Haven't had internet for over a week thanks to my router somehow throwing away all its settings suddenly and the ISP taking it's time to get back to me in support. Finally got it all back today, so I figred I'd throw in a brief update here given I played 2 Grand Finals this week on Monday and Thursday (last night kinda - as its officially Saturday AM now lol).
Anyway, on Monday we played a team who had beaten us the one time we played them in the season 7-4. Its my old teammates team and I think they were fairly confident to take us, and we weren't very sure of ourselves at all. They had one change to their team, which was a fill-in they'd qualified during the season while the player absent for the final had been sick (and he went OS just before the final). The fill-in was someone I've played before, but not for ages...and I'd never beaten him before! This got me a bit nervy to say the least. I filled out our order and sure enough, I had to play this guy first up (talk about the deep end
). The guy is an Asian penholder, and I don't relish playing penholders ever. To my surprise (and the opposition team's surprise) I took the first set off him 11-4. He got his act together better in the second set, but I still took him down 11-7. In the third set he lead me all the way out to 9-6, but then I pegged him back point by point to 9 all and my serve. Gave him a topspin to his BH from my BH and twiddled and smashed the return he put to my FH. 10-9 to me. Next point I did the same thing really hoping for the same result, but he returned better. We rallied until he netted a misjudgment off the pips and I had him 3-0. I was rejoicing and triumphant with fist pumps to my teamies (after I'd shaken his hand of course).
My retriever teammate played next and went down 3-0 to my old teammate.
The youngun on our team then piped in with a very hard fought 3-2 win against their "wall" player who just gets everything back until you error most the time. The youngun and I then teamed for the doubles and recorded a 3-1 win, much to our pleasure, as we haven't done too well in doubles this season period.
So with a 3-1 lead I was keen to keep our tally rising. I played my old teamy who I've beaten the last few times we've met, but only narrowly, and he beat me several times previous to that. He took an early lead and shot out to 9-5 and things looked grim. I held my nerve and took it back to 9 all and then 10-9 up. I went for an attack to snatch the set and missed giving deuce to him. I got the ascendency at each point in the deuce, but he kept levelling it back. My feeling is if you do this too much you end up being the chaser in the end and that rarely turns out well. Luckily for me I still took the set 14-12. Not so lucky, he re-doubled his efforts in the next set and took it easily from me 11-6. He also took the 3rd set at 11-9 to take a 2-1 lead. I'd been playing to his weaker FH (which actually does have some strengths in the weird topspin he can generate from his own brand of loop, but it still less consistent). Unfortunately, his topspin had caused me to block long too many times (mainly off the pips). In the 4th set, I still went to his FH a lot, but I switch him out wide to the BH to take him off balance. The trouble in playing this guy is he is a flat hitter on both wings, and he can belt the crap out of anything a bit long or even slightly high and you're way on the backfoot when he does. His best smashes come from his BH but his FH is still very dangerous. But I wasn't letting him smash on me, and when I switched him to his BH it was with good angle and short, and I got him to net the returns quite a bit. I pulled the set out 11-8 to even it up at 2 all. So the final set came up and I'd decided I wasn't going to attack him as I'd missed way too many. I played the entire set pretty much of the pips, just working it around, varying the spin and placement to keep him on his toes and made his attacks hard to carry out. This way paying dividend as I turned 5-3 up and had already taken a point or 2 from him missing smashes he'd tried. We had several rallies after this that he eventually mis-read the spin and pushed it long, or tried to drive and went long. I also got him to net a couple from the BH side I'd switched him to. From 5-3, I raced out to 8-4 and kept on his hammer with my strategy and took him down 11-4. What relief! Now we were 4-1 up, with our youngun to play the penholder next.
I scored the next match and had my heart in my mouth the entire match as it hung on a knife's edge. They went to the 5 set wire, and my teamy only managed to snare it for sure deep in the set, even though he turned 5-1. I think he was quite nervy and kept missing his bread and butter loops. He did eventually win though. So we were now 5-1 up in the match score and needed one more match to win.
Our retriever teamy played their "wall" next and again went down 3-0. So they got to 5-2 on us.
My retriever teamy and I played doubles next. We weren't sure who to play with him in doubles, as we've not either had great success with him as he tends to set up the opposition players for smashes, which he returns in singles, but in doubles this is not so easy to do when you are also trying toi negotiate your way around him as well. Anyway, I ended up deciding to play and rest our youngun up for his last singles, which was directly after the doubles. We lost the doubles 3-1 and maybe it was a bad decision, not sure.
So now we were 5-3 up and our youngun had to play my ex-teamy. This match was as much a battle of nerves for both of them (not to mention all their teammates
) as it was a game of TT. Once again, the match went down to the wire of the fifth set with our youngun taking the lead out to 10-7 as we swallowed every breath hard. But that point just didn't want to come to end the match and at 10-9 a rally ensued that just went on and on. Finally my ex-teamy netted it and we could hardly believe we finally had this beast beaten down for the victory!!
So we'd won the final we didn't rate ourselves much of a chance for.
Last night's final was every bit as nerve wrecking too! I won't go into so much detail, but basically I lost the first match 4-2 to a guy I probably hold a slight edge over, but he's no easy win for me. I did get back to 2 all from 2 sets down, but lost the 5th set 13-11 to build his confidence in the 6th.
My teamy was doing the next match tough against an opponent he'd usually beat with reasonable ease. In fact the match went into the 7th set and the opponent served at 9-10 down as my partner finally had grabbed the lead but was again being pegged back. To our great relief, the opponent served the ball about an inch long of the table to hand us the match 11-9 in the 7th. Match score: one all.
My teamy now played the guy I lost to and the opponent was playing like he was possessed. My partner took him down easily during the season, and now this guy tore him apart taking him 4-1. match score 2:1.
Now I had to play the little flat-hitter who was playing an unusually patient game. Usually he's fairly easy to beat as he rushes his attacks and fouls a lot up from it. Tonight he was returning everything calmly until he could attack and then his attacks had been angled wide and spot on. Fortunately, I'd seen the way he played my partner and was prepared for the way he was playing. It didn't make it a walk in the park, but I used his game against him to push him to error. I lost to him during the season, but my knee had been in serious drama and I couldn't move at all. The weather has warmed up since then and a little relief to the knee has come and I have been able to move a little better...and what a difference it makes. He asked me how my knee was before the game, and I said "oh, its fine now". He looked worried lol (I've only lost to him twice ever from many,many matches and its been when I've had physical problems beyond my normal ones). Anyway, the upshot was I beat him 4-1 and took us into the doubles for a decider.
They won the first and things looked grim for us. We picked up our game though, and their game dropped as ours rose. They started bickering at one another about their mistakes and that just kept us ascending. One of them was ready to tear the others throat out as we approached our 4-1 victory and we sealed the 5th set at 11-6. The premiership was ours!!
So, 2 premierships from 2 finals for the season. Can't do any better than that. Not a bad result
Back up to the big boys grades next season of A2 on Mondays and A1 on Thursday I think. Success will come in different measure next season I feel