February 10, 2019, Sunday - Tennis.
Another rain scare, but again, luckily it cleared up in time for the court to be in good shape and we could play. It was rather cold the night before so I think a lot of the members were thinking it would be really cold during the practice as well, but actually, although it started out a little chilly, it sort of warmed up to the point that I had to take off my outer jacket. I still had on three layers of thinner shirts, but it was fine without the insulated jacket. There ended up being only 10 people attending on two courts, so we sped through the drills and started matches about halfway through the practice. We played many matches. I myself played four matches, while some others played five. I could have played five, but I bowed out of the last match to let a guy sitting out the previous match play. Plus, there wasn't enough time to play a full match, so it was all good.
In my first match, I was paired with a guy who has been absent from practices for over two months because his wife had a baby. I was a little afraid that he might be out of it, but we played really well together. However, we dropped the first two games going down 0-2. But we promptly broke back and I held my service game to tie it at 2-2. Two holds later, it was 3-3 and the deciding game was on. Luckily we were able to take that game and win the match. I was starting to get my timing for poaching as well, and I had some good poaches. The team we played is a team that is paired for the upcoming tournament on the 24th. The same tournament I'm playing in with my son. So they were worried about losing this practice match.
Match two, I was paired with the same guy and it was the same story in the end, but this time, everyone held serve with no breaks getting to a 3-3 tie. Again, we were able to take the deciding game. It is a lot more fun to win than lose. My serve was a lot better in this game, only a couple of double-faults, and a win at Love.
Match three, I thought I was going to have the same partner again, but the team we were playing had already lost two of their matches so one of the guys kind of wanted a new partner. So, after doing Rock-Paper-Scissors, I ended up with the weaker of the two. We promptly lost the first two games, then I was up to serve. I took the game at Love. My serve was feeling really good. We were able to break and hold, and they held one, so it was back to my serve as the decider. I really wanted to hold, but the double-faults started to creep in and the game went to deuce. I decided to go for it on my strokes so no holding back, no timidity. BOOM! Took the game and match. All day, my strokes were feeling really good. I had a lot of confidence in them.
In the final match for me, I was paired with the same guy as the last match, but as a tell-tale sign, from my last service game, my serve started to fall apart and I was not able to hold, but we fought as best we could, but we ended up losing 2-4.
Today was a big boost to my confidence in my strokes and my serve. I was able to start to get a sense of my contact point and really hit out on the ball.
In the end, I burned a good 2231 kcals. Pretty big burn for a cold day with lots of matches.
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