Pressure matches!
We entered round 6 of the competition tonight, playing the team we played in round 1. We beat them 6-5 in round 1, what would happen tonight?
My no.2 asks to play first tonight. He always wants to play where he can go home as early as possible
So I let him. He loses 3-1 with the last 2 sets down 11-3. Gave it up a bit easy.
I play next against a guy who has beaten me before, so I need focus. He doesn't trouble me much though and I get him 8, 9, 7.
Our third turns up and loses 12-10 in the 5th set to the opposition team's fill-in. The fill-in plays SP on FH and LP on BH and hits well with them both. Much harder to play than the regular anti-combo player he was replacing.
I play doubles with my no.2. Being down 2-1 if we lose this we start falling behind by a big margin. We win the first set 11-8 and its looking good. Then we lose our footing and lose the next set 11-8. We need this badly and into the 3rd and deciding set its a tight start at 4 all. A rally ensues for the point that will decide who changes ends with the lead. My partner is a lefty and he loops out to their BH and a counter is hit wide to our FH. From our FH side I run (as best a guy with an arthritic knee can
) and as the balls falling to the floor, out near the barrier, I make it there and slide my pips under the ball with a chop that is directed by instinct alone as I'm facing the back of the court. I gain my balance and turn to see the ball landing mid-table and then being netted from the heaviness of spin I managed to get on it.
We turn 5-4 up, extend the lead to 6-4, then 7-4 and 8-4. I tell my partner we need to keep the hammer down...gently (cos he can get carried away and blow points with over-excited kill shots missing). We close the match out at 11-7!
My no.2 then plays the guy I played first up and also beats him 3-0. We take a 3-2 lead.
Our no. 3 then played the 2 wing looper. It was a tight match with our little retriever having his opportunities. He lead the first set 10-8 and lost it 12-10. He won the 2nd set 11-8, and then lead the 3rd set 9-8 and lost it 12-10 again. After that he just lost his drive and gave up. I was scoring and at 5-1 down he actually said to me I'm gone. I thought c'mon, fight! He went down 11-2.
Now I had to play the SP/LP player. I've played him a lot in the past when he played the competition as a team regular. But for the last 2 years he has only appeared now and then as a fill-in. I'd seen his game didn't look too rusty in his first match, and I've almost always gone to 5 sets with this guy. I was hoping to have an edge with his lack of match practice, and when I beat him 11-5 in the first set, I thought beauty! Here we go....3 setter! Then he turned it around and beat me 11-6 in the second. This guy's determination and doggedness and ability to hit with his pips from FH and BH was still turning up the pressure like he used to. In the third set I took him down 11-7 and felt like I was pulling out a thin slither of an edge and maybe I'd close it out in 4. It looked good to go this way too as I broke out to a 10-8 lead, despite him having and early lead. But then he pulls out some ripping shots and makes it deuce. I'm still hopeful to close this out and I take the advantage time and time again. Unfortunately, I just couldn't close it out and he grabs it 15-13.
So once again I go to 5 sets with this guy, and I am immediately under fire as he takes control at 4-0. WTH!! I'm determined not to turn 5-0 and I take some risks to get my FH involved and smash him off with 2 big FH's....one from FH across court, the other from BH across court. Now at 4-2, he gets the next and we turn 5-2 his way. Not how I'd have liked, but it was what it was. From therein I turned up the heat on him letting him taste my FH a lot more. Trouble was he actually started blocking it back. As surprised I was with this, I kept in the points when he did and squared him up at 5 all. We went point for point out to 8 all. There'd been a lot of long rallies, pip to pip mainly (considering he had 2 of them and I had one
). I was the victor of the next 3 rallies though and took out the set 11-8, and the match!
As I was rather weary after that, my teammates decided to play the next doubles together. And they managed to lose it, albeit in the max best of 3 sets. So we were 4 all on the teamscore.
