Tennis: Onto the finals!

My tennis team had semi-finals tonight. It wasn’t that hard to make it into the semis. There are 6 groups in the whole tournament, and the top 4 make it in. =P

We placed third and would play the second team on the ladder. They were called The Unpredictables and we’ve played them at least twice. I think we won the first meet and they won the second one. Anyhow, I thought we’d be in for a tough tie until I saw a person on their team who I knew was really weak, I was surprised he was playing at all tonight! Nevertheless, seeing him on their team gave me some confidence.

I had a hit with my brother a few hours before going and I played pretty terribly, he actually beat me in a short match, and that would have been the first time he’s beaten me all year, so I wasn’t feeling thaaaaaat great.

I won my first match 8-4. My partner Stan was old, which worried me at first, but he had a very reliable serve which is always handy. We were pretty level at the start, 4-all, before we broke away for the win. I believe I played well, I didn’t go for too much on serves, I actually held back a lot on my serving. I had to do lots of volleys and smashes, and I actually didn’t miss many at all which is a nice change! Smashing used to be so daunting because I’d hit it into the net almost all the time. There were some good rallys, and fun exploitation of unshielded tram lines.

Second match was even better, I won 8-1. Once again, had to volley and smash more than usual, I always ran to the other side of the court just so I could smash it. At around 4 -1, the other team started bickering and getting annoyed at each other for not doing what they were supposed to. I actually felt really bad that it was going on, in the end it’s just a meaningless tournament! Having said that I was really serious the whole time and played with intensity, it’s so fun like that, Dokic is just a goddess with it. There was a point where I was at the baseline and I had to scramble from side to side, and in the end I did a cross-court passing shot from the ad court to the deuce court, definitely my shot of the night. =D

Thanks to my team mates, after four matches were completed out of a total of six, we had already won the tie, even if we lost the next two matches 8-0! I guess this made me feel relaxed, however I think I took them too easily. In the final match I won 8-6, but it wasn’t easy. First off we went down 0-3, after having two games where were 40-0  up! We finally levelled at 3-all, and continued until we got a break to lead 6-5, but immediately got broken back. Thankfully we won the next 2 games to win the match. My serve really failed me this time. I double-faulted more than once in some games. I overhit, and started to miss volleys, my mind just wasn’t in the match at the start. Add to that I was HUNGRY LIKE THE CHICKEN after not eating anything since 1pm (it’s now 9pm).

Next week it’s the finals, hopefully  we can win, but one of our better team members cant play and we may have to call one of our weaker ones…. *worried*

Oh and it’s time for Roland Garros now. I hope Serena or Jelena Jankovic can capture grand slam glory!

~ by hdfb on May 26, 2008.