MyFearHand
Professional
Maine’s largest tennis tournament is a cancer charity event that takes place each year. It has been going on for over 30 years now. This year 153 people signed up across many different divisions. I played men’s singles and doubles.
Men’s singles starts Friday and unfortunately I have to play one of my friends who is traveling up to play. I had a first round bye, but my friend played an easy match before playing me. I beat him 6-1 6-0 in about an hour.
My second match was at 9am Saturday morning. I played a junior from NY who is a 3 star recruit. He was very consistent which I hate, it was like playing against myself. The first set was extremely close, after 2.5 hours I emerged victorious 7-5 6-2.
Next up a little after noon I had my first doubles match, we far outmatched our opponents and won 6-0 6-1 in about an hour.
About an hour after that we took on a trickier team, after going down 2-0 in the first set we managed to figure things out and won 6-3 6-2. One of our opponents was the current women’s tennis coach at Bowdoin. This match took about an hour and a half.
Then I was back to singles a few hours later. My opponent was completely out of gas, but he did have a good serve. At this point I’m also obviously not moving as fast as I was at the start of the day. He was keeping points extremely short on my service games by returning from very close to the service line. He therefore missed a lot of returns which made me feel a lot more comfortable since I was never at risk of being broken. After breaking him in the second set the fight was over, I won 7-5 6-0 in about an hour and a half.
The last match of the night was the doubles quarterfinals and unfortunately my partner started cramping part way through. This was his 6th match of the day and his singles match prior was far more taxing than mine. Even though I was tired myself I had to work harder than usual due to his weakened movement. After saving a match point we managed to win 6-3 4-6 12-10 in a 2 hour affair. We left the courts around 11:30pm.
It was back to it the next morning with the singles semifinals up first. I played an Ex D1 player and while I won’t spoil the score as you can watch it. It took about 1.5 hours and I did not win.
Next up after that match was the doubles semi. After a shaky start we put things together and won 6-2 6-0. There were some long deuce games, though, so the match took about 1.5 hours. I have to say it was a treat to have my partner not cramping. It’s a lot easier to play doubles when you can run poaches.
We were gratefully in the doubles final and that meant we got a trophy either way. We were playing two strong junior players, both UTR 8s in doubles. We managed to snatch the first set 7-5 after being down a break from the first game. The second set we immediately got broken and couldn’t quite turn it around though we had some chances, we lost that one 3-6. Into the 10 pointer breaker we went and after some battling we managed to take it 10-8. This match took 2.5 hours, quite a long doubles match.
This is the second year in a row we managed to win the doubles title!
If you have any questions about how to manage this load of tennis please shoot. Also happy to hear any thing you noticed about the singles semi. Definitely would’ve liked to have been less tired in it.
Men’s singles starts Friday and unfortunately I have to play one of my friends who is traveling up to play. I had a first round bye, but my friend played an easy match before playing me. I beat him 6-1 6-0 in about an hour.
My second match was at 9am Saturday morning. I played a junior from NY who is a 3 star recruit. He was very consistent which I hate, it was like playing against myself. The first set was extremely close, after 2.5 hours I emerged victorious 7-5 6-2.
Next up a little after noon I had my first doubles match, we far outmatched our opponents and won 6-0 6-1 in about an hour.
About an hour after that we took on a trickier team, after going down 2-0 in the first set we managed to figure things out and won 6-3 6-2. One of our opponents was the current women’s tennis coach at Bowdoin. This match took about an hour and a half.
Then I was back to singles a few hours later. My opponent was completely out of gas, but he did have a good serve. At this point I’m also obviously not moving as fast as I was at the start of the day. He was keeping points extremely short on my service games by returning from very close to the service line. He therefore missed a lot of returns which made me feel a lot more comfortable since I was never at risk of being broken. After breaking him in the second set the fight was over, I won 7-5 6-0 in about an hour and a half.
The last match of the night was the doubles quarterfinals and unfortunately my partner started cramping part way through. This was his 6th match of the day and his singles match prior was far more taxing than mine. Even though I was tired myself I had to work harder than usual due to his weakened movement. After saving a match point we managed to win 6-3 4-6 12-10 in a 2 hour affair. We left the courts around 11:30pm.
It was back to it the next morning with the singles semifinals up first. I played an Ex D1 player and while I won’t spoil the score as you can watch it. It took about 1.5 hours and I did not win.
Next up after that match was the doubles semi. After a shaky start we put things together and won 6-2 6-0. There were some long deuce games, though, so the match took about 1.5 hours. I have to say it was a treat to have my partner not cramping. It’s a lot easier to play doubles when you can run poaches.
We were gratefully in the doubles final and that meant we got a trophy either way. We were playing two strong junior players, both UTR 8s in doubles. We managed to snatch the first set 7-5 after being down a break from the first game. The second set we immediately got broken and couldn’t quite turn it around though we had some chances, we lost that one 3-6. Into the 10 pointer breaker we went and after some battling we managed to take it 10-8. This match took 2.5 hours, quite a long doubles match.
This is the second year in a row we managed to win the doubles title!
If you have any questions about how to manage this load of tennis please shoot. Also happy to hear any thing you noticed about the singles semi. Definitely would’ve liked to have been less tired in it.
