Back from Bocage

Because we had a long drive home yesterday afternoon after playing our matches, I wasn't able to report our results in a timely fashion. So here goes.......

It was a perfect day for tennis yesterday. Mostly cloudy, a little humid, and no wind. I felt good warming up and was ready for my match with Kathy. I knew we had the potential to have long drawn out points and I was prepared for that. What I wasn't prepared for was how sluggish, slow and off I was in the first set, which Kathy won 6-1 in about 20 minutes. To her credit she didn't miss, but I made tons of just plain unforced errors for seemingly no reason. I wasn't nervous or over hitting. I wasn't over confident and expecting errors from her. I was just plain awful. I didn't understand. Early in the second set we had a tough game at one all, which I broke then held to go up 3-1. From that point on, I started feeling it. Kathy started missing more and I was finding myself. I won the second set 6-2 and felt better. After the ten minute break, we started up again and I went out to a four love lead and on to win the match 6-1 in the third. I was happy with my win, but still puzzled by my play early on. I guess there are some days you just don't have it for some mysterious, unknown reason. This is a great example of why I need more match play. With my match over, it was time for a quick shower and on to watch Phil play his final.

Phil played a very tough lefty, Chris Reynard. Chris is a first year 55's player and very good. I had watched a bit of Chris' semis match, and thought that Phil had a chance to win if he played well. Chris seemed streaky at times with a big serve and a big forehand. The first set was very tight with Chris winning it with a break 6-3. Phil was able to hold on to win the second set in a tie breaker. He was struggling with his serve, which is usually one of his big weapons. His first serve percentage was very low and his second serve was suffering from a lack of confidence. Mind you, Phil hasn't played a tournament in nine months, so I think it's normal to have some confidence issues, particularly in the serve. The third set was a battle to the end. Phil finally broke Chris at 4-4 and was serving for the match at 5-4. He went down 15-40 on his serve and fought back to deuce. Phil had one match point on his serve, went for a big serve down the tee on the add side and just missed by a hair. He spun his second serve in and eventually lost the point, then the game. Chris held serve, for a 6-5 lead, then Phil lost his serve to give Chris the win. Needless to say Phil was very disappointed in his loss. More for the fact that he served so poorly and really felt like the lack of a higher serving percentage took away from him being able to attack more and put Chris on the defense. It was tough to watch him lose after such a big win the day before, but at the same time I am so proud of how Phil competed all week. It's hard to come back from a long lay off of competitive tennis and get right back in the saddle like he did. His fitness level was great and we'll both continue to work on that, as well as our serves and other weaknesses that were exposed this week.

Ricky and Susie were most hospitable and gracious. We so appreciated their hospitality, and fan support! A special thanks too to Paul Murphy, another Hidden Dunes owner who came from Hammond to watch Phil's match. We have many friends in the Baton Rouge area and it was a fun week of tennis and hanging out. Our gin rummy card game ended in a tie with the guys coming back to win the last two nights. That's okay though. After sweeping the first two nights, Susie and I knew that we had to let the guys back in the game, just so they'd keep playing with us.

Our next events are in May. I will go with Phil to Atlanta May 5-9 where he will play the Atlanta Senior Invitational, a prestigous Super Category II event for men. My next tournament will be the National Indoors in Chicago May 19-23. Until then....