Sets 239-240:
Stuart vs. A. at Austin High. Split, Stuart won 7-6(5), A. won 6-3.
My Mojo: Started Out Strong, Weakened Some In The Heat.
We didn't have time to finish a third set, but I was dogtired by the end of the two we played. I was pretty happy with my play, but it wasn't quite good enough to win two sets, just one. The last time I had played A., I was not able to deal with his shots as well as I did this time. He was left-handed, and played with a lot of spin and power, but didn't shoot many whizzing missiles just above the net as most power players do. In the first set, I was playing really well, and was happy that I was anticipting his shots better than I had the last time we played. I wasn't as befuddled by his play, and was playing a better defensive game when I needed to. I was also able to go on offense occasionally. In the second set, my energy pulled back a little. It was really hot, and my mojo was being sapped. Still I managed to win three games. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to finish, since time was up. This is why I don't like to play matches at places where you have to reserve time.
Sets 241-242:
Stuart vs. J. at Austin High. Winner: J. 6-2, 7-5.
I only had about an hour to recover before playing this match, and I was really spent after playing the last match, which was tough. So I grabbed a bite at Schlotszky's, and drove around in the air conditioning. When I got to the building where I work, I remembered that I have a locker in a shower room there. So I went there and took a nice long cool shower. That really did the trick and helped me complete my recovery. After that I barely had time to get back to the site, but I was much more refreshed than I would have been if I hadn't showered.
In the warmup, I could tell this guy was really good. I thought I might not even win any games, but I figured I would give it my best shot. From this perspective, I think I did surprisingly well, especially considering that I had just played a tough, hot match. His shots were outstanding and he made few errors, and I could not hold up against that in the first set. In the second set, I was down 4-0 and rallied to play some of the best tennis I had played in a while to get to 4-4. After that, I could not maintain the intensity for the rest of the match, and he wasnt back to dominating me. But winning five games was a welcome surprise.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
A Hot And Humid Day Gives Us A Preview Of Summer
Sets 236-238:
Stuart v. S. at His Apartments. Winner: S. 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.
My Mojo: Not Bad...
I have not been doing that well against S. lately when I play him. We have had several matches in the last few months and I think I have only won one, though some of the early ones were close. Then he pulled way ahead and beat me by wider margins. With this match I may have tightened the gap a little.
I lowered my expectations for this match of my goal. Instead of making my goal to win, for the first two sets, my goal was to win three games a set. And I surpassed that for each of the first two sets.
It was pretty hot and humid. And it's not even summer yet. I brought a cooler full of ice with me and an extra towel to wet down and place in the ice bucket, and very shortly after starting the match, I was icing myself down every changeover. It only seemed to get hotter as we went along. We started the match a few minutes after four in the afternoon, and most of it was played in the peak heat. The humidity was stifling as well.
Starting off warming up, I felt like I was hitting really well, and continued that into the first couple of games. But then I started tightening up. S. pointed out that it was our usual pattern; I win the first few games, and then he starts coming back and winning from behind. But usually there are a few games where I am completely in the wilderness. Most of the time we play, there are several games in a row where his shots get so good that there is nothing I can do and I just watch them sail by while I am stratnded in some area of the court where it is hopeless to get to them. But this match, I felt that there were no whole games where that happened, though there were some isolated points. And my returns were faster, consistently deep and strategically placed to prevent him from hitting sure winners back. I think I did a better job of parrying his game.
In the incredible heat, we both tired out quickly. I felt half dead, but we played a third set. For this set, I dropped all expectations. It is one of my favorite things to do to practice when I am just dead tired and ready to drop, which I was this set. But I knew he was the better shotmeister, and he would probably be better at placement to conserve energy, and he certainly was. So he won the third set with a little more lopsided score than the first two sets. At the end of the set, both of us were dead tired, and I don't think either one of us wanted to play another set.
With this match, I managed to edge over my quota of a set a day for the month. I still have two matches scheduled tomorrow, and I hope I can make it through them--if it is as hot as today, it will be somewhat difficult.
Stuart v. S. at His Apartments. Winner: S. 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.
My Mojo: Not Bad...
I have not been doing that well against S. lately when I play him. We have had several matches in the last few months and I think I have only won one, though some of the early ones were close. Then he pulled way ahead and beat me by wider margins. With this match I may have tightened the gap a little.
I lowered my expectations for this match of my goal. Instead of making my goal to win, for the first two sets, my goal was to win three games a set. And I surpassed that for each of the first two sets.
It was pretty hot and humid. And it's not even summer yet. I brought a cooler full of ice with me and an extra towel to wet down and place in the ice bucket, and very shortly after starting the match, I was icing myself down every changeover. It only seemed to get hotter as we went along. We started the match a few minutes after four in the afternoon, and most of it was played in the peak heat. The humidity was stifling as well.
Starting off warming up, I felt like I was hitting really well, and continued that into the first couple of games. But then I started tightening up. S. pointed out that it was our usual pattern; I win the first few games, and then he starts coming back and winning from behind. But usually there are a few games where I am completely in the wilderness. Most of the time we play, there are several games in a row where his shots get so good that there is nothing I can do and I just watch them sail by while I am stratnded in some area of the court where it is hopeless to get to them. But this match, I felt that there were no whole games where that happened, though there were some isolated points. And my returns were faster, consistently deep and strategically placed to prevent him from hitting sure winners back. I think I did a better job of parrying his game.
In the incredible heat, we both tired out quickly. I felt half dead, but we played a third set. For this set, I dropped all expectations. It is one of my favorite things to do to practice when I am just dead tired and ready to drop, which I was this set. But I knew he was the better shotmeister, and he would probably be better at placement to conserve energy, and he certainly was. So he won the third set with a little more lopsided score than the first two sets. At the end of the set, both of us were dead tired, and I don't think either one of us wanted to play another set.
With this match, I managed to edge over my quota of a set a day for the month. I still have two matches scheduled tomorrow, and I hope I can make it through them--if it is as hot as today, it will be somewhat difficult.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
I Win Four Sets, Though The Last One Is Close
Sets 232-235:
Stuart v. C. at Northwest Park. Winner: Stuart 6-1, 6-0, 6-2, 7-6(5)
My Mojo: Excellent, Dropped to Better Than Average At The End.
I continue my pattern of dropping in energy toward the end of a series of sets. But at least this time I was playing so well that I won all of the sets, instead of doing progressively worse to the point that I lose.
