The Tennis Gauntlet: Week #4

Saturday: P.P. <* with such a unique name, I wouldn't want to actually single anyone out *> The 15 year old freshmen on the High School tennis team. I had never played against P.P. before but have seen him and his father around. He's friendly, always smiling, and fair.

Once again, it's a matter of trying to avoid all the rain that's been plaguing Cleveland everyday for over a week and half now. It had raining all night but had stopped, so I drove out to the courts, 20 minutes earlier for the 9:30 AM match. And I was the only one there. No 8:30 matches were being played. No league officials with official cans of once used balls. No one. I picked out the driest court and decided to practice serves. Eventually a couple women show up for their match and P.P. is dropped off by his father a little after 9:30. Looks like I'm going to have to play this one after all.

P.P. wins the serve and I soon find out that he has a great spin serve. However, I've seen a lot of spin serves, and am not bad returning them cross court near the net. P.P. had difficulty running up to return the returns successfully. Also, he hadn't perfected his serves yet, and was hit by double faults. So I was actually off to a good start 1-0. Of course, I gave it back with my lousy serves and double faults: 1-1. This pattern continued to 2-2. Then P.P. broke out out and won his serve, and mine, and staked out a 4-2 lead.

P.P. also has a great spin shot which I've never seen before. When the ball hit my side of the court, they would jump to the right at almost a 90 degree angle. 75 degrees at least! I best I think I've seen before is about 45 degree angles. I couldn't return them. No chance. We also played through some sprinkles. Also when P.P. could alter his spin serves so they came down the center and spun right into me - I couldn't return those either. But in general I was returning a bit more than previous weeks.

I'm not sure what happened at that point. Even though I was behind 2-4, the games often went to deuce multiple times. And P.P. was still struggling to avoid double faults. But some more was going on. A lot of P.P.'s returns started going out. I think, for whatever reason, frustration was starting to set in. I won the next four games in row, to win the set 6-4. And then the next three to go up 3-0, before P.P. broke through to make it 3-1.

I wasn't playing all that great, I just wasn't making quite as many mistakes - I was still making mistakes... The next game was also multiple deuces. I knew it was a big difference between 4-1, and 3-2, so it was important. Somehow I pulled this one out too, eventually. A few times I just concentrated solely on keeping the ball in the court, and it usually worked. P.P. would go for a winner, but over hit it. My first serves started getting a little better in the latter stages of this set also. I managed a 6-1 win in this one, winning my first match of the year. I won't go win-less after all!

At only 15, P.P. will get better every year, and I think really was better than me this time. Just started over hitting the ball for some reason. I look forward to a re-match next year.

Next up: Matt - a complete unknown (to me...)

And after that... The potential embarrassment factor is not over yet. In two weeks I have to play.... the 13 year old!!!!

McDoogle

Record (in sets): 2-4