The Heat Gets To Me A Little

Sets 281-282:

Stuart v. J. at McCallum High. Winner: Stuart 6-3, 7-6(4)

My Mojo: Above-Average Until The Heat Hit Me, Then In And Out.

Man, this was a tough match. Not only was this guy really good, but the heat was nearly unbearable. Yesterday it was nice and cool because of the rain. And some rain came through early this morning, but the whole rainy weather pattern seemed to have moved out by the time we played, and right about then the heat started ramping up. When we started, it was 86 degrees, and by the time we finished, it was 97 degrees. And this was in grotesquely high humidity, too, because of all the water in the ground from the rain of the last few days and this morning.

My opponent had great technique. He stepped into his shots really well, and when he hit one right on, it was tough for me to get to. He also ran me all over kingdom come; not only did he hit a lot of shots back and forth, but he also varied the depth of his shots quite a bit. But once again, I got to most of the seemingly impossible shots (with decent returns, even), and shocked myself by getting to some of his extreme angles. He was about half-and-half at net. Sometimes he was super-dominant when he got to net, but probably about 60% of the time I was able to either get lobs over him or passing angles that nullified his net game. Towards the end, he stopped coming to net as much.

My first serves were only lukewarm today. I wasn't getting the greatest aim on my first serves, and I was missing a lot of them. My second serves were above-average, though, so it made up for it. I got some of my best offensive games off of my second serves.

In the first set, I was taking a huge lead at first. Even though he won the first game, I felt like I was just getting ramped up, and I didn't feel terribly outplayed. I wasn't anticipating as well as I did yesterday, but my strategy was a little better. My shots were good too and I was not misfacing my racquet or mispositioning my body on a sizable minority of them. He had been running me around a lot, though, and usually I am just fine with that, but this time I think that the heat made that hard for me. By the time I got ahead by 4-1 in the first set, I was starting to feel a little bit heat-sick. I was feeling woozy and sick to my stomach, and was having trouble recovering from running around. My shots were starting to get crappier, and I had almost no offensive game at all. I considered retiring, but I wasn't quite close enough to death to actually do it. I took the next few games to try to conserve some energy, and kept icing down my face and body on the changeovers. I also kinda panted like a dog (I was becoming one with my inner dog) through the icy towel. The next few games didn't go as well as the beginning of the set, and I lost two for the next four games, but that was enough to win the set.

I started out the second set still badly affected by the heat. I was suddenly playing like I was buffalo vomit. I lost the first four games, and was down 4-0. Crap. At this point, I thought I would be playing a third set for sure. I knew if I played a third set, I would have to take the ten-minute break between the second and third sets just to try to recover, which I haven't done in an awfully long time. But then in the next game, the sickness suddenly lifted, and I felt much better. I won that game, and felt like it was easy.

Now I was feeling really good, and determined to make every shot count. I told myself that there was no way I was going to lose this set. I won the next four games and brought the score up to where I was winning 5-4. When I was down by 4-3, though, I felt like I was at an advantage just by virtue of my comeback and the fact that I had such great momentum.

My opponent still had some surprises for me at this point, though. Also, the heat sickness started creeping back a little, though not as bad as before. And both my hands were starting to cramp up, so I could tell that I was low on electrolytes. I started chugging Gatorade big time on the changeovers. Damn, I always forget to bring Pedialyte or cider vinegar with me; either one of those helps me with cramps though I would give the edge on that to the vinegar. He roared back to win the next game and brought the score to 5-5. His game was so strong I didn't even get a single point in that game. I won the next game on my serve, barely squeaking ahead and still weak, so now I was ahead 6-5. And then he won the next game to take it to 6-6 and a tiebreaker.

I was a little bit down mentally at this point, because I had expected to win with all of the momentum I had coming back from being so far behind, and I was somewhat discouraged by the return of the heat sickness. I won the first point of the tiebreak just because I hit a well-placed shot, despite the weakness and nausea I was feeling. Then he won the next two points of the tiebreak and was ahead 2-1. Then I lost another point and I was down 3-1. Both of us were playing pretty conservatively, with no major whizzers. We were both hitting mostly shots that would get into the court, but not improving either of our positions through shot strategy. We both pretty much became backboards at that point. Maybe he was as tired as i was. I was thinking at this point that I had been feeling like crap, but I'd play a third set after a break. Maybe I'd ride around in my car in the air conditioning for a few minutes. But wait...the heat sickness lifted again! Yippee! I was feeling strong again, my mental state was good, and my shots started clicking. I played really strongly and won all but one of the succeeding points to win the tiebreak 7-4 and win the set.

Suddenly, as I sat down on the bench after the game, all that heat sickness came flooding back. I guess I hadn't really gotten over it, but was somehow suppressing it when I needed to. I could barely move, and I felt seriously weak and nauseous. I took my wet towel out of my ice cooler, and let it soak my face and my arms and legs. I panted through it to cool the breath coming from inside my body. After a few minutes, I was able to pack up my gear and pour myself into my car to leave. I saw a snow-cone stand in the parking lot of the bowling alley across the street and got a snow cone to help cool me off. Damn, it was sickeningly sweet. Next time I'll tell them to squirt in only about half the syrup that they usually put on it. But then again, sucrose is a good anti-nausea medicine, so maybe it worked out. It took me a few hours to feel fully recovered, and my hands were still cramping up after I got home. I took a cool bath and sat on the couch and watched movies on TV. My back was starting to throb a little too. I had worn a back brace during the match, but it didn't really bother me while I was playing. Or maybe I had just kind of shut it off like I had done with the heat zonk. So I did some of the exercises the chiropractor had showed me for my back, and it helped a little. Also, I took some muscle relaxants and hydrocodone, and then I felt like melted butter. The rest of the day was pretty relaxing as I just stayed on the couch and watched movies. The kids are gone--one is in Arkansas, and one is with her mom.