Lately, I have had a hard time getting matches. I did take about a week and a half in which I wasn't really looking, but last week I sent out a bunch of emails and only got a few takers. Some did say they would be willing to play later (maybe this week or next), but most didn't respond. It was probably the worst response I've gotten yet. Maybe people are burning out on hearing from me, in which case I need to find new people to play (which I am constantly doing anyway). Or maybe I shouldn't read so much into it.
But this one was a ladder match, so I was pretty sure we would play. It was really humid starting out, and when I first got to the site, there was a rainbow encircling the sun which was partly blocked by clouds, so I couldn't see the full circle. I could see about two-thirds of the circle at most.
I was afraid that it was going to rain, as the weather forecast was not conducive to dry ground. But there was a big hole in the clouds that went over Austin and the surrounding area. So I called my opponent to see if he wanted to try to play this afternoon, and he agreed to meet me on short notice, about an hour and a half after I called him. When he got there, he told me it was raining east and west of Austin, but we were still in the hole. Luckily it stayed dry for our match, with the exception of on tiny sprinkle for less than a minute which dried up quickly and didn't even affect play. I made the mistake of extending my right hand for him to shake, which is still messed up from my finger injury about a month and a half ago. He shook it firmly, and I felt crushing pain, but I didn't say anything. I don't think it got reinjured, but it hurt a lot, and I just have to realize that I can't shake hands with my right hand for a while.
The first and second sets were our ladder match, and I managed to get him to stay to play another couple of sets. I was playing solidly for the first three matches, maybe dropping a tiny bit in energy and focus toward the end of the third match. My serve was solid but not raging. In other words, I got them in and managed to keep an offense on most of them, but I didn't zing in winners that he could barely get to, except for a couple of times. But he probably got as many of those in on me as well. I was returning his serve consistently and sometimes even well enough to grab the offense. His net game seemed a little bit erratic; maybe he was just off that day. It seemed to tighten up by the fourth set when he played a much better all-around game.
Around the middle of the third game of the first set, we got into a fierce free-for-all close contact volley, which ended with him smashing the ball square into my face right between the eyes. It knocked my glasses off, and I staggered backwards and let out a yelp. But it was not as bad as it looked, thankfully. It bent up my glasses a little, and I had to bend the bridge and nose pieces back. My face smarted a little for a while. but I was basically OK. Good thing I got those bulletproof lenses. I took a few seconds to let the little cuckoo birds encircling my head fly away, and got back to playing. For the next few points, I kept pushing on different areas of my face to make sure it was OK, and the sting went away in a couple of games. I was winning the first set solidly throughout, though I thought the play was closer than the score suggested.
For the last few matches I have played, I haven't had that "luck/in the zone" factor working in my favor. But this match, I really did. My shots just hit the line, just zinged where he couldn't get to them, and just barely did what they were supposed to, whereas his money shots fell short or out.
The second set was a lot like the first. It was won by a lopsided score, but once again, closer play than it would seem from looking at the score. We had much better rallies this set, but this time I won all of the games.
We shook hands on the ladder match (this time I extended my left hand and shook his right hand upside down), and I asked him if he wanted to play some more. He agreed, so we played a third, and then a fourth set. In the third set, I was still playing well, but he was starting to pick up his game, and I did droop a little toward the end. In the fourth set, I was losing a lot of focus, and he was picking it up even more. I didn't feel all that tired, but I was just not concentrating as well. I also was starting to hit my first double faults, and was losing confidence a little bit for a few of the games. We kept pace on the first eight games, and each mostly won the games we served, bringing the score to 4-4. Then he moved ahead a game to make it 5-4. He was starting to really play well. I picked up the pace a little and we next two games. These few games were probably the tightest tennis we had played the whole time. We were both thinking well strategically, and most of the points were won on strategy rather than lost on errors. We kept neck-and-neck to go 6-6 and into a tiebreak.
I took an early lead on the tiebreak, but he started catching up. He got to within one point of me, but then I won both my serves to bring it to 6-3. Then he won both his serves to bring it to 6-5, one point down again. I served next, and won 7-5 when he hit the ball into the net after a few rallies. I asked him if he wanted to play a fifth set, and he declined, saying he needed to save some energy to work his shift later on that day. We probably wouldn't have been able to play a fifth set anyway, as it started raining about ten minutes after we quit playing. At least it rained at my house; I have no idea if it was raining near the park where the courts were, but it probably was.
Stuart v. C. at Northwest Park. Winner: Stuart 6-1, 6-0, 6-2, 7-6(5)
My Mojo: Excellent, Dropped to Better Than Average At The End.
I continue my pattern of dropping in energy toward the end of a series of sets. But at least this time I was playing so well that I won all of the sets, instead of doing progressively worse to the point that I lose.
Lately, I have had a hard time getting matches. I did take about a week and a half in which I wasn't really looking, but last week I sent out a bunch of emails and only got a few takers. Some did say they would be willing to play later (maybe this week or next), but most didn't respond. It was probably the worst response I've gotten yet. Maybe people are burning out on hearing from me, in which case I need to find new people to play (which I am constantly doing anyway). Or maybe I shouldn't read so much into it.
But this one was a ladder match, so I was pretty sure we would play. It was really humid starting out, and when I first got to the site, there was a rainbow encircling the sun which was partly blocked by clouds, so I couldn't see the full circle. I could see about two-thirds of the circle at most.
I was afraid that it was going to rain, as the weather forecast was not conducive to dry ground. But there was a big hole in the clouds that went over Austin and the surrounding area. So I called my opponent to see if he wanted to try to play this afternoon, and he agreed to meet me on short notice, about an hour and a half after I called him. When he got there, he told me it was raining east and west of Austin, but we were still in the hole. Luckily it stayed dry for our match, with the exception of on tiny sprinkle for less than a minute which dried up quickly and didn't even affect play. I made the mistake of extending my right hand for him to shake, which is still messed up from my finger injury about a month and a half ago. He shook it firmly, and I felt crushing pain, but I didn't say anything. I don't think it got reinjured, but it hurt a lot, and I just have to realize that I can't shake hands with my right hand for a while.
