Two Really Tough Matches

Sets 197-199:

Stuart vs. D. at Connally High. Winner: Stuart 5-7, 7-6(3), 7-6(2).

My Mojo: Ready To Dig In And Play Tough, Calmer Toward The End.

Sets 200-202:

Stuart vs. C. at Anderson High. Winner: C. 3-6, 6-3, 6-1.

My Mojo: Started Out Strong, But Ran Out Of Gas.

Man, it's been an intense day. And I still have another match tonight. I set one match at 8:30 in the morning, and another one at noon, thinking that I would have plenty of time to recover between them. But the morning match end up finishing up around 11:50, whereupon I had to rush like crazy to the next match, which also lasted three sets, but didn't take nearly as long.

All three sets of the first match were long and grueling. Any of these sets could have gone the other way based on the outcome of just a handful of shots, and the rallies were mostly pretty long too. All in all, the match took over three hours to complete. I felt like I was getting some good shots in, and many of my shots were going deep and hard, but he was running just about everything down and returning tough shots with good placement on the run.

In the third set, I was down 5-2, and I just kind of let go. I thought to myself that whatever happens, happens, and whether I won or lost, I would just play and try for the best shots, footwork, and placement that I could come up with. As I lifted the burden of winning, I began to play much more solidly. I won the next three games to tie at 5-5. Then he won the next game to take it to 6-5,and I won again to bring the set into a tiebreaker. I was up 6-0 in the tiebreaker as he won the next two points, but I took the next one to win the set and the match.

I had to pack up my stuff in a hurry and rush out, because I only had ten minutes to get to the next match. I had forgotten my calendar at home, and all I remembered was that Anderson High was at the corner of Mesa and Steck. I had never been to that location, so I took the Steck exit from Mopac, and took a guess (a correct one, luckily) that Mesa was west of Mopac. I got there about five minutes late, and my opponent was waiting. I apologized for my lateness and explained that I had just played another match that went down to the wire; he didn't seem upset or anything. I guess five minutes is not a huge amount to be late.

In the first set of the second match, it was obvious that he had some really big strokes, but he was rusty, so he made a lot of errors. I wasn't really tired when the set started, and was ready to go and running around a lot. What hurt him was a little too many errors and a lot of double-faults. I did get in a few decent shots, but I can't say it was my brilliant play that won this set. It was mostly his errors that lost it.

In the second set, he was ramping up his game and making less errors, while I was tiring out. Though he still double-faulted a lot, it seemed to be a lot less in the second set, and even less in the third set. He was coming up with some really powerful stuff, pulling me wide and then slamming down some winners that I could not get to. He also got me on a few drop shots after pulling me deep.

In the third set, I had just about no energy left. I was about five hours into playing for the day, with hardly any rest. I was not recovering to where I should on the court, I was not reacting quick enough, and I was not moving my feet or bending my knees as much as I should have. And his shots kept getting bigger and his confidence kept rising. He had told me at the beginning of the third set that he didn't think my odds were good, since his serve was coming back, and it was my sixth set of the day. I agreed with him that I didn't think my odds were good, but told him I would stick it out anyway. I only won one game, and though there were some games where we went back and forth from deuce to ad, most of them were lopsided games in which he got all of the points and shut me out. I went home after this match and took a hot bath.