Old Man Tennis (real life)

[Breeze]

Well, things started out good in our match. Bear served extremely well in the first game, and we won. We pressed their serve a bit, but they held. I held and then they held to make the match 2-2. That was it...from this point forward we didn't win a game. There were a bunch of great rallies, a lot of movement and pressure from both sides, and a number of deuce games, but we invariably came out on the wrong side.

At first blush these guys didn't seem that great. They didn't hit like the guys we practice against (my brother and best friend), but in hindsight you realize they played extremely well. They did a number of things that caused us problems:

- They mixed up their shots a lot - mixing spins and pace
- They moved together exceptionally well, but in an atypical fashion - lots of crossing and covering
- They didn't make mistakes - they rarely (extremely rarely) hit a ball out, and only occasionally hit the ball in the net
- They pretty quickly identified our weaknesses - my lack of aggression at the net and Bear's inexperience and being out of position.

Neither Bear or I played very well (though a good bit of that should go to the other team dictating play), but even with both of our A games, I'm not sure we would have been able to win. Bear got extremely frustrated with all the missed shots and mistakes at the net, but I told him I'd rather he keep trying and learn than to back off the net just to win a few more points.

Hopefully, this helps us moving forward. Also this team that beat us is on the cusp of being ineligible for the playoffs due to having too high of a play rating.

[Young Drachma]

Matches like that are good though because they set the bar into a nice place for when you play people at lower levels. Also, good to snipe out those players who are slumming it in 3.0

[Breeze]

Ok, so I'm way behind on my tennis updates. Though there hasn't been much joy to report.

Bear and I followed up our loss to the "sandbagging" team, with a tight 3 set loss. We won the first set 6-3, then lost 4-6, 4-6.

I also played a tight 3 set ALTA senior mens match on Friday and we lost that one 6-3, 4-6, 5-7, and as you might guess these matches played out very similarly.

In both cases, we had a bunch of long points, and we made some fantastic shots. However, we unfortunately couldn't win enough of the crucial points, and quite frankly that was mostly my fault. My shoulder has been very tinder recently, and because of that I haven't been practicing my serve, which has led to very inconsistent results in matches. Add to that poor play late in matches, almost certainly due to fatigue, and you can see how my play has hindered our results. It's interesting, the poor play late has been more focus related. For some reason, late in matches I've running stuff down, but when I get to the ball, I don't make a good stroke. I've got to bear down a bit mentally to try and get out of this cycle of losing my concentration late.

Happy to report, that Bear has been playing way above what I thought he'd be capable of. His ground strokes are great, and when he gets himself in the right position, his net play is very good. He needs to work on angles when he up, but he get's his racquet on the ball consistently, even when they challenge him (young reflexes).

[Breeze]

Bear and I are supposed to play again tonight, weather permitting (not likely), and this is going to be another sandbag match. League Tennis has a scoring system that takes results and applies a ranking based on how you play. The sandbag trigger is set for a 7.0. The first sandbag pair we played is sitting at a 7.87, the team we are supposed to play tonight is sitting on 9.23. I get irritated that people under-represent their level of play to this extent.

[Breeze]

We had our make up match last night and things didn't go very well. Bear and I were both very slow to get going, especially Bear, and we were smoked 0-6 in the first set. In the second set we won a couple of games, but played them much tougher, pushing quite a few deuce games, just not able to pull out the win (2-6).

The guys did agree to play us in the 3rd set for fun. Which I was very happy about, because one of the main things Bear and I need to do is to get more matches under our belts. The 3rd set was much different from the first two. We fell behind 0-3 early, but then we broke them and I held to get us to 2-3. They held, then Bear held, we broke and I held to make it 5-4. They held to push it to 5-5, then Bear held and we broke to win the 3rd set. Not let me qualify this by saying the other team used the 3rd set as a way to work on some shots. One of the two tried his hard serve much more frequently when the results didn't matter, including trying it a few times on the second serve. They also tried to go up the line a few times, which they didn't do much of initially. Regardless, Bear and I played much better, finally. Obviously, I don't know how the match would have gone, if they had played it more straight up, but I do feel that we would have been closer than 0-6, 2-6.

Now the trick is figuring out how to play better - faster.

[Breeze]

Following my 3 sets last night, I have a match tonight for the senior men's team, and I'm playing in the 1 spot. Not sure how I got promoted following last week's performance, but I did.

Hopefully, some of my play from the 3rd set last night will carry over and the soreness from playing back to back days won't.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Breeze

Following my 3 sets last night, I have a match tonight for the senior men's team, and I'm playing in the 1 spot. Not sure how I got promoted following last week's performance, but I did.

Hopefully, some of my play from the 3rd set last night will carry over and the soreness from playing back to back days won't.

Whoa, congrats on the promotion! Regardless of how it goes, you'll for sure get better from playing the best player on the other team all the time...so that's good for your game overall.

[Breeze]

Well - the Friday ALTA match didn't go real well. I met my partner about 2 minutes before we stepped on the court which didn't help.

I actually played pretty good. My serve was good early and very good later in the match. My return of serve was deep with topspin consistently. Not crushed but deep in the court and hard to handle for the opponent. Also I was able to trade groundstrokes with the opponents without issue. Unfortunately, my partner, who was a very nice and consistent player was older (early 70s probably), and while he hit a nice ball, there was no power behind it, and once our opponents realized that - they took control of the net and dictated play, and my net game wasn't nearly good enough to trade blows with them. I've got to get better and more comfortable at the net. Especially, if I'm going to play higher in the lineup.

[Breeze]

Bear and I play again tomorrow night. Unfortunately, it comes on the same day Bear has an MRI scheduled. The other day while working out he got a "Thunderclap Headache". He went to the doctor earlier this week and they want the MRI just to make sure there's no serious issue going on.

[Breeze]

Insurance Denied the MRI until they could get additional information, which wasn't forthcoming fast enough to make the scheduled appointment. Now we are waiting to get the procedure rescheduled and we are on hold playing until he's cleared following the results. It's looking like we may have to forfeit our last 2 matches...fingers crossed we get them in.

[Breeze]

I'm back at the 1 spot for this week, so I must not have done too badly the previous Friday. Unfortunately, because of Bear's headache/MRI issue, I didn't play this week. Also, I will be partnering with a true serve/volley guy. I watched him at the 2 line last week and he's got some amazing hands. He swear he successfully handled more short-hop shots at his feet around the service line in 1 set, than I have in my entire life. Given the net is my Achilles heal at the moment - I'm not sure how our styles are going to mesh, but we'll see.