The first and second sets were our ladder match, and I managed to get him to stay to play another couple of sets. I was playing solidly for the first three matches, maybe dropping a tiny bit in energy and focus toward the end of the third match. My serve was solid but not raging. In other words, I got them in and managed to keep an offense on most of them, but I didn't zing in winners that he could barely get to, except for a couple of times. But he probably got as many of those in on me as well. I was returning his serve consistently and sometimes even well enough to grab the offense. His net game seemed a little bit erratic; maybe he was just off that day. It seemed to tighten up by the fourth set when he played a much better all-around game.
Around the middle of the third game of the first set, we got into a fierce free-for-all close contact volley, which ended with him smashing the ball square into my face right between the eyes. It knocked my glasses off, and I staggered backwards and let out a yelp. But it was not as bad as it looked, thankfully. It bent up my glasses a little, and I had to bend the bridge and nose pieces back. My face smarted a little for a while. but I was basically OK. Good thing I got those bulletproof lenses. I took a few seconds to let the little cuckoo birds encircling my head fly away, and got back to playing. For the next few points, I kept pushing on different areas of my face to make sure it was OK, and the sting went away in a couple of games. I was winning the first set solidly throughout, though I thought the play was closer than the score suggested.
For the last few matches I have played, I haven't had that "luck/in the zone" factor working in my favor. But this match, I really did. My shots just hit the line, just zinged where he couldn't get to them, and just barely did what they were supposed to, whereas his money shots fell short or out.
The second set was a lot like the first. It was won by a lopsided score, but once again, closer play than it would seem from looking at the score. We had much better rallies this set, but this time I won all of the games.
We shook hands on the ladder match (this time I extended my left hand and shook his right hand upside down), and I asked him if he wanted to play some more. He agreed, so we played a third, and then a fourth set. In the third set, I was still playing well, but he was starting to pick up his game, and I did droop a little toward the end. In the fourth set, I was losing a lot of focus, and he was picking it up even more. I didn't feel all that tired, but I was just not concentrating as well. I also was starting to hit my first double faults, and was losing confidence a little bit for a few of the games. We kept pace on the first eight games, and each mostly won the games we served, bringing the score to 4-4. Then he moved ahead a game to make it 5-4. He was starting to really play well. I picked up the pace a little and we next two games. These few games were probably the tightest tennis we had played the whole time. We were both thinking well strategically, and most of the points were won on strategy rather than lost on errors. We kept neck-and-neck to go 6-6 and into a tiebreak.
I took an early lead on the tiebreak, but he started catching up. He got to within one point of me, but then I won both my serves to bring it to 6-3. Then he won both his serves to bring it to 6-5, one point down again. I served next, and won 7-5 when he hit the ball into the net after a few rallies. I asked him if he wanted to play a fifth set, and he declined, saying he needed to save some energy to work his shift later on that day. We probably wouldn't have been able to play a fifth set anyway, as it started raining about ten minutes after we quit playing. At least it rained at my house; I have no idea if it was raining near the park where the courts were, but it probably was.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
What Happened?
Sets 229-231:
Stuart vs. D. at Northwest Park. Winner: D. 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
My Mojo: Started Out Great, Disintegrated.
My opponent showed up a little late, and I was starting to get annoyed about that, but the annoyance pretty much vaporized when he got there. I had not played D. in about a year, and was curious to see how I would do against him. The last time I played him, he edged me out in three sets that lasted about three hours. So I was pretty much ready for more of the same, though my game had changed some since last year.
In the first set, I started out dominating the play pretty well. I was really in the zone, and felt confident in my play. When I got up by 4-1, I thought that the rest of the match would be equally lopsided. But after that, he started creeping up more and more, and winning more games. I ended up winning the set 6-4, which I thought was acceptable, even though my play was starting to fall apart.
I have no idea what happened to my play in the next two sets. One thing that I think was a factor was that I had not eaten anything all day except for a couple of protein bars, which was all I could find in my desk that day, and I got too busy at work to take off for lunch. I hadn't really been too hungry, so I didn't think about it until D. mentioned that he had grabbed something to eat before the match. It sort of settled in the back of my head that I hadn't really eaten...
In the second set, I started out decently, but as it went along I started getting less and less of a foothold. For some reason the sun was really bothering me when I got to the sunny side, but the first time I moved over there in the first set, a cloud shaped like Great Britain started passing over the sun. I thought it might last for the two games that I served on that side. I watched the sun slowly pass over England and towards Wales, and it popped back out into the Atlantic Ocean not quite before I had finished the second game on that side. But for some reason, when the sun came back out, it didn't bother me as much as it had before. We settled into some long and grueling games, but I didn't get many advantages, and tossed away the ones that I did seem to get, though I did manage to win three games. And in the third set, I surged briefly and was ahead 2-0, but I didn't win any games after that. I was just dumbfounded. My shots were just not doing it for me. I was making a ton of errors, and nothing felt right. The last game of the third set was very long and arduous, and it seemed to go into a deuce/his ad pattern. I fought back from many ad points, but I finally just gzorched, had a spazz hiccup and lost the set.
We had a few score discrepancies in the last two sets. I let him have one, he let me have one, and I really don't remember much about any others, though there were probably one or two more. I honestly don't know who was right or wrong, or if they got resolved correctly. None of them really seemed life-or-death to me. In the third set, I may have let him have an extra game when I called the score 2-2 when it was probably 2-1. He seemed perplexed by that, and spent a good deal of the next game counting before he served, but seemed to accept the score. I didn't really think much more about it.
After the third set, I was kind of miffed at myself for falling apart so badly, so I just kind of left abruptly, not really wanting to talk. I mentally kicked myself in the car for not capitalizing on my advantages, but got over it by the time I got home.
The next day, he sent me an email going over some of the score discrepancies and drawing a chart where he showed that I had called out the score wrongly in the third set, and he said that he was going to score the third set as 5-2 instead of 6-2. But when I went to the site to confirm the score, it was listed as 6-2. Anyway, I had already put the match behind me, and if anything, the mistake was in his favor. He also said in his email that he was upset that I had called out the score while I was serving, which I don't think I did. I make a habit of calling out the score to alert my opponent to the fact that I am going to serve and to make sure he is ready. I probably do serve very shortly after that, if I have visual cues telling me that my opponent is ready. And I do recall something in the rules stating that the server sets the pace. It's all water under the bridge, as far as I'm concerned. I sent him back an email wishing him luck; no reason to harbor any hard feelings or start an argument.
