A Hard-Fought Loss Against My Daughter

Stuart v. E. at Pharr Tennis Center.  Winner: E 6-3, 6-3

My Mojo: Intense

It had been a while since I played against my daughter.  She's been the top tennis player at her high school for a couple of years, and has gotten constantly better for a while.  She's usually busy with practice, but now that it has slowed down for the year, she has some time to play outside the school team.  So when she wanted to play tonight, I was happy to be able to play against her.

This was the first time I had played in about a month and a half.  I could tell I was a bit rusty, but physically, I had no problems.  I never felt like I was struggling to maintain my stamina on the court, though I thought going into the match that I might have some trouble since I hadn't played in a while.  I've played matches before where I got to the point where I felt like I was struggling to stand up.  That wasn't the case here; I felt like I could have played a couple more sets by the end.

As a matter of fact, we hit for a while after the match and I felt like I could have kept going for quite a while.  But though I had no problems whatsoever with endurance or intensity, I was definitely struggling to maintain my form and my focus.

I started out pretty focused and had the upper hand in the first three games, winning all three of them for a score of 3-0.  Her shots were outpacing mine, but she must not have been warmed up quite yet. I was able to play my usual consistent game and win most of the rallies.  My serve was pretty strong for the first few games, too, giving me the edge in the first three since I served first.

The next EIGHT games were a completely different story.  I was completely dominated in these games, and could not get anything to happen for me.  She roared back into form and I was never able to get a toehold in.  She was doing that thing that really good players do to me where they pull me off balance and then slam a missile to a place on the court that I just can't get to.  This wasn't happening all the time, but enough to be disconcerting.  And my timing was not great.  I was misjudging the ball's spin and trajectory too much and hitting late a lot, which was causing me to not hit in front of my body, but barely catch it too far back or at a weird angle.  This was allowing her to dominate most of the rallies in these games.  So I lost the first set 6-3 and the first three games of the second set, which was now at 3-0 in her favor.

Then I suddenly broke through to a more solid focus and was able to anticipate a little better and suddenly won the next game fairly easily, giving me a tiny psychological wedge.  Now the second set was 3-1 with me down.  The next three games were long and contested, as each of us pushed hard to try to get an edge but neither of us were able to get much past the other.  These games were long and went back and forth with not only longer rallies, but also going back and forth between deuce and ad for almost interminable lengths.  But she maintained the slightest advantage and won two or these three games, and her shots were more solid and I was slowly deteriorating in form and making more errors. Now it was 5-2.

I managed to pull some more focus together and win another game with good returns and solid placement, pulling the score up to 5-3.  I was starting to think that maybe I could hold and come back, but that didn't happen.  She won the last game easily as my form crumbled again and her superior shots held steady.