went to the club and played quite a few games. apart from beating a beginner, its only defeats here, but my level is better than last week. The first guy i just arrived at the table without any warm up, agressive short pips PH, and i never won against him anyway, he beat me 3-0 straight but i had my chance leading 10-6 in the second. He wanted to do a second match, i was not very motivated because i felt i had little chance and indeed i lost 0-3 with worse scores.
i immediately played again against a player roughly my level, i think i should beat him but he won 12-10 in the 3rd set (best of 3).
Then i played the usual LP PH, who is like 200-300 points above me, and i have never beaten, but today was my best performance against him. i won the first 2, the first he was not playing 100% yet, the second he gave away 3 serves, so 2-0 lead, the 3rd i started to get stressed and he got easily, in the 4th he got a good start, i tried to come back but lost 9-11. in the 5th he was always ahead. In the money time i manage to make some good strong 3rd ball attack winners, and come back from 8-10 to 10 all, but he's got a lucky rally to get at 11-10 (but there was a lot of luck in my favor throughout the match as well, on the balance it's even), and match point i miss my 3rd ball attack.
in the first 2 sets, my BH controlled attacks was causing him a lot of problems, thats why he started playing more on my FH from the 3rd set, because i was winning the rallies. To stay in the game i had to be more agressive after the serve, and switch my receives more on his FH.
Then i played a young attacker for the 1st time. i didn't know about his level. i managed to scrape the 1st set 12-10, but then he played much better, 11-2, 11-6 for him. I fought and stayed positive, and tried to serve and receive better. He started to make more mistakes, and i got 11-9 the 4th, but i lost 9-11 in the 5th.
Today, staying positive, and focused is really what could have made a difference. if i think always "i have to put a lot of much spin in this serve" or "i have to be careful about his long serve" thats when i make mistakes. instead i have to think "im going to attack immediately with my BH after this serve" or "i'll do a FH after this receive" to not make mistakes and then "i'll always reposition myself". When i'm nervous, and i'm not fighting it, i'll have the first kind of thoughts, and I'll lose points either with a mistake or getting stuck and not moving after my stroke. It happened so many times today. I was not mentally strong on 100% on points and in all those tight games it cost me a lot as i lost 3 matches today in the decider with the tightest margin
