How did you and your temp student fare yesterday ?
Thought everyone had forgotten...
So I wake up on Sunday morning in the mood to do nothing. But I am feeling relatively okay if my knees hold up. I turn on my laptop and look at the club camera and see my temp student playing a short pips guy who he lost to on Monday I think. I called into the club to try to give him some tips. Not sure if he took them or they helped (adult students are a bit less receptive to coaching than kids are, as I know from my personal experience) but he did win that match (he won the first game before I called anyway). He ended up coming third in the U1800 and lost two matches, one to a long pips backhand lefty with tricky serves and one to a long distance retriever/sideswipe hitter. He beat the short pips hitter he had lost to the previous Monday as well as a long pips blocker he had lost to in April. The players he lost too were more advanced and sophisticated in some ways (these are players who can bring back my loops - more on this later).
So I got to the club and didn't really warm up. There was no one around and I was trying to jog myself. I was top seed in the U2050. I had one guy with LP in my group and the double sided SP guy. I had played them both before and was about 200pts above both of them. I beat them both fairly easily and advanced out of my group.
In the quarter finals, I had to play the lefty son of a 2200+ player, a 2200+ player who has been as high as 2500 but doesn't have good practice partners in his area anymore as the best kids have gone to college. The father has these incredible tomahawk and windshield wiper serve variations that can really screw you up and his son has them as a lefty - just sick stuff. The son is 32 by the way - no spring chicken. I had serious problems returning the father's serves when I played him so I was just hoping to do okay against the son if he could not loop and attack as well as his father - after all, he was only 1700-1800.
The match starts and I am doing okay, but when I loop and the son chop blocks, the ball is heavy and my push is too timid to get it done. I am up 9-7 in game one and I lose either 9-11 or 10-12. Then I lose the second game fairly easily with the son blocking my loops. I am struggling with his backspin no-spin serve combos to my short forehand and some of his lefty serves wide. He totally avoids my backhand which makes me believe he was warned by his father. After the first game, someone knocked my camera off center so it doesn't record the rest of the match clearly.
A guy in the club told me that I needed to play him the way he was playing me so I started to serve short to his forehand too and his returns were weaker than mine and I managed to get some points that way. He started to miss some of his blocks later in the match as well. So I got it to 2-2 and I think 9-7 in the 5th. I think he came back to 9-9. I managed to win the next two points, the last off a no-spin serve that he chop blocked into a backhand topspin that I hit to his wide forehand.
Of course, people told me I worked too hard for the win as he often missed when I looped or pushed or served with less spin into his pips. But in the end, a win is a win. Sometimes, you have to learn your opponent to figure out how to beat them efficiently.
My temp beat a very experienced 1700+ player to come second in his group and advance - he lost in the quarters to a long pips blocker who lost in the semis.
Then I started playing matches in the Open event and my knees started hurting. I lost to a penholder and to the 2200 kid, either unable to move in to play my short backhands or trying to end the points early. So I decided to drop out of the 2300 (in which I would have been the second seed) and focus on the 2050. I played my clubmate in the 2050 semis and managed to win that 3-1, not before he gave me a fright by attacking like a black mamba to win the 3rd set. I am sure that if I had never played him before, I would have lost that match. The thing is that when you play someone often, you often figure out where to put the ball that they don't like it, until they find a way to cover that weakness, then you have to find something else. He is still yet to cover the weaknesses. I can also sometimes attack his serves for outright winners, while he usually has to attack mine to get into rallies.
The final, I tried to get my opponent to split with me, because I honestly wasn't sure I could win and he had a lot of matches left. I agreed to share prize money with him, though after he finished his other matches, he claimed he never agreed not to play. He ultimately got to the Open finals and the U2300 finals, losing both - he was the second seed in the 2050 and the 2300 and had a lucky draw in the Open. The #1 seed in the Open, a notorious lefty penholder on the East Coast, lost to the 1700 long pips blocker I struggled with. Yes, if you want to believe it, he could not return the serves and loop against pips. I want to believe he was sandbagging to get his rating under 2500 so he could play some events. Because of this, he left the top half of the draw with only the #4 seed ( who lost to an unrated guy) and beat #2 and #3 seed in the other half of the draw to reach the Finals. Of course, he beat the 1950 guy in the Finals easily.
So I have mixed feelings on the day. I probably should have skipped the Open and played the 2350. I didn't beat a player higher ranked than I was and I didn't lose to a player lower ranked than I was. I played solid but nothing spectacular. I have to figure out how to get healthier as a priority before Thanksgiving. And I still want to play a lot between now and then. I have to work on my forehand counterloop off the bounce.
