I went to a club in Austin about 2.5 hrs from where I live to play a tournament. I got to town on Friday night but turns out the club closes early on Friday the night before an event so I couldn't play any matches or get good practice.
Went in this morning but was too late to get good practice. But it was a giant RR of sorts but with a twist from what I expected. First, morning groups of 4 to put people into events and then the events arrive round robin followed by knockout. So if you win your group, you play the A event, second plays the B and so on.
So I played the first match against an 1100 rated young lady, very athletic, but lacking the consistency and the quality to change the result. Then I played an unrated guy who had come In to play. Again, the gap was too large to make a difference. Finally I get to play a 1550 lefty lady. And this is when things started going South. She had a good backhand sidespin serve that looked like backspin, but which I popped up or looped long on serve return. Lost the first game and was in a dog fight. Led for most of the second game and then lost it at deuce. By this time certain things had been established: the butterfly R40+ plays differently enough from Nittaku Premium that you need to prepare to use it or you can get into trouble. The ball also traveled a bit differently. And that I was going to struggle to use power because of the above variables. My opponent eas pretty passive but consistent with her backhand so the plan was to attack the backhand and win or lose doing that since she never opened.
Unfortunately I wasn't consistent enough to make it work. I did win the third game, but I lost a few points going all out attack into the backhand which she blocked into the empty table for a winner in the 4th. That and missing lots of opening loops long coat me the match at deuce in the 4th. So I was going to be playing the event that she would have been seeded into (the B event) while she took my place in the A event. And of course, I was donating rating points (not a bad thing, I am tired of fighting all these underrated Texans lol).
So I was now the highest rated player in the B event, but the third seed in my group as she would have been had I beaten her. And I no longer had any matches that would give me rating points every match was now a battle to just avoid losing lol. That said, I am sure many of my opponents were not too happy to be playing a guy looping vicious topspins off both sides at them. I switched to a slower all wood blade because I wanted to avoid making consistency an issue because speed is not at a premium when beating 1600‐1800 players relative to my experience.
I played 3 young boys in the round robin stage, winning 3-1 against the A player, and 3-0 against the B and D players. Thr other players all beat each other for a 3 way tie which was funny (lots of weeping as they couldn't believe they were losing to their opponents). The one good thing I need tonwork on which I got some work on playing the kids was movement - I was not going to beat these kids just by not moving because they refused to just block my balls long lol.
In the quarter finals, I got another 1600 player. Because I played the 1200‐1800 ranks extensively when I was learning club TT in the early 2010s, it is sometimes fun for me to see the diverse styles at that level and how much fun it is to see how people build their weapons. The opponent had an interesting style where he would serve and hoped he got a popup to his backhand and he was very consistent at smashing and driving loop underspin balls especially on the backhand. And when he got a loop or push into the deep forehand, he would take advantage much time as he could to take the ball late and add sidespin to it. I lost game 1 playing like a headless chicken. But my experience playing at and against those levels came back to me because the dominant theme at those levels is that you kill yourself playing too fast because your advantage in speed should be used to process the play and stay consistent, not to jump on the ball early and make mistakes. So I managed to start returning serves and getting into rallies, sending him wide and then putting the ball to the backhand, and sometimes retrieving and running down multiple shots to win the point.
The semis were supposed to be against an unrated player who had beaten a buddy of mine, but the man had to go and defaulted. My buddy would like to believe the man didn't see the point in playing me and losing which was a bummer he had won a lot of matches pushing the balm and I really wanted to see whether his pushing was a sign if top notch defensive and counter skills or just bad opponents who can't loop pushes consistently.
For the final, I got to play a young kid I had played in Dallas. Then I beat him 3-0. Today, I won the first two games fairly easily, and then all of a sudden, me being the stupid idiot who told his father after the last match that he needed to come to my middle a bit more, started getting lots of serves and pushes and returns to the middle of the table. I lost game 3 and went up early in game4. But the I'd came back to tie it and I alternated good points and misses. And I got him to blocknthe ball long at 9‐10 on his serve and yes, i have stolen candy from the kids.
I checked the event prospectus and the money for 1st place in the B group was as much as the money for 4th place in the A group (and no way I was going to get 4th place in group A). So am I supposed to feel good about winning the B group and the cash or feel bad about not making the A group, trying to get revenge on some foes and dumping 50 rating points to an opponent that played well? I tried my best and that is what counts lol.
Back to training next week!
