The Interstate Battle Of The Bloggers

Sets 260-261:

Stuart v. TennisTitan at Northwest Park. Winner: Stuart 6-1, 6-2.

My Mojo: Average Shots, Solid Hustle.

This was a classic New York v. Texas smackdown as TennisTitan came in blowing a cold north wind to play in the land of jalapeños and brain-dead politicians (which are actually kinda the same thing--they both sting on the way out). But the guns of the Alamo state just wouldn't let up. Shouldn't Governor Shapleigh have to wear a dress or something after this one?

This whole saga started when I was looking for other people who blog their (putting it charitably) less than professional-quality games. It's dang hard to find other bloggers who are writing about their own play and not following the pros. If you look in a search engine, just about any search term you put in will take you to people who either want to pour adulation on Roger Federer or to drool over Anna Kournikova. So I made a diligent search for kindred folk, and I found the Titan. His was one of TWO, count 'em, two blogs that I found where non-pro players talk about their own play. I bet there's more out there but they are just buried in search engine results and almost impossible to find.

So we started some back-and-forth by email, and, lo and behold, it turns out he has a son in Austin that he is planning to visit. We make arrangements to play and the fateful day arrives (cue the theme song to the movie "The Mexican").

We agree to meet at the O.K. Corral, er...I mean Northwest Park, for the exchange of big round yellow bullets. It was hotter than a diseased whore's knickers outside, but we both held up well. Well, at least I did. I can't speak for him.

In the first set I started out a little understated. I wanted to feel out his game and see where I needed to go. His shots were pretty decent, but my run game was not missing a beat at all, and I ran down just about every shot that went to some weird angle that he thought would be out of my range. I'm pretty used to playing with people who think they can cannonball stuff out of my range, and some of the really fantastic players do a good job of it, but on the whole, if a player's whole strategy is predicated on making me run, and that's all they bring to the plate, then that's where I usually bring home the burritos.

Though we did have a few pretty close games in the first set, I took the set fairly easily 6-1 by running everything down, even the so-called impossible shots, and by pulling him out of position and dropping balls out of his reach. I hit very few cannonballs, and that's usual for me.

In the second set, I think he was a little tired. I was just getting into a groove, and though he did win one more game, I felt more confident this set than I had the first. I felt like I knew where he was going most of the time, and my anticipation was even better, so I was able to run down even more impossible shots, getting good court coverage. His best tactic on me was a cross-court low slam to deuce court when I was positioned off-balance in ad court. I got most of those, but he did nail me on a few.

My serve wasn't outstanding but it was average or a little better than average. My second serve was getting really deceptive spin on it but accurate placement. I was doing something a little weird with my wrist for experimentation on my second serve, and it seemed to work. Some of my second serves were pulling him pretty far out of position so I could get an aggressive game in after that, and I even aced him with one second serve. All in all, my shots were not fantastic, but I ran everything down and kept a physical edge going.

After the match, we had a little bit of conversation and he took some pics for his blog. His son had showed up toward the end of the match to "watch the massacre" (his words, not mine) and ended up taking a couple of pictures. Maybe I'll show up in his neck of the woods sometime so "Pancho Villa" can plan out his revenge.

On a side note, I've been a real slug about blogging lately. I have been faithfully recording the scores, but the stories are falling by the wayside. I guess maybe I kinda discovered that I actually do have a life, despite what my daughters keep telling me, and there are other things to do. Not that tennis isn't fun and all that, but I do want to stop and smell the flowers occasionally. There's the romantic view, but the reality is more like I need to catch up on chores that I've been letting pile up for the last, oh, six months or so.