Thursday, May 10, 2018 (Court Days #149)
I wasn’t able to get away from work until after 6:30. In the four days that I’ve worked this week, I’ve already topped 40 hours. 9, 10 and 11-hour days. I raced home, changed, took some ibuprofen for my sore back, and dashed out the door to Scotts Valley.
Things were hopping by the time I got to Skypark at 7 p.m. They had five courts set up and were setting up a sixth.
I started out playing solidly and my play progressively got better and better.
Larry and and a three game winning streak against three different sets of opponents: Colleen and Lauren, Alan and Larry’s wife Sue, Terri and Mark Dettle.
I was making an effort to work on my forehand slice service return and successfully executed the majority of them. They were effective sometimes my opponent would hit them into the net.
Larry and I stayed as a team and played against Kent and Rob. Rob has really been improving. Larry and I found ourselves down 0-4. It wasn’t looking good. But then we crept back into the game and tied it up 4-4. It was a battle. Then we found ourselves down 9-5. If they got two more points it would be over. But we weren’t going to do down easily. Soon, we were leading 10-9! One point was all we needed. Nope. 10-10. Then 11-11. Then 12-12. It just keep going. There were some great rallies and a few surprising great shots. Eventually, Larry made a couple of errors and down we went, 14-12. Wow. Good one!
Rob and I weren’t ready to be done and teamed up against Oleg and his wife Olga for one last game. Mark Dettle—responsible for closing up—said we could play. Rob and I were on fire. We pulled out ahead and rocketed convincingly to an 11-2 win in short order. Oleg is a competitor and I know he was disappointed with their play. Neither of them were playing their best.
It was just about 9 p.m. when we cleared out the last court. Fun one.
I chatted with Rob afterward for a couple minutes. His firefighter tournament is coming up very soon. When I told him that he has improved a lot, he said that he’s not softening his game when playing with weaker players. I told him that’s good because if he’s not trying as hard, he’s robbing his opponents of the opportunity to play with a stronger player and get better. If he keeps at it, Rob will become very, very good.
Number of days on a court: 149
Number of total hours: 419
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