One of Those Days

Today started out better than it ended! Susan and I warmed up and I was feeling good. It rained late yesterday afternoon and the courts were playing a little slower today. The sun was out, but a front moved through which left us with windy, cooler conditions. I played a flawless first set against Susan. I was making strong, deep first serves, getting a lot of easy points off her errant returns. I was moving well, moving forward when I pressed her back and made points at the net as well as from the baseline. I won the set 6-1. I could see that Susan was a little shell shocked. She is a national champion many times over, so in no way did I think she was out of it. I continued my focus and movement, but little by little she reduced her errors and started making more of her first serves. I made a few more errors and was caught on my heels by some of her shots. She won the second set 6-2. After a short break and a regrouping, I thought I was ready to play a strong third. Evidently Susan was equally prepared. She ran through me 6-0 in the third. Needless to say I was disappointed, but she finished very strong and I lost to a better player today. At least I had doubles to look forward to.....so I thought. Susan and I had been playing so well together. Today the team we played, Abbey and Yukie, couldn't miss. We couldn't hold serve, or return and they could do nothing wrong. A bad combination! We lost 6-3, 6-2. Still not sure what happened there, but it was another disappointing loss for me. The good news is.....there's always tomorrow! I play a playoff for third and fourth in both singles and doubles. In singles I play Mariana Hollman, my doubles partner from clay courts and Worlds. It will be another fierce battle. In doubles we play the team that won the National Indoors this year. Trust me, there are no easy matches!