The Tennis Gauntlet: Week #5

Sorry about the onslaught of tennis blogging recently... I'll try to post some reviews or other comments soon!

Thursday: Finally the rematch with Mark (from week #2). And it wasn't raining! It was warm. Not too hot. Not too humid. And I had had steak for lunch!

Well, this match went pretty much as I thought it would, but the results were still pretty disappointing. I lost again 0-6, 0-6. I believe this is the same score as when I played Mark last year. The disappointing thing is that I think I played much better than a 0-6 score would indicate. My forehand wasn't too bad. My backhand was decent - Mark even said it seemed to have more pop on it than he remembered from last year. I wasn't hitting too many balls out. Or double faulting a ton either. There were many long rallies. And a lot of deuce/ad games. But I couldn't pump out one measly game. I wasn't able to get the critical points when I really needed them.

While some of my 0-6, 0-6 matches are complete blowouts. In this one I was battling (and losing) every point of the way. Quite a disappointment!

Friday: Matt. A new opponent for me. Although scheduling this match for Friday morning at 9:00 AM after playing Mark the previous night (and then playing some Canadian Doubles, and then... playing Doubles (winning 5-3 when we stopped) ) was not the smartest thing to do. My shoulder was in pain just from going into a backhand motion. But I ignored the pain and struggled through it.

I was able to hang tough in this one up to 2-2. Mostly because we were both blowing our serves. But that was it. I lost 2-6, 0-6. I felt almost like I had been playing identical twins in Mark and Matt. They both played a similar game. No 'kill' shots, per se. Just good steady play. And I should have had much better scores against both of them (not necessarily wins - but more like 3-6 scores).

I was able to get to the net a few times against Matt for some great put away shots. But he would have no more of that - always hitting perfect lobs falling just inside the baseline from that point on. Arrgh!

For the week I went a stunning 2-24 (in games)! Yuck!

McDoogle

Current record (in sets): 2-8

Next up: The 13 year old. That's kind of a no win situation...