Good lord. What a nightmare.
I showed up for my lesson, hoping to fix my serve (so many DFs lately!!) and work on overheads/swinging volleys/other tactics. My pro sees me standing there and realizes he has forgotten I was supposed to have a lesson. He has no time for me, so no lesson.
I go the match with my hideous mess of a serve. Sure enough, I can't put a serve in the box to save my life. I DF'd at least once every game, often twice. Not to mention how I wasn't able to actually achieve anything with a serve that normally gives people a lot of trouble.
Anyway. We get started, and sure enough her strokes are a mess. She is a pusher, her lobs do not have topspin, and she struggles with transition and net play.
We start playing, and I figured it out. I would hit my regular shots, but when I got a ball I could lob I would try to spin it deep and follow it in, stopping at the service line. Sure enough, this worked! I was able to hit overhead and volley winners almost every time. When I lost points, it was DFs or the many times I should have taken one of her lobs out of the air but bounced it like an idiot instead.
Despite all of the DFs, I win the first set 6-4.
[Allow me to pause and bask in that for just a minute. It wasn't so long ago I couldn't beat a 3.5, and now I won a set over a computer-rated 4.0 -- and I did it without a serve. I'm getting the hang of this!]
The second set was a problem for me. I started trying to take more balls as swinging volleys, but I missed too many. I didn't hit my approaches hard enough, and I was too hesitant in moving forward -- literally moving forward for lobs and changing my mind, only to see it bounce over my head!! Very dumb indeed. She won the second set 1-6, with 12 minutes to go in our 2-hour block of time.
We go sip some water, and we have the following conversation:
Me: OK, we'd better get the tiebreak started.
Opponent: What tiebreak?
Me: A 10-point tiebreak because we split sets. The ladder rules say that when there's less than 20 minutes left you play a tiebreak, and you play the third set out when there's more than 20 minutes.
Opponent: No, the rules say that we have to agree, and I don't agree to play a tiebreak. I want to play a third set.
Me: If we start a third set, we will never finish in 12 minutes. So let's do a tiebreak so we can finish the match. Besides, I think the rules require us to play the tiebreak. Won't they kick us off the court when time is up?
Opponent: Yes, they'll kick us off. Let's just start the third set anyway.
Me: Well, I guess I'll have to check the rules when I get home, because I thought the tiebreak was mandatory. But if you are refusing to play a tiebreak, then I see no point in starting a third set. I guess I will gather my things and leave. I do think that if you were going to insist on a third set, you might have said something at the outset rather than bringing it up now. And I can tell you if the situation were reversed I would play the tiebreak because I like to finish matches whenever possible. So. Goodbye.
***********
So I go home and check the rules, and sure enough the decision is left to the players, although players are advised to play the tiebreak when time is short, as I said. Which means she gets the W.
And I will complain to the organizer that the rules for this ladder are stupid and should be changed to require the players to agree on the tiebreak issue before play begins, and to *require* the tiebreak when time is short. Or if they cannot agree, then they should have to come back and play the third set another time.