Stuart vs. D. at Northwest Park. Winner: D. 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
My Mojo: Started Out Great, Disintegrated.
My opponent showed up a little late, and I was starting to get annoyed about that, but the annoyance pretty much vaporized when he got there. I had not played D. in about a year, and was curious to see how I would do against him. The last time I played him, he edged me out in three sets that lasted about three hours. So I was pretty much ready for more of the same, though my game had changed some since last year.
In the first set, I started out dominating the play pretty well. I was really in the zone, and felt confident in my play. When I got up by 4-1, I thought that the rest of the match would be equally lopsided. But after that, he started creeping up more and more, and winning more games. I ended up winning the set 6-4, which I thought was acceptable, even though my play was starting to fall apart.
I have no idea what happened to my play in the next two sets. One thing that I think was a factor was that I had not eaten anything all day except for a couple of protein bars, which was all I could find in my desk that day, and I got too busy at work to take off for lunch. I hadn't really been too hungry, so I didn't think about it until D. mentioned that he had grabbed something to eat before the match. It sort of settled in the back of my head that I hadn't really eaten...
In the second set, I started out decently, but as it went along I started getting less and less of a foothold. For some reason the sun was really bothering me when I got to the sunny side, but the first time I moved over there in the first set, a cloud shaped like Great Britain started passing over the sun. I thought it might last for the two games that I served on that side. I watched the sun slowly pass over England and towards Wales, and it popped back out into the Atlantic Ocean not quite before I had finished the second game on that side. But for some reason, when the sun came back out, it didn't bother me as much as it had before. We settled into some long and grueling games, but I didn't get many advantages, and tossed away the ones that I did seem to get, though I did manage to win three games. And in the third set, I surged briefly and was ahead 2-0, but I didn't win any games after that. I was just dumbfounded. My shots were just not doing it for me. I was making a ton of errors, and nothing felt right. The last game of the third set was very long and arduous, and it seemed to go into a deuce/his ad pattern. I fought back from many ad points, but I finally just gzorched, had a spazz hiccup and lost the set.
We had a few score discrepancies in the last two sets. I let him have one, he let me have one, and I really don't remember much about any others, though there were probably one or two more. I honestly don't know who was right or wrong, or if they got resolved correctly. None of them really seemed life-or-death to me. In the third set, I may have let him have an extra game when I called the score 2-2 when it was probably 2-1. He seemed perplexed by that, and spent a good deal of the next game counting before he served, but seemed to accept the score. I didn't really think much more about it.
After the third set, I was kind of miffed at myself for falling apart so badly, so I just kind of left abruptly, not really wanting to talk. I mentally kicked myself in the car for not capitalizing on my advantages, but got over it by the time I got home.
The next day, he sent me an email going over some of the score discrepancies and drawing a chart where he showed that I had called out the score wrongly in the third set, and he said that he was going to score the third set as 5-2 instead of 6-2. But when I went to the site to confirm the score, it was listed as 6-2. Anyway, I had already put the match behind me, and if anything, the mistake was in his favor. He also said in his email that he was upset that I had called out the score while I was serving, which I don't think I did. I make a habit of calling out the score to alert my opponent to the fact that I am going to serve and to make sure he is ready. I probably do serve very shortly after that, if I have visual cues telling me that my opponent is ready. And I do recall something in the rules stating that the server sets the pace. It's all water under the bridge, as far as I'm concerned. I sent him back an email wishing him luck; no reason to harbor any hard feelings or start an argument.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Five Sets, I Play Well, But He Plays Better
Sets 224-228:
Stuart vs. S. at His Apts. Winner: S. 6-1, 6-0, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2.
My Mojo: Above-Average, Though Faced With Some Unbeatable Play
I haven't really been blogging that faithfully lately, because I've been involved in a big project that has taken up most of my time. I won't really go into it here, but it's kind of like being on a two-week long crack binge. But now the bulk of the sleepless work has faded and I will be (hopefully) getting back into my life's routines again. And maybe do the dishes and the like. But I will be getting back to playing more tennis again. I really did need to take a break from playing anyway, because of my injury to my finger. It's been about a month, and it's still hurting. At least I can type and play piano with it again and it can bear some weight. It's probably the type of thing that will hurt to some degree for several months. So i'm not Mr. Nine-Fingers anymore, and I played the Maple Leaf Rag today both Joplin-style and Jelly Roll Morton-style to celebrate.
What a marathon. We played five sets, the most that I have played against anyone in one sitting (standing, I guess would technically be a more correct term). I think the whole thing was about three hours long and we didn't take any breaks, except for the typical changeover breaks. So in terms of time, I've probably played longer, as I'm sure I've played two or three sets with long rallies, and in which we could not break out of deuce/ad patterns for a while.
S. has been consistently outplaying me in our last few meetings, and this was no exception. It was somewhat frustrating, but I didn't really get too emotionally invested in it and didn't let it bug me too much. Of course it was a bit frustrating to see him whack shots back every so often that I had no chance of getting to. Some of it was me shooting balls at him that gave him the opportunity to play offense and strategically hone in to blast his winners, but most of it was just pure solid play on his part.
I noticed, too, that on the ladder, he has upped his ranking a notch. I had been telling him the last few times we played that I thought he was now a higher ranked player, and he said he had been thinking the same thing. He jumped up at least twelve rungs on the ladder because he has been defeating everybody he plays, ever much higher ranked players.
S. told me that a lot of players just won't play him any more because he has just been beating most of them too badly. I have no problem going back to play better players over and over again. I don't really have an ego thing invested in it. Sure, I get frustrated sometimes, but it's pretty much over after the match. I have a couple of strategies for not letting tougher players constantly beating me get my goat:
First, I ramp down my expectations. I try to figure what my percentages are, and set my expectations accordingly. Going into this match, I thought that I would be happy if I averaged winning about two games a set. After five sets, I only fell one game short of that, but that was offset by my improving over the course of the match. So that was not bad.
Second, my expectations are fluid as the match progresses. In the third set, I suddenly surged, and so I started thinking that three games a set would be good. And I met those expectations for two sets. In the last set, I got a little tired, and decided to have no expectations going into the set. So the two games I won were bonus.
