Finally...A Hard-Fought Win

Stuart v. J. at Northwest Park.  Winner: Stuart 3-6, 6-4, 6-2.

My Mojo: Surging.

It has not been a favorable atmosphere for me on the tennis court lately when I've been playing sets.  First last week I lost a set 6-1 at Austin High.  But the frustrating thing was that the games were great, with lots of back-and-forth between deuce and ad, and super-long rallies.  But I was not physically well; I think I was dehydrated, and it was really hot.  I just didn't have the edge even though I was putting forth some good game.

Then I lost a couple of really lopsided matches where I played two sets and only won one game out of thirteen in each of the whole two sets.  One was 6-1, 6-0, one was 6-0, 6-1.  I forget which was which.

One was against an opponent that I probably could have done better against, and another was just a completely outclassed mismatch in which I couldn't do anything.  This guy played so well that I was there about 80% of the first ball he would hit, then 70% the second time the ball came at me, then about 50% for the third time, then the kill shot would come.  And almost every point was like that.

Today, at first, I thought it was going to be another complete mismatch.  The guy I played against was just totally wiping the court with me at the beginning.  He was a big, accurate hitter with a good sense of strategy.  His serve had a huge amount of bounce and he was hugely fierce on both the first and second serves.  I was mishitting the serves, and that led to really weak rallies.  But even on my serves, I just felt like there was not much of an inroad for me.  In the first set, I didn't get a lot of points, but I did manage to win three games mostly on the strength of my serves.  But when I got into a rally my game just melted.

So I thought that I was just oatmeal.  But in the second set, after I was down 1-4, I just decided to play one point at a time, with blinders as to what happened before, and just try to be calm and steady with my shots.  And I started winning one game after another.  Whereas in the first set, I hadn't won any games on his serve, suddenly I was breaking his serve over and over again.  Before I knew it, I had tied the score at 4-4.

Then he had a momentary rage thing.  He looked at me with some serious anger, and then let out a yell, and hit the ball way out of the court.  Usually if I do something like that, I'm pretty sheepish afterwards.  But he still looked mad, and it freaked me out a little.  But it also kinda made me more calm in a way, realizing that I had some stability in my mood and that was a good thing.  I won the next two games to win the set, and he was starting to play a little more erratically.  I don't think he expected to get to a third set, and I was ready for anything.

But then his focus came back for the third set.  And mine got kinda diffuse.  He and I matched games, getting to 2-2, when my calmness came back and I started strategizing a little better.  I won the next two games quickly, and then his shots got really unsteady.  He was hitting hard, but not putting a lot of aim into it, with the exception of the occasional great approach shot for the kill.  I just tortoised my way past this hare and won the match.