Just A Whisker Behind, Then The Tire Goes Flat

Stuart v. P at Shipe Park.  Winner: P 6-4, 6-2.

My Mojo: Energetic, Then Flat.

It was another beautifully temperate day.  I got to the park a bit early because I knew these courts get busy.  And I was right; both courts were taken when I got there.  That was OK as I had time to wait.  My opponent got there right as we were supposed to start playing, but both courts were still taken.  We both waited maybe ten minutes, and then one of the matches ended and we were able to take a court.

This was an unusually short match for me, and was very fast-paced.  I was constantly moving; there were a lot of shots to angles and I got to most of them with an enormous amount of hustle.  Usually I play these long, grueling slugfests where the person who ends up being the lesser bloody stump staggers off the court victorious, but this one was done in a relative flash.

It seemed to me that we were very close in the games, but in the middle of each set, he just eked out an advantage that I was not able to overcome.  In the first set, he won the first two games very rapidly, but I felt like I wasn't being vastly outplayed.  I came back to win the next two and then it was tied at 2-2.  There was a lot of moving each other around in fast and energetic points where one person either grabbed an advantage and was able to keep hold of it, or suddenly gained an advantage through an unexpected move.  He took hold of the next three games very rapidly to make the set 5-2 in his favor.  Then I started just playing calmly and concentrating on one point at a time without regard for the score, and putting more emphasis on my footwork.  I was able to clearly dominate most of the points in the next two games and came up to being down 5-4. I was not able to get the next game, which was a squeaker and fell in his favor.  I wouldn't see this was THE psychological linchpin, but it was definitely a turning point.

In the second set, he won the first game very rapidly as I was a little mentally off balance.  But I was able to pull it together a little and win the next two games in what I thought was a fairly easy fashion.  So I was up for the first time in a set, 2-1.  Up to this point (and thereafter), I had only mostly been behind, with just one tie in the last set and the tie in the second set at 1-1.  I was feeling good, but it gradually drifted away.

The next few games were closely paced but rapid.  This kind of play frustrates me a lot, I think, as games go by with great speed but still fairly evenly matched.  But still, there was something in my play that was just a hair lacking.  Everything was just coming in barely under the wire.

I didn't win any more games, but I was playing very methodically and with great vigor.  I had the history of what had happened previously pounce on me and chew up the rest of my game, though. The ghosts of the first set would not let loose of me.  I wasn't soundly defeated for the first part of the set, but either deftly outmaneuvered or beaten by myself by just a hair.  In the latter part of the set, the chains were just rattling too loudly; in the end it was too much and the last couple of games fell quickly and decisively.