So I wanted to start with a brief explanation of the blog title. My good friends John and Tim watch a Japanese cartoon pictured here about a young man who plays a lot of tennis. The name of the show - "The Prince of Tennis". Hence, in true English fashion, I inherited the name - POT due to my incessant playing of the game.
Another quick note, the idea behind the blog was to write some notes about how I played in my matches to help coach Ed to offer some advice on how I can improve my match play. I will post some pics as and when I can but for now, I will be writing things as I recall. Feel free to correct me if I make some errors on the way.
So, onto today's match. We played at 4pm at SF State, court #4 I believe. I had just come from a lesson - working on movement to strike, trying to keep the ball in the correct strike zone and not letting it get on to me. We tried a number of drills and this was my main aim to bring to the match.
Matt won the toss and elected to serve. A fairly comfortable start with a hold. 1-0. I began serving and immediately got myself into some trouble. Matt was hitting the ball well after playing Ed in the morning. 2-0, not a good start for Paul.
Third game was another hold, although I started to get some feeling on a few balls - but still hitting a few too many errors. Matt was up 3-0. The fourth game was little better - I was feeling a little better about my ground strokes and hitting through the ball a little better. The first hold for the match was reassuring.
Matt held for 4-1. The next game I started to find my range - hitting some good angles, and eventually getting through the game. 4-2. I then started to put some pressure on the Matt Ray serve - getting some balls back deep on the return and benefited from an untimely double fault. 4-3. I started feel a little more confident and fired off a couple a games taking a another break. I was now serving for the set at 5-4.
A loose game as I started to think about the score. I was down 15-40 before I knew and Matt soon got back in the set. Still thinking about the missed opportunity I found myself serving to save the set at 5-6. I played another weak game and lost the opening set 7-5.
I came out for second set determined to play more aggressive. I was thinking about watching the ball on the strings and hitting the ball out front. I had a couple of good returns and quickly broke to start the second. I held serve for a 2-0 lead then Matt held for 2-1. The next 3 games went on serve. Matt was serving at 2-4 and again I was trying to apply some pressure with the return. I managed to get the break and then serve out for a 6-2 set.
With light fading, we headed into a third set. The first couple of game went by in a blur. I was trying to mix up the serves -hitting some good angles on the add side and making a couple of volleys. I bagged a couple of over heads - silly shots into the net but they were pretty good lobs - forcing me back and hitting the ball while back pedalling. We had some good rallies int he third set and plenty of winners on both sides. I was really trying to focus on the ball and not think about score even though I manged to get up a break.
I faced a break point when serving 4-2 but managed to scrape through. With Matt serving at 2-5 I was again putting pressure on the serve. A double fault came again and I managed to close out the set 6-2.
A decent win 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 which made up for a dismal show last week losing in 3 sets to both Matt and Ed.
Not so bad mentally today with only a few brain cramps and mutterings to that nut job I have in my head at times.
Here's hoping for no rain tomorrow....
