Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Tennis Score: 6-4, 6-3: Clay

After the string break on Sunday, my racket was strung by another member of our club. Though professionally a doctor, he prides himself in being a tennis player and a stringer. Admittedly, he is an excellent tennis player.

Anyways, surprisingly playing with the newly strung racket did not feel much different than the older ones. I do suspect that the tension is a bit too high as the pace on my shots seems to have dropped. It could also be due to the balls which went soggy very quickly due to courts exposed to the rain.

The rain exposed court was two sided. One side was perfect and the other was slippery and movement on this side was dangerous and led to tentativeness. This made winning games on the good side very very important. At the same time, games won on the bad side were worth their weight in gold. Come to think of it, games don't have weight.

In the first set I went up to 4-1 taking advantage of the good side. Then the lead was squandered to be level at 4-4. It was time to play safe and do anything to win the next two games. This was somehow achieved even with the double disadvantage of serving on the bad side.

The second set was close until it was 4-3 to me. I was at the bad side and thought that I need to win at least one game here so that I can win the game on the good side to win the set. I pushed hard to win my service game to go up 5-3. Since it was my partner's serve, I had a slight edge to win the last game, even if it was on the bad side. However, I managed to win the game and the set 6-3 and that was the end of the evening of tennis.

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