Another Match That Is Close But No Cigar

Stuart v. B. at Martin Junior High.  Winner: B. 3-6, 6-4, 6-2.

Dang, it's been so long since I've played a three-set match that I had almost forgotten that playing a match for two and a half hours can be a lot different from playing a bunch of four-game thingies (I don't even know what you call it when you play four games).  Especially when the games have super-long rallies and go back and forth between deuce and advantage a lot.  Like today.

In each set, I started out behind, but then rallied up to speed to come up from behind.  In the first set, I was down 0-2 and came back to with the next six out of seven games.  In the second set, I was down 0-4, then won the next four games, but lost the last two.  In the third set, I was also down 0-4 but only managed to win the next two games.  So my comeback petered out a little more each time.

But there were a lot of games in which both of us hit shots that probably neither of us thought we would get back.  In some of them, it happened in rapid succession.  That's what makes for a good tennis match.  There was a lot of running around and a lot of playing for position.

In the end, it just boiled down to the fact that my shots were not as good, I was falling short into the net and going long past the baseline too much, and I just made more dummkopf errors than he did.

Well, there wouldn't have been a cigar anyway...