Third, I just am glad that a tougher player will play me. I told S. that I was just afraid that he had learned everything he could learn about my game and didn't need to play me any more. He said he didn't mind playing. But I play a lot of people who I would probably beat most of the time too. I have no objection to playing just about anyone, pro or beginner. I figure that there's always something you can learn from someone unless you're winning every single shot in the game without difficulty. And if someone is so good that they beat you almost every point, it helps you find (or define) weaknesses in your game that you need to work on.
I started off most of the sets playing well. In most of the sets, I won the first game. And I think I kept playing pretty well, maybe dropping just a tiny bit, but her ramped up phenomenally and got to his game a few games into each set. In the first set, in the last three games, I won no points at all. He kept returning balls that I had no chance of getting to.
So I started the second set a little frustrated by my inability to get to anything in the last few games. And in this set, I only got four points in the first four games. Yow. Those seven games gave me about the worst result I've had since starting this blog. For some reason, I didn't get a major dark cloud over my head over this; probably because I didn't really think of it that way until I typed this.
There is a quality that I don't know if there's a word for, that when one player has it, he usually wins, and when the other player doesn't, he usually loses. It's not quite luck, it's sort of skill-driven luck. It's characterized by your getting all of your close shots just barely in the lines, either wide or deep. I shows up when you are getting lots of those "lucky" shots that hit the net and drop over instead of under, and when your serve is hitting the sweet spot on your racquetand going to just the right place in the box. It's a combination of being "in the zone" and having great luck. And the opposite of it is when all of your close shots go long, when all of your anticipated winners hit the net, when your serves fizzle--you get the drift. Anyway, he had the good part of that, and I had the bad part. So I pretty much knew I was doomed. Even though I thought I was playing great, he was playing even greater, and he was on a roll from doing this with other players too.
In the third and fourth set, I came back somewhat. At the beginning of each set, I played well enough to keep up with him in games. In the middle of the each of these sets, my shots started clicking, and we kept pace in games until the end of each set, when he broke out and won. But I did get three games in. I also got some of my best strategy happening during these sets, and played offensively more often. I did return some weak shots, most of which he pounced on and shot back winners from.
In the fifth set, I was just tired, so I was trying to practice playing tired. He did a much better job of this than I did, and hit shots that maximized a strategy of conserving his energy. I never could get a foothold in, but managed to win two games though I though I played better in the first two sets in which I only won one game over two sets and got creamed. He was just playing phenomenally then.
I probably would have kept playing. He said at the end of the fifth set that his shoulder was bothering him a little, and he was going to call it a day. I don't know why I still felt energetic. And my attitude stayed pretty good throughout the match. I like playing him because he likes to analyze the game a lot, and so do I, so on the breaks, we had some really good conversation about our play. That's probably why I usually write more about the matches with S. Most players don't get very analytical; they just play.
Stuart vs. S. at His Apts. Winner: S. 6-1, 6-0, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2.
My Mojo: Above-Average, Though Faced With Some Unbeatable Play
I haven't really been blogging that faithfully lately, because I've been involved in a big project that has taken up most of my time. I won't really go into it here, but it's kind of like being on a two-week long crack binge. But now the bulk of the sleepless work has faded and I will be (hopefully) getting back into my life's routines again. And maybe do the dishes and the like. But I will be getting back to playing more tennis again. I really did need to take a break from playing anyway, because of my injury to my finger. It's been about a month, and it's still hurting. At least I can type and play piano with it again and it can bear some weight. It's probably the type of thing that will hurt to some degree for several months. So i'm not Mr. Nine-Fingers anymore, and I played the Maple Leaf Rag today both Joplin-style and Jelly Roll Morton-style to celebrate.
What a marathon. We played five sets, the most that I have played against anyone in one sitting (standing, I guess would technically be a more correct term). I think the whole thing was about three hours long and we didn't take any breaks, except for the typical changeover breaks. So in terms of time, I've probably played longer, as I'm sure I've played two or three sets with long rallies, and in which we could not break out of deuce/ad patterns for a while.
S. has been consistently outplaying me in our last few meetings, and this was no exception. It was somewhat frustrating, but I didn't really get too emotionally invested in it and didn't let it bug me too much. Of course it was a bit frustrating to see him whack shots back every so often that I had no chance of getting to. Some of it was me shooting balls at him that gave him the opportunity to play offense and strategically hone in to blast his winners, but most of it was just pure solid play on his part.
I noticed, too, that on the ladder, he has upped his ranking a notch. I had been telling him the last few times we played that I thought he was now a higher ranked player, and he said he had been thinking the same thing. He jumped up at least twelve rungs on the ladder because he has been defeating everybody he plays, ever much higher ranked players.
S. told me that a lot of players just won't play him any more because he has just been beating most of them too badly. I have no problem going back to play better players over and over again. I don't really have an ego thing invested in it. Sure, I get frustrated sometimes, but it's pretty much over after the match. I have a couple of strategies for not letting tougher players constantly beating me get my goat:
First, I ramp down my expectations. I try to figure what my percentages are, and set my expectations accordingly. Going into this match, I thought that I would be happy if I averaged winning about two games a set. After five sets, I only fell one game short of that, but that was offset by my improving over the course of the match. So that was not bad.
Second, my expectations are fluid as the match progresses. In the third set, I suddenly surged, and so I started thinking that three games a set would be good. And I met those expectations for two sets. In the last set, I got a little tired, and decided to have no expectations going into the set. So the two games I won were bonus.
Third, I just am glad that a tougher player will play me. I told S. that I was just afraid that he had learned everything he could learn about my game and didn't need to play me any more. He said he didn't mind playing. But I play a lot of people who I would probably beat most of the time too. I have no objection to playing just about anyone, pro or beginner. I figure that there's always something you can learn from someone unless you're winning every single shot in the game without difficulty. And if someone is so good that they beat you almost every point, it helps you find (or define) weaknesses in your game that you need to work on.
I started off most of the sets playing well. In most of the sets, I won the first game. And I think I kept playing pretty well, maybe dropping just a tiny bit, but her ramped up phenomenally and got to his game a few games into each set. In the first set, in the last three games, I won no points at all. He kept returning balls that I had no chance of getting to.
So I started the second set a little frustrated by my inability to get to anything in the last few games. And in this set, I only got four points in the first four games. Yow. Those seven games gave me about the worst result I've had since starting this blog. For some reason, I didn't get a major dark cloud over my head over this; probably because I didn't really think of it that way until I typed this.
