Played a tournament today(Saturday). Originally I had planned to train and prepare for it but I haven't had much time for table tennis. That said I didn't want to leave the organizer completely dry and I tend to enjoy the effort I exert at tournaments regardless of the results so I played only one event. I got placed into a group with 3 other players that had all beaten me before and was the #2 seed.
First match was against the D player, a very aggressive player. I lost the first game 11-4, trying to implement a style that was inspired in part by Craig Bryant trying to teach Josy Neumann how to consistently drive spin. I then got closer with the style in the next game at 12-10, realizing that not having played a competitive match all week after quitting Sunday with an injury was not going to cut it. Then I won the next two games 11-5 and 11-7 and I was back in the groove. Went up 5-1 and 7-3. Then something flipped and I couldn't score points anymore. Took a time out at 7-6 but still lost the final game 11-8. A bummer but so be it, you can't complain when your training is insufficient.
Played a kid next that had beaten me once in his home club, he was the top seed in the group but the last time we played, I had beaten him really badly. He had developed a nasty topspin kicker which he had used to beat the C player. So when he played me, he used this topspin kicker repeatedly. Unfortunately for him. I was willing to consistently come over the side top with a hook or a fade and attacked the vast majority of these serves for outright winners. He didn't back off using them so while it wasn't always smooth, I beat him 3-0. He had improved a lot of things but the score wasn't really encouraging for him so I didn't mention it. For example, I used to be able to serve long backspin to his backhand and get errors but he opened on them with heavy spin, while my prior struggles with him was that he didn't spin the ball.
Last match was against a player that I have played a lot of practice matches with but since we haven't played in a while, he was back to struggling against me playing a different style and trying to relearn my serves and how much backspin I put on them again. That got me a 2-0 lead. He adjusted in game 3, but I managed to close it out after a tight battle in game 4. Since the kid beat everyone except me, I came out #1 in the group.
In the next round, I played a guy who used Hurricane on forehand and had interesting serves. He struggled with my serves and attacks initially, but got better as the game went on. I won the first game 11-8 and second game 14-12. He went up 10-5 in the 3rd game, and I got it to 10-9 but still lost, The last two games were not interesting as he managed to bring back my attacks and I couldn't sustain them. This I will have to work on to take my style to where I want to take it.
All in all, a decent day for not having played all week. Going to lose rating points but not my concern, I will get those back in the right event and if I play sharply enough to get my style where I Want to get it to.
