Monday Tennis results (29 Oct 2009)

The Big night was upon me even before I realized. My pre-match preparations (Apply Icy-Hot, stretching, packing water bottle, etc) were a bit rushed as my daughter wanted me to play with her. I did reach the venue little earlier than usual and saw the line up. My line up starts with Dave then Jack and finally Rob—Format is 7 games per match.

I started warming up with Dave and he is really eager to get started right away. Being older than me, I assumed he would like to spend some more time warming up. He won the toss and elected to serve. He has a weird action and on the deuce court, he stands way too close to the centre line (I have observed him actually standing on Ad court and still serve into deuce court). His ball stays very close to the net and keeps low with a decent pace. He also rallies well and probably has a good court sense and knows where to put the ball (not to mention the slices). I managed to break his serve right away on a deuce game but I lost my serve also on deuce call even though I led 40-15 to make the score 1-1. We stayed on serve to make it 2-2. I became a little frustrated with the way things are going. Every game counts and this match looked like to a 4-3 situation. I tried to increase my depth a bit and tried to move him side-side. I went on to win the next 3 games to end the match at 5-2.

Then the match everyone is eagerly waiting for. As we expected, Jack and me are the front runners at this time.
Jack just finished hammering Rob for 6-1. This meant Jack has a 1 game lead on me (as my score was 5-2). Even before the match, I suspected that Jack is likely to win more games against others than I can win. If this match were to follow our usual pattern, I need to win at least 4 games to make it even. Jack won the toss and elected to serve and we both started a bit nervous. He went up 40-30 but lost the next two points to lose the game. With a few good serves here and there, I won the next game to go up 2-0. Over the past couple years, Jack and me played a number of matches and it isn’t unusual for one of us to jump into big leads before the other catches up and at times winning it all. I was expecting a come back but that didn’t materialize. I ended up winning all the 7 games. Other than playing consistent and a few good serves I didn’t do anything special. The score line definitely was a shocker. During outdoor season, both Jack and I lost a few times for such one sided score lines but never indoors.

This result meant that after 2 matches and with one more to go (with Rob), I am the clear front runner from this group. I had 12 points thus far, Jack has 6 and Dave has 8. I did the match and figured that I need 3 more games to take my tally to 15 and eliminate any possibility for others in this group to move up to 7 pm [If Jack or Dave were to sweep their last match 7-0, they could theoretically be at 13 (Jack) and 15 (Dave) but since I won over both, I will still move up in case of a tie]. Rob won the toss and started to serve. I thought he can hit some good forehands (especially into my back hand) and seem to have a good net game. He isn’t that consistent and I used that to my advantage and ended up breaking him twice while holding my games with a few well placed serves to take the 3-1 lead and reach my target of 15 games. I also want to see if I can better my best ever result in the ladder of 16 games. I won the last two games to close the match at 5-2.

I finished the night with 17 games- my best performance in the ladder thus far. As it turns out, Jack beat Dave comfortably (5-2) and finished with 11 games. Dave finished third with 10 games. Rob is likely dropping down a block with 4 games. I don’t think I played as well as the score indicates. I played safe in the rallies and I probably hit like 4 winners whole night. My serve held up well though some of my hardest serves were returned with interest and I had to scramble. Few rallies were exhausting and I am thinking it is due to lack of sufficient match practice. I run 2 miles a day at home with interval training and occasionally add a 1mile elliptical work out. This is as far as I can go at home given my schedule. I will be starting Badminton from next week and after couple of weeks of Tennis and Badminton I will have enough data around Mid-Late November to reevaluate my fitness.

The difference tonight was the anti-climatic game with Jack. He was predictable with his game. The trade mark Jack volleys weren’t there and his drop shots missed targets. On my other matches, I had a few giggles. The first one was when I saw Dave stepping up way into the baseline for my second serve. Obviously he was thinking of an aggressive return on my second serve and probably assumed some dinky serves. True enough, my second serve doesn’t have a lot of pace but it does kick up high and isn’t easier to take a big cut unless one has a good top spin shot.
The second one was with Dave as well. He indicated every single point that he doesn’t keep track of the score. Late into the match, I purposefully said I don’t remember the score and he was able to accurately tell me how the last 4 points were played and why the score was 30-30. I still like his approach as he is ensuring that score is known to both parties after every point and it can only be a good thing.