There is a quality that I don't know if there's a word for, that when one player has it, he usually wins, and when the other player doesn't, he usually loses. It's not quite luck, it's sort of skill-driven luck. It's characterized by your getting all of your close shots just barely in the lines, either wide or deep. I shows up when you are getting lots of those "lucky" shots that hit the net and drop over instead of under, and when your serve is hitting the sweet spot on your racquetand going to just the right place in the box. It's a combination of being "in the zone" and having great luck. And the opposite of it is when all of your close shots go long, when all of your anticipated winners hit the net, when your serves fizzle--you get the drift. Anyway, he had the good part of that, and I had the bad part. So I pretty much knew I was doomed. Even though I thought I was playing great, he was playing even greater, and he was on a roll from doing this with other players too.
In the third and fourth set, I came back somewhat. At the beginning of each set, I played well enough to keep up with him in games. In the middle of the each of these sets, my shots started clicking, and we kept pace in games until the end of each set, when he broke out and won. But I did get three games in. I also got some of my best strategy happening during these sets, and played offensively more often. I did return some weak shots, most of which he pounced on and shot back winners from.
In the fifth set, I was just tired, so I was trying to practice playing tired. He did a much better job of this than I did, and hit shots that maximized a strategy of conserving his energy. I never could get a foothold in, but managed to win two games though I though I played better in the first two sets in which I only won one game over two sets and got creamed. He was just playing phenomenally then.
I probably would have kept playing. He said at the end of the fifth set that his shoulder was bothering him a little, and he was going to call it a day. I don't know why I still felt energetic. And my attitude stayed pretty good throughout the match. I like playing him because he likes to analyze the game a lot, and so do I, so on the breaks, we had some really good conversation about our play. That's probably why I usually write more about the matches with S. Most players don't get very analytical; they just play.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Horns Locked Until The Final Chip 'N Charge
Sets 221-223:
Stuart v. D. at Onion Creek Country Club. Winner: D. 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
My Mojo: Decent, But Fell Apart At the End After He Changed Strategy.
Now it is starting to get a little hot some days. Today it was pretty hot, and humid to boot. So I used a little trick that my daughter used to do when she played, and took a cooler with an extra towel on it. That way during the changeovers, I could put the icy towel on my face, arms, legs, neck, etc., and help cool down during the breaks. It works wonders. I'll probably start doing that more as it gets into the hot season.
During the first two sets, we went back and forth a lot. In the first set, he edged me out towards the end, and won the set. In the second set, we reversed roles, and I edged him out. The third set started out neck-and-neck, but then all of a sudden he started playing a particularly aggressive serve-and-volley game that just threw me off balance to the point that I didn't win any more games. He told me after the match that he felt that he was not getting any breakthrough, so he just started playing like it was doubles, since he was more of a doubles player. In this match, it worked against me. By the time I realized what was going on, he had already won two games, and I lost the third to lose the set just out of a failure to adapt. Hopefully, lesson learned.
Stuart v. D. at Onion Creek Country Club. Winner: D. 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
My Mojo: Decent, But Fell Apart At the End After He Changed Strategy.
Now it is starting to get a little hot some days. Today it was pretty hot, and humid to boot. So I used a little trick that my daughter used to do when she played, and took a cooler with an extra towel on it. That way during the changeovers, I could put the icy towel on my face, arms, legs, neck, etc., and help cool down during the breaks. It works wonders. I'll probably start doing that more as it gets into the hot season.
During the first two sets, we went back and forth a lot. In the first set, he edged me out towards the end, and won the set. In the second set, we reversed roles, and I edged him out. The third set started out neck-and-neck, but then all of a sudden he started playing a particularly aggressive serve-and-volley game that just threw me off balance to the point that I didn't win any more games. He told me after the match that he felt that he was not getting any breakthrough, so he just started playing like it was doubles, since he was more of a doubles player. In this match, it worked against me. By the time I realized what was going on, he had already won two games, and I lost the third to lose the set just out of a failure to adapt. Hopefully, lesson learned.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
A Long Match, A Whack To The Forehead, And We Briefly Get Locked In
Sets 218-220:
Stuart v. G. at Travis Country. Winner: G. 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
My Mojo: Back And Forth At First, Fizzled At The End.
Aargh...I just spent about forty-five minutes writing a big long post for this match and it didn't save, and it got deleted. I saved it and then I got one of those "connection timed out" errors, and then when I went back, it was gone. How frustrating. I guess I'll try to reconstruct what I just wrote. And this time I'll save to Word before I save on the blog just in case.
The last time I played G., we had a grueling and long match. I was prepared for the same thing this time, and it is a good thing I was, because we had another long three-set match. This time we played for about two and a half hours.
In the first set, we were keeping pace with each other well. We were going back and forth in games and keeping the score relatively even at first. We had a lot of long rallies, and a lot of games that went back and forth from deuce to ad. I lost some focus at the end and lost the set 6-4.
I started off well in the second set. I was playing strongly, and able to aim my shots deep and hard to keep an offense going. In the middle of the second set, I caught one of his shots from a weird position, and had to swing at the ball really hard from an unusual angle. At the tail end of my swing, I whacked myself in the forehead pretty hard full on with the side of my racquet. I let out a yelp, and the commotion was loud enough that someone came from outside the court and asked if I had just hit myself in the head with my racquet. I said that I had, and both the bystander and my opponent asked if I was all right. I felt OK though my forehead was throbbing some and was bleeding. The bleeding did not let up for several games, and my opponent kept asking if I was all right. I kept playing, and played some of the best tennis I had played during this match for a while. My focus was great, and I was playing even more offensively and aggressively than I had so far. I ended up winning the second set 6-3.
In the third set, I was starting to lose energy, and I was not able to keep hitting offensive shots that would allow me to set the tone of the points. So he was taking control of the points more, and he was hitting shots that ran me all over the court, not only from side to side, but from front to back as well. On one point, he repeated the combination of a drop shot (pulling me to the front of the court) with a deep lob three times, and though I was able to scramble to get the first two of these pairs of shots, I stumbled on the third and hit it into the net. Though I was low on energy, I was able to get to most of the shots, but I was being run all over the court. Toward the end, I tried to do the same to him, but my energy was so depleted that my accuracy was not good, and I hit a lot of shots out or into the net.
