So we played the African TT Dallas league today with 7 players. The one player who would have been clear favorite was out of the country (not that he is unbeatable strictly speaking but I haven't beaten him yet and he would have been seeded #1 by rating). As organizer and top seed, I got a bye in the first round. It was a double elimination knockout event. So winners advanced, losers go into a bracket and if you lose in the losers bracket, you are eliminated. The winner of the winners final has the advantage that he has to lose twice to be upset. It's probably a better format if the matches are not on the same day but I just wanted to give people matches while using a reasonable format. Might try something more traditional next time.
So by rating as the #1 seed I got a first round bye. The other players played. I faced a player who was roughly 1850 in the semis. I had played him before and I felt I would be fine if I wasn't missing. I won 3-1, losing the second set at deuce with some good rallies. I missed a high ball that would have won tbe second set but this stuff happens.
I played the first final against a guy who I have played a lot of matches with, a lefty from Ghana. For some reason, he wasn't sharp in the first match and I won 3‐0. To be fair to myself, my new Damien Provost inspired approach to hitting the ball has paid some dividends, even if I probably still need to get some coaching to sharpen my approach.
So with that, I now awaited the results of the losers bracket. Our oldest member had used his crafty all round game with smashing to reach the finals of the losers bracket and he played a tough match with the lefty, whose mind was on the food that we were going to eat after the event (the event we originally pitched using the Chicken dinner angle. But we waived fees other than the club fee and one of the participants was kind enough to bring barbecued chicken and Turkey for the players to eat).
The elderly member went down 2-0, including throwing a 4‐8 lead in game 2. But he came back to won thr next two games. In game 5, he went down 0‐5 and then won the next 4 points. Was it going to be an upset? No, the lefty managed to delay the thoughts of food for a bit and won the game at 11‐6, his powerful forehand handling business.
So the lefty now had to beat me to get a chance at winning it all. It was getting late and some hungry players wanted to just declare me the winner but that was not going to happen. So the lefty and I got down to business.
I went up 2‐0 in games playing some good table tennis. The lefty was trying to block me after sending me wide but my improved movement and compact swinging made it hard to do. So he then realized he need to take a step back and put the ball to my middle more. All of a sudden, I started missing. And he started connecting. It was 2‐2.
The last game didn't have that much drama. I got out to a 5‐0 lead and while there was a comeback attempt, it never really got critical. I had won the first league! Of course, playing fewer matches than my opponent likely helped a little but in the end, the fact that we had the league was the fruition of something we had discussed for a long time. And forget the matches and results, the fact we met up was awesome. Would have been just as great to lose it. The barbecue made up for all and all results lol.
Someone reminded me that about this time last year, I was pretty much retired from TT. Weird to remember that. Now though the next step is to get back to Keto, and find a way to keep the strength and lose some weight. But all step by step. I will post the second finals match when I am done editing away all the filler time.
