A Short Match, A Good Attitude

Sets 315-316:

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

My Mojo: Better Than Average.

It's funny how your play and your attitude can really vary from one match to another. One day, you might be playing poorly and feeling really grumpy, and the next, it might be all sunshine and flowers, and you can't go wrong when you hit the ball. The even more amazing thing is that sometimes this can all vary from game to game, or from point to point. I bring this up because yesterday my play was not so great, whereas today, it was much better. And my attitude today was great as opposed to lukewarm yesterday.

This was the last match I will play for about a month. I've got some stuff happening in the next month and I don't think I'll be able to play, but I'll come roaring back in September ready to finish this series. I'm ahead of my monthly goals by a pretty good margin, and even though last month and this month I won't have made par, I'm still on target.

I had another match scheduled this afternoon but had to cancel due to pressing stuff. I hate cancelling a match and this was the first time I had to cancel not due to weather or illness/injury, but it was unavoidable. Right now I can hardly believe that it is barely 9:30 a.m. and I've already finished a match. 8:00 a.m. was the earliest I have played all year. My opponent wanted to start at 7:00, but I didn't think I would make it out of bed in time. I probably wouldn't have, and barely got it together to get to this one.

I was playing well on the aggressive side when I set my mind to do so, but about half the time I was playing my usual defensive game. I had good directionality today, but did lose focus once or twice and hit a few long or cockeyed. On the whole, my shots were good. But what was great was my attitude. My mental state was really positive and together, and my plans were executed well. Almost every point, I had a good plan, and they worked most of the time.

In the second set, my opponent decided to get a lot more aggressive and play a chip and charge game for a while. I responded to this by hitting a lot of lobs when he came to net, most of which either landed out of his reach, or forced him to make weak returns off of his back foot to give me control of the point. And when he came to net reflexively but inappropriately, I was able to pick out the territory to hit a low-whizzing winner to that was out of his reach. I was able to adapt to his "B" game well. Towards the end of the match, I became more confident in my shots, and put it away easily, to end the match in about an hour.