Finally...A Hard-Fought Win

Stuart v. J. at Northwest Park.  Winner: Stuart 3-6, 6-4, 6-2.

My Mojo: Surging.

It has not been a favorable atmosphere for me on the tennis court lately when I've been playing sets.  First last week I lost a set 6-1 at Austin High.  But the frustrating thing was that the games were great, with lots of back-and-forth between deuce and ad, and super-long rallies.  But I was not physically well; I think I was dehydrated, and it was really hot.  I just didn't have the edge even though I was putting forth some good game.

Then I lost a couple of really lopsided matches where I played two sets and only won one game out of thirteen in each of the whole two sets.  One was 6-1, 6-0, one was 6-0, 6-1.  I forget which was which.

One was against an opponent that I probably could have done better against, and another was just a completely outclassed mismatch in which I couldn't do anything.  This guy played so well that I was there about 80% of the first ball he would hit, then 70% the second time the ball came at me, then about 50% for the third time, then the kill shot would come.  And almost every point was like that.

Today, at first, I thought it was going to be another complete mismatch.  The guy I played against was just totally wiping the court with me at the beginning.  He was a big, accurate hitter with a good sense of strategy.  His serve had a huge amount of bounce and he was hugely fierce on both the first and second serves.  I was mishitting the serves, and that led to really weak rallies.  But even on my serves, I just felt like there was not much of an inroad for me.  In the first set, I didn't get a lot of points, but I did manage to win three games mostly on the strength of my serves.  But when I got into a rally my game just melted.

So I thought that I was just oatmeal.  But in the second set, after I was down 1-4, I just decided to play one point at a time, with blinders as to what happened before, and just try to be calm and steady with my shots.  And I started winning one game after another.  Whereas in the first set, I hadn't won any games on his serve, suddenly I was breaking his serve over and over again.  Before I knew it, I had tied the score at 4-4.

Then he had a momentary rage thing.  He looked at me with some serious anger, and then let out a yell, and hit the ball way out of the court.  Usually if I do something like that, I'm pretty sheepish afterwards.  But he still looked mad, and it freaked me out a little.  But it also kinda made me more calm in a way, realizing that I had some stability in my mood and that was a good thing.  I won the next two games to win the set, and he was starting to play a little more erratically.  I don't think he expected to get to a third set, and I was ready for anything.

But then his focus came back for the third set.  And mine got kinda diffuse.  He and I matched games, getting to 2-2, when my calmness came back and I started strategizing a little better.  I won the next two games quickly, and then his shots got really unsteady.  He was hitting hard, but not putting a lot of aim into it, with the exception of the occasional great approach shot for the kill.  I just tortoised my way past this hare and won the match.

Down And Out In Bev...er...Northwest Park

OK.  I'm baaaaaack.  It's been three years since I last posted here.  It had started to become rote to me.  It was getting to be a chore.  I was unfulfilled.  Or whatever.  But here I am again.

The original aim of this blog was to chronicle playing 365 sets in a year.  And I did that with flying colors.  Then I slowed down in my playing, and didn't feel like blogging after a while.  Sometimes I just posted the scores.  Then I quit even doing that.

Why did I stop?  Life takes over sometimes.  It reminds us that there's a huge world out there, and that focusing on one little facet of it detracts from everything else.  And there was a lot of everything else in the meantime.  I could write a blog, I tell ya.

So now I have no real goal, which is OK with me.  I'm not reaching for a brass ring.  I can do whatever I want here.  I can post my games if I want, and not post them if I don't.

I've been on kind of a hiatus for a while.  I had escaped tennis elbow-type stuff for most of the duration of my tennis play, but toward the end of when I quit for a while, my elbow had been hurting.  I iced, used anti-inflammatories, exercised, and did all the things you are supposed to do, but it wasn't getting any better.  So I quit for a while.  It was probably about nine months.  I had quit blogging long before that, and I had reduced my game load also.  But here I am to bug you once again with my useless ramblings about a tiny sliver of the life of this mostly insignificant ball of seemingly sentient twitches, spazzing around in one little festering pocket of the universe.

I've played some tennis that I didn't blog.  Since I started playing again this month, I haven't really played any matches; I've just been hitting with some people and maybe playing some informal games.  Maybe I'll blog those, maybe I won't.

But back to our protagonist.

Sets (oh, that's another thing...I'm not going to keep a running count of the sets any more).

Stuart v. C. at Northwest Park.  Winner: C. 6-1, 6-0

My Mojo:  One Step Back.


Since I started hitting informally a short while back, at first my shots were complete garbage.  Nothing was going where it should have gone and everything was hitting the wrong part of the racquet.  "Erratic" would be an understatement.  So I dialed it back and just tried to get the fundamentals down.  After hitting a few times, I was getting the old feel back.  The last couple of times I hit, it was feeling really solid.  It was getting better and better.  Last time, almost everything felt great.  Footwork was better, shots were solid, and I was using really good spin control.

But not today.  It was definitely a step back.  It's a good sign to take two steps forward and one step back, I guess.  I just wish it hadn't happened today.

Not to denigrate my opponent at all, but I mostly beat myself.  I hit poor angles that made the ball go out when it should have gone in.  I was too low on the net tape.  My opponent helped me dig my grave by hitting everything back really solidly, capitalizing well on my weak shots, and playing for position superbly.  Toward the end the heat and my feeble excuse for play was just getting to me too much.  Even though the score was lopsided, at first it was pretty competitive.  But toward the end, it was exactly what the score reflected.  I just could not break out on almost anything, and they points just were not my friends anymore.  There was really no way out by the end of the second set.  I could probably do better against this opponent on a better day, but not today.

