So the last match was to see whether we could get into division 3. I went to the bathroom and came back late and was slotted into the C spot so my first match was third and against the player they slotted into the Z spot. My teammate played a chopper who played incredible matches against the kids that beat us 5-0 and beat the chopper 3-0 because the chopper had sustained a forehand injury. My teammate showed the chopper some helpful stretches but with the chopper injured, our chances went up significantly. We just had to win some critical matches.
So I go up against a 1970 player. Yes, the Texas Dallas 1800 is playing a Florida 1970. I started out making mistakes (the guy had really heavy ND deceptive serves and went down 3-7. In my head, I said eff that and started using mt own serves and pushes and got it to 7-7. After that I just wanted to win game one and we had similar styles. I feel I juat had faster wrist action in pushes and backhand topapins. I won the first game at deuce and that enabled me to really significantly. From then on, it became about making the opponent move and getting and defending the first topspin. In the end I managed to win 3-0, i struggled a bit going for too much power on some put-away shots but my teammates kept reminding me to focus on making him move.
My next match was against the injured chopper. He put up a valiant effort as well, trying to do everything he could and took me to deuce in the first game. I kept serving nospin serves because he was doing all out forehands and I didn't want to give him weight to use against me in his attacks. He started trying other tricks like lobbing, serving long and trying to use pips to make blocks/chops to throw me off my game but I managed to stay steady enough to win it in 3 games. Never cool to beat an injured player and he was 1980. I suspect part of the reason he felt comfortable playing me was that I had already beaten his similarly rated teammate and one higher rated player in the morning.
So the guy I beat first managed to beat my chopper teammate. Their 2000 level player beat both my teammates. So they had 3 points. I had beaten two players and my 2000 teammate had beaten their injured chopper. So the score was 3-3. My 2000 teammate was playing their 1970 guy from the morning. The chopper had packed up so if my 2000 teammate won, we would win the tie, either 5-3 if I won my final match against their 2000 player or 5-4 if I lost. So thr battle began and my 2000 level teammate won the first game at deuce but lost th second game at 9. I tried to tell him that the opponent didn't like my pushes to his backhand and for some reason, my teammate tried that strategy and struggled with my opponents attacks and lost game 3. So I had to shut up ans hope he found something. He got some traction with no spin serves to the forehand and tied the match 2-2. The match was seesaw all the way to 8-8. And then the opponent wins the next two points and is up 10-8. My teammate spn the first points with a smart no spin serve into the backhand and the next point in a spinny backhand exchange. At deuce, the opponent missed a backhand openers and my teammate won a serve and attack point. This gave us the match.
But 5-3 or 5-4? Well I played the 2000 player to decide that. He had beaten both my teammates 3-1 and my teammate warned me about how savvy my opponent was strategically in avoiding and changing strategies. I got ready for a great battle.
The match started and my backspin serves were working, my spinny openers were working, he missed my no spin. erves long and I countered and blocked without errors. Game 1 score 11-1.
Surely it was just a bad run and my opponent would come out swinging thr next game. So we started the next game, the no spin serves were working, my timing was on, the counters were working. Game score 11-2.
Well on the very first point of game 3, my opponent serves long into my backhand, I do a basic backhand topspin, he kills thr ball wide to my forehand and I yank my shoulder reaching for the ball.... that did not feel good. My opponent had a 6-1 or 7'-1 lead before I started chipping away. But it was obvious he had changed his approach as he started chop blocking my backhands and spinning the ball.more aggressively. I think most the game at 6 or 7.
So my teammate said that my opponent had obviously taken pains to disrupt my timing and I had ro figure out how to adapt and disrupt his. And usually for me, that means I have to take at least one step back and move much more. While it might be common sense to some players, for me it was a big deal when I started playing topspins at different distances from the table. And I often realized when coaching people that it was possible to transform a match simply by taking a step back from the table if you had the movement to get to the ball and spin it, and the power to block and generate from the new playing distance. Even with all that the game was pretty close even if I thought I was always in control. I won 13-11 in the fourth. I beat the side.
So my team is now playing in division 3 and our first match tomorrow is against a team that one of my very best friends plays for. That will be interesting. So far the tournament has been a broad affirmation of the issues I have playing in Texas Dallas where the lack of accurately rated players in the 1950 ‐ 2200 range is depressing the ratings of a lot of good players. I suspect after this event, I will go back and lose 100-200 points again to a bunch of kids and young adults who are inaccurately rated because they dont get out and play enough and because there just arent enough players around their true rating for them to beat for accurate ratings estimates.
