Tennis match #2 - Loss

Our team had the second match of the season today, and it turned out that I wasn't going to be playing with my brother, as I originally thought. I heard mid-week from our team captain that Taylor would play singles and that I'd play doubles with Chris (Katie's uncle). Well, by yesterday, another of our members backed out of the match, so Chris volunteered for singles, which left me with another guy I'd never met.

I got there this morning, and I'd been paired with an 83 year-old man. In most other sports that would mean certain defeat, but ... the man was good. I've learned never to doubt older people in racquet sports, after the 80 year old racquetball player at tech that routinely humiliated active 20 something players. He held his own today, but I let my game go (even though I was up a few notches from last week). We won the first set quickly, which I served, and after that your guess is as good as mine as to where that ability to win went.

The whole match (just like the doubles game with Taylor last week) have gone to high numbers in each game, but when it comes down to a deuce (40-40) and our chance to win a game is on the line, we (or more likely, I) don't play consistently.

I think the strategy for a beginner like me is going to be based largely on just getting the ball back over the net. Most of the time, the other team is messing up just as much as we are, hence the close scores. It's just that by trying to place shots perfectly, in addition to getting them over the net, I'm increasing the likelihood that I'll mess up before my opponent. So, new gameplan - play defensively, and get the ball over the net as many times as possible. Make them be consistent.

One last note - I was looking around on the USTA website and found that last week our team didn't win a single match. We were up against the best team in the league supposedly, but we didn't get any. The only set our team won was the set we won in a tie-breaker last week. I'm anxious to see how our guys did this week.