The Tennis Gaunlet: Week 1 and 2

The continuing adventures of my pursuit to dominate the Men's Twinsburg Tennis for 2008. 8 weeks! 8 matches! 8 opponents! 8 Saturday mornings! *yawn*

Week #1: Frank. Going into this 8:30AM match, I had beaten Frank before in an opening week match (However, lost in unoffical rematch later that year). One of the few players I've won against, and currently the only player in the league slightly older than myself. If I was going to win any matches this year, this was looking like my best bet.

It was hot and humid for an early June morning. Still, winning the start of serve, I jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead. Due to matches scheduled right at 9:30 on the same courts, the league encourages players to use the No-Ad scoring system (first to break 40 wins, no 'duece'/'ad' games), and this did not play to my favor. The next 3 games were at 40-40, and I lost the next point on all of them. I then went behind 1-5, before salvaging a game for 2-5, soon losing 2-6.

The second match wasn't any better, and my playing was actually worse. Despite again jumping out to a 1-0 lead on my serves, again losing 2-6. I believe the games I did win were on my serves, which was surprising since the whole morning I couldn't get a first serve in to save my life. Every one was a foot or two long, and I just couldn't correct for it. Frank did a tremendous job of hitting the corners, and going crosscourt. My weak second serves were easily slammed sidecourt to move me out of position for easy points on the return. Any dinker shots near the net Frank attacked and slammed hot passing shots.

Frank did a great job, and is one of my favorite opponents. We hope to play another non-league match sometime this Summer.

Week 2: Mark. I'd played Mark in a league match last Summer, and despite having one of my better cross court games, was still beaten pretty handlily, so I wasn't expecting much for this week.

But, it rained. It looked OK when I started driving out to the courts, but by the time I made it to the courts, only one other player was there, in his car, on his cell phone, rescheduling his match. The courts were too wet to even practice on.

Will we be able to re-schedule this match? I would think Mark would want to. It's an easy win (for him!)

McDoogle

PS. Current record 0-2.