My tennis weekend was one of a multitude of emotions.
I played in
this. It's a rather unique format where each club sends its top two mens & ladies doubles teams plus the top (remaining) mixed team at each of the NTRP levels (3.0 to 4.5W/5.0 men). There are too many clubs to ensure everyone plays everyone so they've got a mixed draw and point system to tally up the totals. It's a bit goofy: 2 pts for a win (of any kind), 1 pt for fielding a team (at that level), 0 pts for a default (for whatever reason).
While there are a lot of bragging rights involved, there's not much else. With that point structure, the difference between winning all three of your matches and losing all three of your matches is a whopping 3 points (3 vs. 6). But still, it pretty much guaranteed to be some of the top doubles competition in town, with even the club pros slugging it out at the 5.0 level.
Our club did an in-house tournament to determine who went and long-time partner and I finally made it. Won Friday against a good pair, 6-3, 6-4.
Saturday, however, was sublime. I'll always consider it one of my (& partner's) finest tennis hours. Ever. 6-0, 6-3. That first set was literally the best we've ever played; it was like nothing could go wrong. Mishits fell in, net cords dropped on their side and every ball approaching their lines was just
inside the tape. Tightened up a bit at the first of the second because we couldn't believe the first set results but then settled down to close it out easily.
Sunday, was another story entirely. Can you say d-o-g-f-i-g-h-t? If I were like you guys, I'd go find a pic to photoshop and insert here. Walked on court at 10:50am. Walked off at 1:45pm....with a 7-5, 6-7(7), 10-7 WIN!! They had ~10 set points in the second, including at 5*-3, 40-15...but we came back in that game, even had a chance to serve for the match at 6*-5, but only had one match point. The lady playing ad was tough as nails with her returns and it was incredibly difficult to win on that side the entire match.
But like us, I suppose, they tired as well and our long-time partnership paid off when it really counted. We had a few points down that TB stretch where our court coverage gave us the upperhand and we took advantage.
All that, though, was sadly in vein. After our marathon match, and we left ~2:30pm, our club was in 1st place. At the end of the day and for the final standing, we finished 4th. Still, it was our club's best showing and we've a lot to be proud of. It was a lot of fun, good camaraderie between the haves (4/5s) and wannabees (the 3s) and some fantastic tennis to play and watch.
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