Overconfidence Plus Low Energy Is Not A Good Combination

Sets 137-139 (of 365):

Stuart vs. C. at Westlake High. Winner: C. 4-6, 6-3, 6-2
Ladder Match #14

My Mojo: Below-Average, Deflated Rapidly.

Prior to this match, I had spent three days in a row on the ball machine and on practicing serves for about two hours each time. Since I had been rusty, my initial percentage of getting shots in was pretty low. But by the third day, I had gotten my shot percentage on just about every type of shot that I could hit in a stationary mode up pretty high. Also, I had been testing my leg through running, working out at the gym, and stretching, and I was not experiencing problems with mobility. So this made me think that I was ready for competition.

Unfortunately, when I got into actual play, I wasn't able to implement what I had done on the machine. When I was taking shots on the run, my form was terrible. My anticipation was dismal, and a high percentage of the shots I was hitting were just not going to where I wanted them to go.

In the first set, I played about the best that I would play during this match, and it wasn't very good. Probably the only reason I won this set was due to my opponent's errors. But he tightened up his play in the later sets and didn't make as many errors, and I made more errors as I went along. I think that although my leg was not giving me mobility problems, there were still some mechanical difficulties in the way my muscles worked together, and my body was not moving in ways that I expected. So this caused me to gauge how I was going to place my shot inaccurately.

In the third set, I felt a slight twinge in my back and experienced a slight injury. At first, I didn't know how bad it would be, but it turned out to be not too bad, just painful, and I was able to play through it with no problems (well, at least with no increase in the problems I was already having). I had been experiencing little compensation injuries throughout the match in my knee, achilles tendon, and my other leg, which let me know that my physical systems were still not functioning 100%. The good news was that the injured muscle itself seemed to hold up well, with no pain from use, no loss of mobility, and no re-injury. Later in the third set, I was down 4-1, and my opponent flinched and made a visible show of pain just as he was doing the exact same motion that I had done a few weeks ago that injured my calf muscle. He limped away for a second, stretched a little, and then got back to playing. It was obvious that his injury was nowhere near as bad as mine. I won the next game, but then he started blasting winners for the next few games that I could not return, and I lost the match.