A Mental Game That Briefly Crumbles

Sets 472-474:

Stuart v. C. at Vista Ridge. Winner: Stuart 6-2, 6-7(3), 6-2.

My Mojo: Solid Granite Turning To Sandstone For The Tiebreak.

This guy has beat me before both of the times we have played. But I really enjoy playing him, because we had really close and long matches and push each other to the limit. Tonight was no exception, except this time I won.

Throughout most of the match, I had good ball control and great consistency. The first and third matches I played much better, but in the second match, my error rate went up, andI made enough errors (and he hit enough winners) to go into a tiebreak.

Then the unexpected tiebreak we played messed up my mental state. I usually do a lot of mental preparation before a match, especially if I have had close matches with somebody that I have lost to several times. I visualize playing against that person's playing style for several days before the match, try to see myself hitting shots with good form, and get into a mental zone before the game. And that is what I did this time. It mostly worked, except he asked me to play a tiebreak that I wasn't familiar with. I figured I would end up having to play that tiebreak at some point anyway, so I agreed. But it really just crumbled my concentration. So I lost the tiebreak. I guess I can't completely blame it on that, because he played really well during the tiebreak.

But I didn'tlet that get to me, and I got my mental state back for the third set. I was able to hit a few more shots that were winners than he did in this set (though it did seem like he got some really good ones in, especially when I hit shots that came up weak and short that he was able to get an extreme angle on), and I also made less errors. I especially managed to avoid hitting shots long and got most of them right inside the baseline.

One thing that I lamed out on was my lobs when he came to net. They almost all seemed to come up short, and he returned them with overheads that I was rarely ever able to get to. But my serve was really on tonight.