Thursday, July 22, 2021 (Court Day #395)
I had one of my staff close our family business . . . and this time I remembered my court shoes! I arrived at Skypark at 6:20. Olga had said she’d be there and she was. She was already in a game and their score was low so when Janet stepped out to let me into a separate game, I jumped in. I joined the new guy, Scott, against Mark D. and Alan K. We took a very big lead but we ended up losing. Allan made some great deep and hard serves that took both Scott and me by surprise. I opted to save my right arm for more consequential games, so I had played that game lefty.
Olga and I got into my next game as partners and we continued to improve communication and “feel” for each other’s play. The tournament is in three days.
Olga mentioned that another local, Jackie, is playing in the tournament. Her last name was misspelled in the list online as “Sinmore” instead of “Signor”—kind of funny, if you stop and think about it! I’m not familiar with her partner, who goes by Fernando.
Easy One
We played a game against a 2.5/3.0 woman—the wife of a man playing off in a different game—and Alan K. I played that one lefty. Even taking it somewhat easy, Olga and I won as expected.
The Challenging Ones
The most fun and best games of the night were Olga and me against her husband Oleg and the new guy John. John is tall and obviously has prior racket game experience. Oleg coached him during each of the three games we played and John got noticeably better during that time. Olga and I lost the first game, won the second, and lost the third. John got really good at angling low shots shallow off the court. Olga did successfully pull off an ATP on one of those. The next time she went for an ATP, John predicted it and was able to hit the low ATP shot back. Honesty, I can’t remember if he got it back over the net, but regardless, Olga and I did manage to win that rally.
One Last Game
As I started to head home with my backpack, I was talked into one last game by Adrian. I played with Oleg against Adrian and Olga. Oleg and I both played lefty. We got a solid lead, but Adrian got us on a few fast serves and we ended up down 10-9. But we came back and wrapped up the game 12-10. A fun time.
We left about 8:45 p.m. The sunset had been beautiful with pink wispy clouds and a big moon was up.
A good sign, after calling a few of my serves illegal on a recent day, Oleg didn’t mention any of my serves . . . “No news is good news!”
Home
During play tonight, my forearm felt ok but it also felt on the cusp of going off the rails. But it never got bad. I iced my forearm when I got home.
I felt pretty good about Olga’s and my play tonight, I think we can give just about any team in 3.5 a run for their money.
One of my biggest concerns is I hit what would have been three winners into the net! High balls that I got excited and overdid my slam. Arg. I definitely don’t want to do that during a tournament!
Friday, July 23, 2021 (No Play)
I woke up to a sore back. It seems a constant companion lately, but this was up a couple of notches. My right forearm aches just a tiny bit. Worrisome, but not overly so. Then, there’s my right butt muscle. Ouch. I did something to it. I hope it won’t get worse by Sunday’s tournament in two days.
Number of days on a court: 395
Number of total hours: 2,022.5
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
Leave a Reply