My no.3 was next, and my no.2 also wanted to play at the same time on another table. No doubt about him, he loves trying to get away early
I scored my no.2's game and he lost it to the SP/LP player in 3. While this match was going on, my no.3's match got through just a set and a half
as the first set went to 17-15! He carried on to win his only match for the night and the teamscore was tied up at 5 all.
So, once again, I am up to playing the decider. Now this is the third time in 2 seasons that I'm playing a final decider against this team. And not only this team, but the same player from this team, the 2-wing looper. The first time was the first round last season and I beat him 3-0 to win the round 6-5. The second time was a match I had to win for us to make the final last season. I won it 3-0. I played this guy in the first round this season, but not as a decider, and I beat him 3-0. In this last one though, he got me to 8's and 9's and had developed game strategies that weren't there in the previous matches.
As the first set kicks off with him its obvious he's gonna make this match even harder than the previous ones. And as I get into it I hear my no 3. talking off court in a loud voice. I'm distracted and ask him to be quiet (its annoying as he'll get very carried away if you even talk at low volume when he's playing). But the fact I had to ask him sticks in my mind, and I just can't concentrate. I lose the set 11-3.
Getting into the second set and I'm determined to ignite myself. The opponent is not going to make that easy though. He is playing me textbook style. He's looping at me and judging the spin that comes back, and every time he may fall foul of my pip spin, he lifts the ball to a safe place and takes all the spin off the ball. He loops heavy to my FH from his BH side (where I am mainly pinning him to) and I'm chop-blocking these back. His loops are heavy, and so my blocks put back heavy underspin. He gets a few loops past me. I get him to net some blocks. I send some wide angles to his FH and he loops heavily back at me and I chop-block back wide to his BH. A few times I get him to foul his return, but he hits some sizzling BH loops straight into me. I manage to win the set 12-10.
Being 2-0 down here would have given him way too much confidence.
So into the third set we go, and now I feel I have gained some ascendancy by taking back a set. My brain is clearer and my thoughts work properly. I remember where his weaker points are and I'm switched on. I beat him 11-6 this time around, and it all seems much easier. And I really had no right to feel this way, because he was still playing very well and hitting good shots. I just handled them better and drove him into error more (and hit a couple of FH winners).
So now we start the 4th set. His resolve has risen. I can feel it. His serves spin increases, and he's putting them down more awkwardly. His loops are coming at me in all sorts of shapes. Some are high arced coming down at an angle that I have to be careful not to put back too high for him to smash. Some are low arced and fast, requiring soft touch chop-blocks. And all the time I'm trying to keep him on his BH side (which he usually gets around to his FH on). In amongst all this I'm trying to find the right time to angle him out to his FH and hope for an error in his loop on the run (he's quick). In one of these rallies I had him so wide out to his FH side and I sent his return wide to his BH and thought I had him, but he BH loops it back on and all I can do is chop-block it to the middle and the rally is back on, until I lost it!
We make it out to 9 all and finally I get a higher arced loop to my FH and BANG! I put him away and go to a 10-9 lead, and a matchpoint.
On the very next rally he puts another slower ball up to my FH and I go BANG again....but miss the table by an inch!
Deuce! I get another round of matchpoints and it keeps heading back to deuce. I just can't get 2 points in a row off him. I get out to 14-13, and we rally. He hits a loop directly at me. Its fast and pretty low. I turn side on to it and block it straight back at him with my FH, just as fast. He's lanky with long reach, but this one right at him surprises him and he blocks it by instinct and throws it long. Finally I close out this marathon 4 setter 15-13 and once again manage to grab my team a victory!
How much pressure can a guy take though?
Luckily we did win tonight. We're 2nd on the ladder and 3rd had a 9-2 win, putting them equal with us on rubbers. We're still 4 point ahead of them though, so we maintain 2nd place. They play 1st next week, who are a team of kids that are blitzing everyone. They've won most their rounds 10-1. They beat us 6-5, which is the best anyone has done against them.
Tonight's 3 wins has me at 78%. I think I'm second to the leading player who is a 12 year old kid, from the kids team. Two of the kids are 12 and the third is 14. The kid who is leading player has lost one match so far....to me