I’ve played in quite a few of the Tipp City round robins and my results usually aren’t positive. I think both times I did well enough to “medal” my results somehow didn’t get calculated and included in the mix until the next day. That’s not an issue now because there is an online tool being used. Now it’s just I don’t play well enough to get the end of day photo. Today was no different.
On the way over I made myself a to-do list of things I thought would help us win, in the event someone decided 4 months down the road to add the scores into DUPR.
- Drive, when I have the right shot to drive
- Follow the script to have successful drops and dinks
- Poach on drops
- Use the serve I’ve been working on
- Try to snag some middle balls if I’m being isolated
- No, effing mercy. If we are winning 11 to 2 we better win 15 to 2
- If we are losing, keep battling
Looking at it as words it seems like a long list. The only new items on the list are drives, the serve and the no mercy mentality. A lot of the people I play against over there are people I know and I tend to focus on the wrong things when I know people.
I take notes after every game so I know what to work on later, and because we usually have time between games. The first 3 games I noted that I had trouble getting used to the Dura ball – a lot of trouble. That could have been because we didn’t get a proper warm up and I didn’t realize I needed more shots with that ball. Three games is a lot of shots to get used to a ball but nevertheless that’s how long it took to feel comfortable using my serve and driving shots.
We definitely kept battling in a few of the games. Our first game we were losing 8-0 and came back for the win and we had another game that we came from behind and took to overtime before losing. No mercy never came in the picture, we never had a lead big enough to use that thought process.
I missed a few dinks but I’m not going to beat myself up over them. In the moment it feels like they are critical misses but in reality the majority of the games weren’t dinking and strategy, they were whack and whack. I don’t think I missed enough drops to have concerns over those but I did miss a few deep volleys, despite having practiced those on Saturday. I had 3 different times I told my partner the lob was out and it actually was in so I still have a lot of work to do judging those and helping my partner with communication on them. I have no idea how to improve that but it seems like people want that kind of help and I need to be able to do it.
When we faced the hard hitting teams (tennis) we struggled. I tried to cover the middle but that seemed to backfire on me because they would work me around the court wherever they wanted and inevitably find the open spot to hit their winners. We had 3 games that we only scored 3 points and it nearly made me sick to my stomach that we couldn’t score more than that. We struggled with switching, struggled covering the middle, struggled producing points.
I had 2 ATPs, one was called back because the dink was called out, and I had a lot of right-handed overheads – only 1 was a disaster. My frustration reared its ugly head on a couple of shots but for the most part I stayed focused. I just couldn’t do enough to help us win.
This week I hope to shake up my normal routine to focus on an event in March. I need to figure out a way to be faster so the middle isn’t as open as it was today.