Near the end of the third set, G. noticed that someone had taken his key to the court that he had left in the lock. He managed to summon the last other people on the site just as they were getting into their car to leave, and they found his key on another court. It would have been really bad if we had been locked in. Not only would we have faced the prospect of having to climb over the fence when we were done, but we would have had to do it in the dark, as the lights were about to time out (which was the reason that he was going to leave the court and noticed that his keys were gone). After the lock-out fiasco, which took about five minutes out of our set, I never did regain my game, and I lost the set 6-3 to lose the match.
Stuart v. G. at Travis Country. Winner: G. 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
My Mojo: Back And Forth At First, Fizzled At The End.
Aargh...I just spent about forty-five minutes writing a big long post for this match and it didn't save, and it got deleted. I saved it and then I got one of those "connection timed out" errors, and then when I went back, it was gone. How frustrating. I guess I'll try to reconstruct what I just wrote. And this time I'll save to Word before I save on the blog just in case.
The last time I played G., we had a grueling and long match. I was prepared for the same thing this time, and it is a good thing I was, because we had another long three-set match. This time we played for about two and a half hours.
In the first set, we were keeping pace with each other well. We were going back and forth in games and keeping the score relatively even at first. We had a lot of long rallies, and a lot of games that went back and forth from deuce to ad. I lost some focus at the end and lost the set 6-4.
I started off well in the second set. I was playing strongly, and able to aim my shots deep and hard to keep an offense going. In the middle of the second set, I caught one of his shots from a weird position, and had to swing at the ball really hard from an unusual angle. At the tail end of my swing, I whacked myself in the forehead pretty hard full on with the side of my racquet. I let out a yelp, and the commotion was loud enough that someone came from outside the court and asked if I had just hit myself in the head with my racquet. I said that I had, and both the bystander and my opponent asked if I was all right. I felt OK though my forehead was throbbing some and was bleeding. The bleeding did not let up for several games, and my opponent kept asking if I was all right. I kept playing, and played some of the best tennis I had played during this match for a while. My focus was great, and I was playing even more offensively and aggressively than I had so far. I ended up winning the second set 6-3.
In the third set, I was starting to lose energy, and I was not able to keep hitting offensive shots that would allow me to set the tone of the points. So he was taking control of the points more, and he was hitting shots that ran me all over the court, not only from side to side, but from front to back as well. On one point, he repeated the combination of a drop shot (pulling me to the front of the court) with a deep lob three times, and though I was able to scramble to get the first two of these pairs of shots, I stumbled on the third and hit it into the net. Though I was low on energy, I was able to get to most of the shots, but I was being run all over the court. Toward the end, I tried to do the same to him, but my energy was so depleted that my accuracy was not good, and I hit a lot of shots out or into the net.
Near the end of the third set, G. noticed that someone had taken his key to the court that he had left in the lock. He managed to summon the last other people on the site just as they were getting into their car to leave, and they found his key on another court. It would have been really bad if we had been locked in. Not only would we have faced the prospect of having to climb over the fence when we were done, but we would have had to do it in the dark, as the lights were about to time out (which was the reason that he was going to leave the court and noticed that his keys were gone). After the lock-out fiasco, which took about five minutes out of our set, I never did regain my game, and I lost the set 6-3 to lose the match.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Didn't Want To Be There, And It Showed
Sets 216-217:
Stuart v. Y. at Northwest Park. Winner: Y. 6-4, 6-1.
My Mojo: Distant And Scattered.
I REALLY did not want to be there for this match. I was in the middle of working on something that I did not want to leave, and I was just not wanting to pull myself away to play this match. I had scheduled the match, though, and it was a ladder match (even if it hadn't been, I don't think I would have stiffed an opponent). So I reluctantly dragged myself to the car, and went to the site to play. But my mind was not on the match at all.
Despite the fact that my brain was in a faraway place, I managed to start strong and win the first three games. But I kept drifting away to the stuff I had been working on, and I could not keep my focus on playing tennis. I was starting to get angry, too. I was angry that I had to be there, and I was upset about having to play, and after the first three games, my focus dissolved so badly that I was losing, and that was making me lose worse, and that was making me angry, too. So I was getting mad about contradictory things. I wanted to win, and I wasn't winning, and that was upsetting me. But I also wanted to lose quickly since I was losing, and it was upsetting me that I was just taking too long.
Despite the fact that I didn't want to be there, I still kept playing as hard as I could, but my focus and emotions were just out of hand. It started raining a couple of times, but not enough to postpone, and that upset me too. I just was not playing well at all, even though I was trying to, and in the second set it was no contest.
Stuart v. Y. at Northwest Park. Winner: Y. 6-4, 6-1.
My Mojo: Distant And Scattered.
I REALLY did not want to be there for this match. I was in the middle of working on something that I did not want to leave, and I was just not wanting to pull myself away to play this match. I had scheduled the match, though, and it was a ladder match (even if it hadn't been, I don't think I would have stiffed an opponent). So I reluctantly dragged myself to the car, and went to the site to play. But my mind was not on the match at all.
Despite the fact that my brain was in a faraway place, I managed to start strong and win the first three games. But I kept drifting away to the stuff I had been working on, and I could not keep my focus on playing tennis. I was starting to get angry, too. I was angry that I had to be there, and I was upset about having to play, and after the first three games, my focus dissolved so badly that I was losing, and that was making me lose worse, and that was making me angry, too. So I was getting mad about contradictory things. I wanted to win, and I wasn't winning, and that was upsetting me. But I also wanted to lose quickly since I was losing, and it was upsetting me that I was just taking too long.
Despite the fact that I didn't want to be there, I still kept playing as hard as I could, but my focus and emotions were just out of hand. It started raining a couple of times, but not enough to postpone, and that upset me too. I just was not playing well at all, even though I was trying to, and in the second set it was no contest.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
My Fire Gets Unceremoniously Put Out
Sets 206-207:
Stuart vs. S. at His Apartments. Winner: S. 6-3, 6-3, 2-5 (30-40)
My Mojo: Very Strong, But Drifting As Play Progressed In The First Two Sets.
Today it was stiflingly humid. It wasn't terribly hot, maybe about 85 or so, but the humidity had me sweating profusely even before the warmup had finished, and my clothes were completely soaked by the time the match was over, even before it started raining.