Sets 560-562:

Stuart v. K. at Connally HS. Winner: K. 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-2.

Sets 558-559:

Stuart v. TennisTitan at Northwest Park. Winner: Stuart 6-1, 6-3.

Sets 556-557:

Stuart v. TennisTitan at Northwest Park. Winner: Stuart 6-3, 6-1.

Sets 553-555:

Stuart v. C. at South Austin Tennis Center and Westlake High School. Winner: Stuart 6-4, 5-7, 6-3.

Sets 550-552:

Stuart v. S. at Williamson County Tennis Center. Winner: S. 2-6, 7-5, 6-2.

Sets 548-549:

Stuart v. W. at Little Stacy Park. Winner: W. 6-0, 6-1.

Sets 545-547:

Stuart v. I. at Northwest Park. Winner: Stuart. 1-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Sets 543-544:

Stuart v. P. at Northwest Park. Winner: P. 7-5, 6-4

Coming Back After Some Down Time

Sets 541-542:

Stuart v. C. at South Austin Tennis Center. Winner: Stuart 6-4, 6-0.

My Mojo: Steady and Tenacious.

It's been a while since I played. I need to start playing more often again. I don't know why I've drifted away from playing tennis more often, but I need to start trying to play at least once or twice a week again.

I guess I only have a certain amount of mojo to spread out among all of the physical things that I do. Now that I've gotten back into running more often, it seems like that has taken more of the edge off of my tennis game. But I felt like I played pretty well today.

One indicator for me was that my volleys were really on. Every time I came to net, it paid off. I had good directionality, didn't flub any into the net, and had "good hands" on the returns with just the right touch almost every time.

In the first set, I was a little worried. This is the third time I have played C., and he had beaten me both times before. In each of the previous matches, I felt like our play was close, but he just out-ground me. It seems like he is a grinding player, which is a lot like the way I play. Just stay in there and out last if you can, that's the strategy. Three-hour slugfests are the norm for my type of player, and if both of us play that way, it gets long and ugly, with each of us getting to everything, and long, engaging rallies.

But this time I was able to get a little more aggressive play in and cut off more of the rallies. Starting out the match, we were playing a little more evenly, but I felt like I was able to out-finesse him just a little. I didn't make a lot of errors, but I did double-fault a little more than usual, which was a minor annoyance, but not a deal-breaker.

The second set was when I really picked it up. Everything came into focus well, and I was able to have a good psychological outlook on the proceedings. I felt like I controlled the majority of the points, and for most of the games my serve was really on. In the last game, it seemed like he stormed back some, but the last point was definitely mine. This was a welcome comeback, but I probably should practice some before I play more matches.

Ladies, here's a hint. If you're up against a girl with big boobs, bring her to the net and make her hit backhand volleys. That's the hardest shot for the well-endowed--Billie Jean King

A "first-ever" for my blog...pictures!

The highs, the lows...the ecstasy and the agony...the stupid grins on all sides.

The Titan and I settle up at the end of the match.

Clash With The Titan (Again)

Sets 539-540:

Stuart v. TennisTitan in Yonkers, NY. Winner: Stuart 6-3, 6-2.

Traveling around the northeastern quadrant of the country, I stopped by to visit the TennisTitan in our series of back-and-forth matches. We had a little bit harder time this time finding time as I had stuff to do, and he had stuff to do. So my original plan of visiting him on the way up got changed around and I stopped through on the way back instead.

He was ever the gracious host, offering me a night's rest at his place since I was stopping through. Might be the last time for that, though, since he said he was starting to think about selling his humble home, now that he's been an empty-nester for a while. Sounded like he has a lot of memories invested in that place.

When I pulled into Yonkers, I had already visited most of the states in New England. Did my time in Woonsocket, RI. Spent a great time in Boston. Three days in Hartford, CT. Camped in Bear Brook State Park in New Hampshire. Spent a lovely night in Bennington, VT. Hiked the tallest mountain in Massachusetts and the Adirondacks in New York. So the tennis thing was turning out to be the icing on top of the cake; the cherry on the whipped cream.

TT and I went to one of his usual haunts and started smacking the ball around. I was a little stiff, having just gotten out of the car about an hour before. But I started getting into the fluidity of the situation, and loosened up a little. In the first set, we were keeping pace a lot, and he was getting a lot of drop shots and winners in on me. I was not covering the court as well as I should have been, but I made up for it with my usual speed in getting to where I needed to be. And I started getting savvy on the drop shots, and getting ready to rush in if it looked like a shot was going to go soft.

My defensive game was top-notch. My offensive game...well, it's never that great anyway, so I can't really complain. The first set I took 6-3, and the first few games were tougher than the last ones.

In the second set, my serve started getting better, and I won more points from dominant serves. Also, there were more long rallies, which I tend to be able to take. My anticipation improved, and I was getting to almost everything, whereby in the first set I was missing some far-court shots. I won the second set 6-2, and it was off to the Chinese buffet for both of us. A fitting cap on the evening. Of course, the Titan blogged his match right away, and I've been quite the slug once again.

Sets 536-538:

Stuart v. M. at Little Stacy Park. Winner: Stuart. 6-4, 4-6, 6-0.