Monday Tennis results (30-Nov-09)

There were no substitution scenarios this week for my block and that meant that each player has to earn their spot. Even with all my standard pre-match rituals, I felt “energy less” when I started warming up for the first match.

Dan won the toss and held his serve easily though I was up 0-30. I was up 40-0 but eventually had to pull a deuce point. I broke Dan in his next game and held mine to go up 3-1. Dan held his serve despite another deuce game and broke mine to make it 3-3 but I broke him back to make it 4-3. There isn’t a whole lot to say about this match except that I wished I hit more shots to Dan’s backhand than I did. I also wished I was much more aggressive with my forehand –especially when I am gunning for his backhand side.

During the change over, I learnt the scores of other matches in my group and basically it is a 4-3 (Carl beat PaulS). What this meant is that all the players are within one game or less of each other and thereby making every game from this point that much more significant.

Paul S blazed through his service game after winning the toss against me. His serve has lots of pace and action and it is hard to read it unless one is used to that kind of pace. Like our earlier match, I held my serve easily to make it 1-1. Then I made some adjustments against Paul S for receiving his serve. Basically I slightly moved towards my forehand and opted to leave the “Down the T” serve open. I haven’t seen him hitting that serve and I thought I would take that chance. I am not sure if Paul S (aka Sandeep) read my adjustments but he kept pounding serves into to my forehand and an occasional one into the backhand. Using this strategy I was able to put the serve back into play and start the rally. I also made another adjustment and stayed at the centre of baseline during rallies. Along with this , I also tried to keep the ball in the centre (and occasionally deep) for my opponent. This way opponent has to decide which way he wants to go (ie towards my backhand or forehand corner) and often takes additional CPU cycles and forces errors.
I went up 5-1 before Paul served out the last game to make it 5-2.

Another glance of scores revealed that I have 9 games followed by Dan and Carl at 7 games and Paul with 5 games. While I have a 2 game lead, the door is still ajar for Dan and Carl. I need to win 3 games with Carl and Paul needs to win 2 against Dan to put me in the driver seat. I would need 5 games to insulate me against other results.Easier said than done.

I won the toss and barely held my serve at deuce. But I broke Carl back and held my serve to make it 3-0. It then went with serve for a 4-1 lead for me. I was hoping to win some more games but I over head score from the other court that Paul S indeed has 2 games thereby making the rest of two games , in NBA parlence, garbage time or inconsequential . Carl held his serve and I had a forgettable last service game (despite me fighting back to 30-40, trailing 0-40) and we ended the night at 4-3.

I have 13 games (Dan has 12, Carl has 10 and Paul S with 7) and will be moving up into top bracket of 7 pm. I surprised myself a bit with the result as this is one of the tough groups to pull out. This result also means that I will stay at 7pm for the next two weeks.

I stayed on and watched Jack play. He had little trouble against Dave C (5-2) and despite some hiccups stayed close with Lanh (3-4) and finished the obligatory 5-2 match against Dave A. He too ended up with 13 points and is moving back to 7 pm. It is the counter puncher Jack at Business and that’s exactly what he did – taking care of business!.

Its Jack and me back at 7 pm prime time next week though we aren’t scheduled to play each other. My draw is the toughest by far for me : Vishwas , Wayne and Paul D. There are no easy games and my struggles against hard hitters are well known and all these three players hit the ball pretty hard. I give myself an outside shot to survive this group and maintain a spot at this block. Jack’s draw isn’t easy but sans big hitters. He is drawn against Ed, Carl and Dan. He has beat each of them before and none of them have the fire power that neutralizes Jack’s movement and returning skills and hence has a good shot of clearing this group to move to the top of 7 pm.

All in all a good outing for ATP (Architect Tennis Players) and for at least one week, all is well in ATP.