It was my last game before I take off to Oklahoma City and hopefully tonight’s play won’t be an indication of what the weekend will be like in the Sooner state. It wasn’t one of my stronger performances. I was playing with the fast and powerful ladies of Delaware and my drilling partner. I haven’t played on the court with him in a very, very long time and well, I learned tonight why he has been practicing lobs for the last 3 weeks.
When I play the ladies I try to slow it down because I know I can’t keep up with them. Sometimes I try, but I try to pick my moments. Tonight was a firefight from the start and I knew the way we came out it was going to be tough to try to pull it back.
I had a wonderful wiener dog named Natty. She was adorable and cuddled and protected me for many years. But if I gave her a deer antler as a treat she was all teeth and mean if I thought about coming near her. Well, trying to play their game is like giving them a deer antler. They are going to show their teeth and prove they are the best at it. We gave them the treat too early and paid the price.
My drops were off and I made a lot of mistakes I don’t normally make. I missed serves. I missed returns. I made bad decisions, hitting to forehands way too often. I let mental frustrations affect my play.
I’ve put the practice in and today just did not reflect that. I’m not going to sweat it, I’m going to trust the effort I’ve dedicated to put myself in a position to be ready for this event. Sure, I wish I could have had a better game today. I wish I could have been involved more. I wish I could have practiced some of the stuff I’ve been working on but that’s selfish.
I did manage to hit 2 ATPs. One of them they got back but we still won the point, the other one was a clean winner.
There’s more poor shots to report on than there are good shots to report on but overall it was a super hard work out and it was pretty fun. I did get really pissy because of all the lobs but I think that’s because I wanted to be tested on things I’ve been working on, not chasing down lobs – which I see pretty regularly.
I got to practice not hitting to the person who is going to lob the second shot they get and well, that’s boring. But it counts as practice.
It was a fun night. I just have to flip a different switch to have a better performance this weekend. I’ll get some good rest tonight and then go make things happen.
