I really hate that I am so competitive sometimes. It takes some years off my life I think. I obsess over it and when I do not perform I just lose it. The image of this racquet is not distorted, this is what it actually looks like now after the final point.

Today I played Mike S. This is the 2nd time I played him. The 1st time, which I blogged about, was last season. I won that match 6-1, 6-3. The match was his first K-Swiss match, it was at night, was very windy, and I played very well. I was prepared for that match and came to it with an open mind ready for any opponent. I played aggressively and won.

This match I was 20 minutes late to start (my fault time change and other stupid reasons). I did not prepare for it as I should have. I played 3.5 hours of tennis the day before and the day before that I moved my office. I expected to win as I did before. What I got was a 3 set battle in which I came out the loser. The images here tell's the tale, I made lots of errors.

Mike's weapon is that he returns most shots. He does not hit hard or play extreme angles or anything like that. He moves well and gets the ball in. There are lots of opportunities to hit approach shots and then close with winners. For me this is a problem right now it seems. First I was missing my approach shots, I knew this was and issue going into the match and struggled with it. Then when I did get the approach in or hit a shot to get him off balance I would not finish the point. There were many shots hit long and quite a few overheads in the net. I cannot count the number of relatively easy winners I missed in the middle of the court.

This was my match to lose and I lost it. I kept falling into his game which is to just get it in. Not the game you want to play against this opponent. Putting pressure on him worked when I was able to execute. Next time I play him it will not be 3 sets, I will go down swinging for winners at the net or win quickly.

 Final Score: 7-6, 6-4, 4-6

P.S. I also seem to have an affinity for jamming toes, this is the second time this has happened. This is the 2nd toe over on my right foot. I jammed on Saturday during the 1st match with no blood and then during the 3rd set I jammed it again chasing an overhead which made it bleed. Only a matter of time before the nail falls off, good times.

Today I played Jay (Mike) at his home court, Bardmoor. Me and him have quite the history which you could read on this blog. I have played him 3 times now. I won the 1st, he got the 2nd and today he won the 3rd meeting.

Mentally I had really put too much pressure on myself for this match. I knew it was going to be tough and I wanted to win badly. We played in the morning which is not something I prefer but that was not really a major factor. During the first set I was really nervous, I was playing sporadically and I my backhand was very bad. I do not think I got 1 backhand in during the 1st set. The points were close and there were several Deuce games but in the end I failed to win any games.

During the 2nd set I changed my grip on my backhand to a flatter, safer slice type shot. This seemed to help a lot. I won my 1st service game and broke his serve early. At one point I was up 3-1 during the 2nd. Things started going south for me though. He seemed to catch on to the aggressive play and was hitting lots of good overheads. Most of them I just did not even try to get because they looked close but I don't think he missed many. There were some which I stepped back and got out of the air but not too many. I really could have won this set, it was just a matter of 1-2 points honestly. I think losing the first set so badly effected me mentally and him positively as well. At 5-5 he managed to break my serve. During the 6-5 game he got some lucky shots in and I made some errors at the critical moment.

Could I have won ? The answer is most certainly Yes. I need to work on my backhand even more so I have enough confidence in it during big games like this. I recall having a similar problems during the playoffs. It is the shots you are not good at that break down badly during the pressure matches. My other shots were pretty good, there were times I was not stepping up to the ball and played too safe so this is something else I need to work with.

I lost 0-6, 5-7 ouch!

BTW, his wife was there watching again but she was not a factor at all. She stayed well off the court and never caused a disruption of any kind.

Well I moved up to 3.0 for more of a challenge and that is what I got on this match. This was a 3 set battle with the winner being the person who physically out lasted their opponent. Unfortunately that was not me

I played Tony and we were very evenly matched. He was pretty fast on his feet, especially for his size. He was taller than me. He got a lot of balls in and every now and then would hit a real nice forehand which I could just not get too. His serve was not too good as he missed a lot of 1st serves and his 2nd was always something to win on. This kept me in the running more than anything.

I seemed to get easier returns with my spin serve so I kept using that throughout the match. I tried the harder serve a few times after he broke my serve but found that he returned those even better. I think he plays people with hard serves as he mentioned he plays a lot of doubles. The high bounce - deep serve worked best.

Most of my loss in this match was attributed to my backhand. He would hit a nice deep ball to my backhand and I would either miss it short or just get it over the net. When I just got it over he was fast enough to capitalize on this.

The thing that did work for me was hitting deep balls right down the pipe to him. He was normally only good for a 3-4 hit rally and then he would normally try some hard return and hit it into the net. I recognized this but failed to execute the method consistently because of my weak backhand and getting tired toward the end of the 2nd and 3rd set.

I got his number and look forward to playing this guy again in the future. I do not have to play him again this season but I definitely want to get some playing time in with him as we are very closely matched.

Final Score was: 6-4, 3-6, 4-6.

 My next match is against a guy who beat Tony 6-1, 6-0. It is his first season in the league, Tony says he better than a 3.0 player (clearly).  I also have a match coming up on Wednesday 6/18 against a guy I played last season and had a 3 set battle with, that one I came out a winner lets hope I do as well this time.

Like last season I lost again in the first round of the playoffs. There is no day worse then the day you lose the last game of the season.

The person I played was a young guy, 22. He was like playing a brick wall honestly. Though he hit a few balls out at times I do not recall him missing any balls. He just seemed to get to everything. Even the overheads when he came to the net and I hit some good ones. He also had a strong serve.

The games I did win where the ones I just grind out with him and eventually he missed and I did get some solid points changing my serve on him. More often than not (obviously) I would hit something short in the rally and he would move in on it and get me off guard. Ether I could not get to it or the shot I did return was a easy winner for him. I normally do not like overheads in that situation as I miss them more often than I make them. I prefer to just get it in and this seemed to work against me.

Although the score was the same both sets I did do better in the 2nd and the score did not completely match up with the games, there were many Deuce situations.

I know I have no one to blame but myself for this loss. That being said here is the but... If someone makes it to the League Finals or Championship in a league they should have to move up. This kid played last season and beat several of the top seeded players. He made it to the League Finals and nearly beat the Champion in a 3 set battle.

I have decided to play 2.5 this Summer simply because it is Summer and I don't want to move up in the heat. I need to work on consistency and my fitness for the next season.

With only 2 games left in the season I go my first lose. URRRRRRRRGGGGGRRRGGGGGGGG! Man I hate losing.

I really wanted to have an undefeated season.

My opponent Rick was good player. He played smart and cam to the net often. My server was really off for some reason and this seemed to hurt my more than anything. I started double faulting a lot so I switched to my kick server. Well with his height this seems to put the ball right in his strike zone so he was able to capitalize on this. He moved into the net after these strong returns and it obviously worked well for him.

 Ironically he was doing what I NEED to do more of! Last lesson I had my coach pointed out my service returns as a week part of my game. I tried to improve this during the match and at times it seemed to work. I need to work on service returns more. I also did not come to the net enough. When I am going to learn to do this successfully. I always seem to recognize the opportunity too late. I stand at the baseline and admiring my nice shot that is making my opponent backpedal to get his racquet on it when I should be moving in to the center of the court.

 Be practice partner is finally recovered from his bike accident so I am going to work on these things with him. No lesson this week as my coach is out of town. I have 1 match left against a player who I have beaten before. He has a strong forehand but that is about it. I will need to take advantage of his serve and everything will be alright.