Saturday, May 22, 2004
Failure to Close
Dammit. I can play tennis. I'm pretty good. I know I am. But when it comes to competing, I just can't put away matches. I give people a run for their money, but I can't close off. Today I played singles. Won my first match easily because my opponent was this girl who couldn't play. I beat her 8-3. Then I played Piyawan-- a friend of mine whom I play with fairly often anyway.
Our game was close. I went up 2-0. Then she came back to even it 2-2. After this I got stuck in a funk where my forehand refused to work properly and I was down 3-4. She won another game to make the score 3-5 and started pulling away. This is where I dug in my heels and played my best match of the weekend. I started hitting winners again and pulled back three games in a row to make it even at 4-4. Then she somehow managed to go up 4-6 again, and desperation began to seep in. Still I battled, and my serve came through for me when I needed it. It was 6-7 when things started going my way again. She was serving for the match, but I broke her, coming through with huge backhand winners. At 7-7 I served for the match and won! A great come from behind victory that put me in the final.
A couple of hours later, I played for the singles title. Lost the first set 6-2. In the second set, I tried to get some sort of rhythm goin, but my forehand just let me down over and over again. I finally conceded the second set 6-4. That was it. I had lost. I hadn't even pushed her to three sets. Like, what the fuck? What the hell was I doing?
The bottomline is that I play best against power players. The girl I played in the final was not a power player. She was just consistent, which is something I find very difficult to sustain because I'm always looking for the earliest opportunity to kill. And since I'm so eager to kill, I often miss the kill shot, get mad at myself and start getting rattled. That's just the way it works with me, I have yet to learn to find a balance between competitive passion and restrained control. And that hurts me everytime I play.
Well today was all tennis. And now I'm waiting for Katie to pick me up because we're supposed to go to the lacrosse party. No homework done again tonight. Tomorrow's gonna be hell.
Our game was close. I went up 2-0. Then she came back to even it 2-2. After this I got stuck in a funk where my forehand refused to work properly and I was down 3-4. She won another game to make the score 3-5 and started pulling away. This is where I dug in my heels and played my best match of the weekend. I started hitting winners again and pulled back three games in a row to make it even at 4-4. Then she somehow managed to go up 4-6 again, and desperation began to seep in. Still I battled, and my serve came through for me when I needed it. It was 6-7 when things started going my way again. She was serving for the match, but I broke her, coming through with huge backhand winners. At 7-7 I served for the match and won! A great come from behind victory that put me in the final.
A couple of hours later, I played for the singles title. Lost the first set 6-2. In the second set, I tried to get some sort of rhythm goin, but my forehand just let me down over and over again. I finally conceded the second set 6-4. That was it. I had lost. I hadn't even pushed her to three sets. Like, what the fuck? What the hell was I doing?
The bottomline is that I play best against power players. The girl I played in the final was not a power player. She was just consistent, which is something I find very difficult to sustain because I'm always looking for the earliest opportunity to kill. And since I'm so eager to kill, I often miss the kill shot, get mad at myself and start getting rattled. That's just the way it works with me, I have yet to learn to find a balance between competitive passion and restrained control. And that hurts me everytime I play.
Well today was all tennis. And now I'm waiting for Katie to pick me up because we're supposed to go to the lacrosse party. No homework done again tonight. Tomorrow's gonna be hell.
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