And what a time for the rain to arrive. I had already lost the first match 6-3, 6-3, and it starts pouring rain right as I am at set point on the third set. So I didn't get to finish the set, ergo, I didn't count a third set here. Rats. Not that he might not have come back from set point with a stunning turnaround and won the set 7-5 or taken it into a tiebreak. But I do think my chances of winning the third set were better at that point.
It had drizzled a little bit once or twice during our play, and even dropped just a few big raindrops once, but it never became wet enough to stop the play through the three sets, until the end. Each time that it threatened to rain, it stopped, and what tiny amounts of moisture had fallen dried up quickly, despite the humidity.
Meanwhile, back to the starting line... I started out both of the first two sets playing really strongly. In both sets, I was up 2-0 with very strong and offensive play. I took the initiative with my serves, and played the ball in my kind of game to winning most of the points. And then, in both sets, I just sort of checked out. Not that I still wasn't playing decently, but I was letting him set the pace more, and getting a few of his devastating winners whiz by me because of weak returns. In each of the first two sets, I only won one more game, and he won all the rest. However, there were a few points in which I felt I could not do anything about the winning shot. There were some things that encouraged me about my play, though.
First, I was not getting taken by his drop shots as badly as I usually do. I was doing a halfway decent job of distinguishing between the true drop shots and the deep slices, which is hard to do and takes a lot of accuracy. He only got me on a couple of drop shots, and only when I was pulled way out of position. He did get me on a couple of lobs after he pulled me to net with his drop shots, though the number of points that he won this way was not excessive.
Second, my anticipation was superb. I was getting to most of the shots that he hit back at me, no matter how offensively placed they were. My recovery on each shot was very good, and I was well-positioned the way I should be almost all of the time.
Third, most of the rallies were solid, and did not end with errors on my part. I did make a few errors in mistiming putting my body into the shot, which made the ball go long. But these diminished as the match went on. I also made some errors by running through my approach shots, again making the ball go long. And I made even less errors hitting the ball into the net by swinging flat at the ball instead of coming under the ball and up with my swing and stepping into the shot.
Fourth, I was getting really good shoulder rotation and body movement into my serves, especially my second serves. I think one thing I have figured out on my second serve is that I don't need to put as much arm into it and I can use more of my body, and it makes for a shot that is just as strong, falls consistently deep, and has a lot more control on it.
Fifth, my mental attitude was seriously solid. I didn't get mad or frustrated, and when I was down, I adopted a "one point at a time" attitude where I put the score out of my mind and just concentrated on technique and strategy. My play improved throughout the match rather that diminished, and that is what helped give me such a strong performance in the third set. My opponent seemed to have peaked in the second set and fizzled out in the third, whereas I was playing the best tennis of the evening at the end, and maybe even the best tennis I had played in a couple of months. Too bad the rain put out the fire.
Hey, I just thought of something. Maybe I'll see if he wants to finish that third set next time we play so I can count it. I was up 5-2, 40-30, and it was my serve from the east side. If he does manage to come back and win the set, that will almost be a set in itself, and one of several worthy ends to this story.
Stuart vs. S. at His Apartments. Winner: S. 6-3, 6-3, 2-5 (30-40)
My Mojo: Very Strong, But Drifting As Play Progressed In The First Two Sets.
Today it was stiflingly humid. It wasn't terribly hot, maybe about 85 or so, but the humidity had me sweating profusely even before the warmup had finished, and my clothes were completely soaked by the time the match was over, even before it started raining.
And what a time for the rain to arrive. I had already lost the first match 6-3, 6-3, and it starts pouring rain right as I am at set point on the third set. So I didn't get to finish the set, ergo, I didn't count a third set here. Rats. Not that he might not have come back from set point with a stunning turnaround and won the set 7-5 or taken it into a tiebreak. But I do think my chances of winning the third set were better at that point.
It had drizzled a little bit once or twice during our play, and even dropped just a few big raindrops once, but it never became wet enough to stop the play through the three sets, until the end. Each time that it threatened to rain, it stopped, and what tiny amounts of moisture had fallen dried up quickly, despite the humidity.
Meanwhile, back to the starting line... I started out both of the first two sets playing really strongly. In both sets, I was up 2-0 with very strong and offensive play. I took the initiative with my serves, and played the ball in my kind of game to winning most of the points. And then, in both sets, I just sort of checked out. Not that I still wasn't playing decently, but I was letting him set the pace more, and getting a few of his devastating winners whiz by me because of weak returns. In each of the first two sets, I only won one more game, and he won all the rest. However, there were a few points in which I felt I could not do anything about the winning shot. There were some things that encouraged me about my play, though.
First, I was not getting taken by his drop shots as badly as I usually do. I was doing a halfway decent job of distinguishing between the true drop shots and the deep slices, which is hard to do and takes a lot of accuracy. He only got me on a couple of drop shots, and only when I was pulled way out of position. He did get me on a couple of lobs after he pulled me to net with his drop shots, though the number of points that he won this way was not excessive.
Second, my anticipation was superb. I was getting to most of the shots that he hit back at me, no matter how offensively placed they were. My recovery on each shot was very good, and I was well-positioned the way I should be almost all of the time.
Third, most of the rallies were solid, and did not end with errors on my part. I did make a few errors in mistiming putting my body into the shot, which made the ball go long. But these diminished as the match went on. I also made some errors by running through my approach shots, again making the ball go long. And I made even less errors hitting the ball into the net by swinging flat at the ball instead of coming under the ball and up with my swing and stepping into the shot.
Fourth, I was getting really good shoulder rotation and body movement into my serves, especially my second serves. I think one thing I have figured out on my second serve is that I don't need to put as much arm into it and I can use more of my body, and it makes for a shot that is just as strong, falls consistently deep, and has a lot more control on it.
Fifth, my mental attitude was seriously solid. I didn't get mad or frustrated, and when I was down, I adopted a "one point at a time" attitude where I put the score out of my mind and just concentrated on technique and strategy. My play improved throughout the match rather that diminished, and that is what helped give me such a strong performance in the third set. My opponent seemed to have peaked in the second set and fizzled out in the third, whereas I was playing the best tennis of the evening at the end, and maybe even the best tennis I had played in a couple of months. Too bad the rain put out the fire.
Hey, I just thought of something. Maybe I'll see if he wants to finish that third set next time we play so I can count it. I was up 5-2, 40-30, and it was my serve from the east side. If he does manage to come back and win the set, that will almost be a set in itself, and one of several worthy ends to this story.
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