Not Enough Tuna

Set 407:

Stuart v. K. at Westlake High.  Winner: K. 7-6(2).

My Mojo:  Unfocused And Tired.

Here, it is, the last set of the year.  I was already kind of lacka-malaise-ical coming into playing today.  I worked out at the gym for about an hour and a half before coming to play at Westlake.  The last time I worked out before playing, it energized me, but this time, it sapped me some. Maybe it was because I did a lot of intensive stuff and did more resistance and cardio.  

First I played two sets of doubles, and, just in case you haven't read previous posts about it, I don't count doubles.  We got some people together to play three games, and my team was ahead 2-1, but then a couple of more people showed up, so we re-formulated and a couple of the doubles players went off to hit singles.  With the new teams, we lost the first set 7-5, and then won the second set 6-3.  Two of the players who were there didn't want to stick around to play a tiebreak set, so K. and I stayed and played a singles set.

I almost declined to play, which would have been out of character for me--usually I'm up for anything.  But I had more go than stop in me (just barely), so I went ahead and played.  I knew I would be in trouble, though.  I hadn't been playing too great when we played doubles; my anticipation was out the window and smashed on the floor, my serves were not in tune at all, and my groundstrokes were mediocre at best.  And every time I have played K., we have played really long, physically demanding, close games with him usually squeaking out the win at the end.  I can get frustrated by that, and today, my mindset was a little weak, so my frustration was there in full force.  This set was no exception.

My play was not not too different in the singles set from what it had been in the doubles sets, though I did manage to get a little focus for part of it.  For the first seven games, I only won two of them, though most of them were fairly close.  Then I came back with good offensive play (it offended me, anyway) to win the next three games, but got wiped out the next two.  I simply crumbled at the end and I could not come up with enough energy and mental toughness to put the signature on the document.  I guess I just ran out of tuna.