After the previous weekend of back to back 3 set battles I was definitely feeling discourged with the beginning of my season. The shadow of those matches loomed over me as I approached this new opponent. This week I assurred that I was well rested and prepared for the match at hand. I played Justin at the St. Pete Tennis Club. I had not played there before and it was nice to play somewhere new. Of course on Sunday most of the courts were full and there were lots of younger people playing some competitve tennis. I felt old.

I arrived on time and began warming up. I always suck at first and during the warm up Justin was hitting very well. He hit nice ground strokes that were landing deep in the court. They had lots of spin and bounced high. I was concerned. I noticed he was a lefty and made a point to mention it to him during the practice. I like to do this so my opponent knows I am thinking about it. I took control of the practice session though and worked on some vollies and then serves. 

The first set we started by winning on each others serve. I was winning on his because his service game was really off. I do not know the count on double faults but it was pretty high. On my side I was getting my serves in early but my strokes were not good initially. I kept falling away from shots and seemed to land a lot of balls in the net. At one point during the first set he was up 3-2, I knew this was a critical time in the match and pushed myself to tighen up.  I started putting some more pace on my serve and changing between a flat and spin serve. This seemed to work. Also I noticed that he had the most trouble with serves hit right at him. This realization was an important one during the match and I did not lose on serve after noticing this point. Even if this theory was not entirely true the fact that I was focused on this new aiming point seemed to imporve my overall server percentage. I managed to crawl out of the 3-2 deficit and win the first set 6-4. 

The 2nd set I was able to control the points fairly well. I got a lot more approach shots in this time then last weekend and I would charge the middle of the court. This seemed to work most of the time. The more deliberate my move to the middle the better as he seemed to look up and hit an error in many of these situations. He pointed it out to himself a few times saying "I took my eye off the ball...", of course I was listening and kept doing this. The times it did not work seemed to be when the approach was poor and/or I moved too close to the net. I also was not getting my racquet squared up at the service line and a few times and missed because the ball just bounced off the angled racquet face. I did not do this in practice but it seems to come up in the match. The points I lost during this set were close for the most part. I know the last game I was up 40-0, all from serve points which were not returned in, then I lost 2 straight points and was at 40-30. I psyched myself up to get a good first serve in that was directly at his body and the match ended on an error into the net. I won the 2nd set 6-3.

Final was 6-4, 6-3. Hopefully Justin will call sometime and we can practice. I think he had an off day and I had an on day which sometimes happens in tennis. I think if we were both having an on day then we would have played 3 sets...not sure of the result though, guess we will have to wait and see.

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.

Ok so only my coach and Mom likely read this blog so keep this in mind when reading if your not one of these people by chance.

 This past 2-3 months since the end of the last season have been a real busy time for me. I tried to train for the season and I lost 25 lbs to help my game. The problem is I have not been able to get lots of match time in. I had a buy the first week of the season and had to travel last week so I am behind on matches. This means playing 2 matches this weekend.

Let me begin by getting all the outside excuses out of the way:

1. Have not been playing matches
2. Moved my office the day before, very sore.
3. Courts were full of people, lots of distractions
4. Teenagers yelling obscenities during the match
5. Really hot girls playing tennis 1 court away from us
6. Played in the morning, I was tired
7. Stupid statistics coach told me, awful Approach shot stat in my head
8. This player is the reason for me being in 3.0 1 more season
9. He rubs it in between games telling me about how out of shape he is and all his injuries

Ok I think that is all the outside excuses, if any more come up during the blog I will let you know.

So 1st match was against Doug L. I played him at the end of the last season. He is an older guy (55+) who has lots of experience playing and if he was 10 years younger would likely be a 4.5 player. His weaknesses are his server, playing the baseline, and moving a lot. His strengths are ball placement, playing the angles, and drop shots.

As you can tell from the description above I had lots of running to do and many approach opportunities. He hits lots of drop shots and short balls and uses his placement ability to put the angle or passing shot by you. The best way to beat him is to hit good approaches and move him into the corner. The approaches cost me LOTS of points in this match. I do not know the stat but in my mind I would think it was 80% of them I missed. I come in fast, don't stop, and then go for a winner. This results in hitting long most of the time, over 10 shots I would likely break it down like this 7 long, 2 good, 1 in the net.

This was the come back match for me. It seemed I had to be down to get hungry enough to win. Set 1 I was down 0-4 at one point. I came back to force a tie break but lost it. Set 2 I was down 2-5 and came back to force the tie break and won it. I fought off 2-3 match points. Set 3 I got down 2-4, then 4-5 and fought off 2 match points. Finally over coming him to win 7-5 in the 3rd. I could tell it was over when I got him to 5-5, after he had so many chances to win.

When coming back and fighting off those points I focused on not swinging so hard and hitting everything deep and cross court regardless of what he did. Now I don't know why I can't do this the entire match knowing it was a winning formula but I just didn't. He would hit the short ball and I would come in for the kill, see red, and hit it to the fences. When playing baseline shots with him he would never last more than 2-3 shots before hitting it into the net.

Final score: 6-7, 7-6, 7-5. Match lasted approximately 2.5 hours.