing to the score we agreed to was probably the right thing to do.

I really need to make an effort in the future to wrap my mind around the score and not get absent-minded about it. The whole discussion about the score really threw my rhythm off, and I never could quite get my pace back consistently. I don't know why the whole score discussion kind of dissolved my focus. I need to figure out a way to deal with that better. I don't think either of us was trying to cheat the other; we were both genuinely trying to figure it out.

My lack of focus weakened my play some, but a couple times I came back strong enough to win a game. He seemed to gain strength from the whole score melee and was playing really strongly. The games also changed in characted after the scoring discussion. They became hotly contested rather than one-sided, and the rallies got a lot longer and more challenging too. We got to 2-2 in the second set and then he won the next two games to get to 4-2. I'm not quite sure what the sequence was that got him up 5-3 (like I said, I was a little distracted and off focus), but I'm sure that the rest of the games were scored right after the scoring discrepancy. Then I won the next game to bring it to 5-4. I got squeaked out in the last game of the set, and lost the second set 6-4.

I didn't mind playing a third set, but I was positive we didn't have enough time left on the court to finish the set. I won the first two games easily, reverting to easily-won games with not much rallying, but then the next two became more challenging for me. He won the next two games. The first one he won easily and the second one was much more contested. My mojo was swinging back and forth. We saw people waiting for the court and we decided this was a good stopping point at 2-2.

I had to hurry up and pack my stuff and run to the other side of the facility to my:

Lesson with R. at Pharr (1 of 10):

My Mojo: Blind At First, Then Halfway Decent

I paid hurriedly for the next five lessons and ran over to court 7 to get to the lesson. I stepped right out onto the court and "Thud," the lights went out. Nobody could figure out how to get them back on. We only had one court tonight; usually we have two. So we had to go to the free courts across the street, which sucked, because the lights are pathetic. I couldn't see anything until the ball was right up on me, so I was missing all kinds of shots because I couldn't see the ball. This was frustrating me a great deal. Luckily, an hour into the lesson, we got a court back at Pharr, and I started hitting better. I wasn't really hitting anything outstanding, but I was doing OK. The lesson went a little long because of all the confusion so there was no time to stay after and hit with anyone.

I took off for home on my bicycle after the lesson, got about halfway there, and realized I had left my pack with my house keys, car keys and wallet on the court! AAACK! I turned around and sped back as fast as I could. When I got within sight of the courts, I saw the lights were still on. That meant that there was still someone there. And I saw that the lights were working on the court where the lights had gone out, so somebody must have figured out what was wrong. Thank God that they stayed after to try to figure out what was wrong with the lights. Otherwise, I would have been screwed. I pedaled as fast as my legs would take me, and when I got within about 500 yards of the court, the lights shut off. My heart was pounding. I got there just as everybody was coming out the door, and I pleaded to get my pack. Somebody had brought it in from the court, so it was in the office. They handed it to me, and I headed back home, much relieved. Now I'll take a hot bath and decompress.