Tennis

I played in a handicap tournament at the tennis club last weekend (and nearly didn’t because I was still a bit, um, handicapped after the tumble I took in my interclub match). Tennis has never embraced handicapping in the same way that golf has. I think that’s because tennis between players of vastly different standards isn’t much of a game, and giving one player a head start doesn’t magically change that. In golf you’re playing your own game, which isn’t affected (except maybe psychologically) by whatever ridiculous shots Jordan Spieth pulls off if you happen to be playing alongside him. There’s no golfing equivalent of “getting his high kicking serve back” or “combating his heavy topspin”. However, it’s fun to try handicapping in tennis once in a while, and last weekend’s tournament had a certain novelty factor which I enjoyed.

We didn’t use normal tennis scoring; instead we simply played up to 31 points, swapping serves after every five. I played six matches in all:

Singles:
Round 1: started 10 points behind (‒5 to +5), won by 12
Round 2: started 5 points ahead (0 to ‒5), lost by 2.

Mixed doubles:
Round 1: started 5 points ahead (0 to ‒5), won by 8
Round 2: started 5 points ahead (0 to ‒5), won by 11
Semi-final: started 10 points ahead (0 to ‒10), lost by 5.

Men’s doubles:
Round 1: started even, lost by 13.

There are more “levels” in tennis than people think. A better player can easily overcome a ten-point handicap against a weaker player, even in a first-to-31 match. In my first-round singles match I needed to win 36 points out of 61, or 59% of the points. I comfortably managed that, winning 72%. Naturally I was disappointed to lose my second-round match by just two points. My opponent wiped out my head start on a few occasions, but each time I was able to win the next point, most notably at 24-all when I served an ace. He did get his nose in front for the first time at 28-27, but I won the next point and then hit an angled return winner to lead 29-28. At that stage I thought I would do it, but crucially he hit my backhand sideline in the middle of a long rally on the next point, and he always had the upper hand on the last two points.

The men’s singles draw was spiced up somewhat by the presence of a ten-year-old by the name of Angus. He’s at the club with his dad all the time; he can’t get enough of the game. He scored two wins over fully-grown men, one from scratch, the other giving away five points! I’d have played him in the semi-finals, giving him ten points, had I won my second match. One of Angus’s victims (the one who had the head start) was from the UK; he said he’d tell his mates back home that Angus was six foot four with biceps and pecs that you wouldn’t believe.

My mixed doubles partner, who was all of five foot two, was something of a surprise package. She was very consistent and had some unorthodox shots, as I do sometimes. In our second match we seemingly had a zillion match points up our sleeve and needed about half a zillion as our male opponent found some form right at the end. Some way through our semi-final we still had our ten-point buffer, but starting from 0 to ‒10, instead of 5 to ‒5 as my first singles opponent did against me, made it a longer match. I knew they had a long time to catch us up which they jolly well did. It was a good match all the same. Starting the men’s doubles at scratch was a bit of a joke; they were strong doubles players and we’d both have been amazed if we’d got within cooee.

Britain’s recent Davis Cup triumph was their first in almost 80 years. It was rightly celebrated, but it shouldn’t disguise the fact that Britain has a dearth of top tennis players: just two men and two women inside the world’s top 100. Having lived in France (where they currently have ten men and three women in the world’s top 100), it’s easy to see why. In France, it’s seen as a game for everyone; in the UK it’s seen as a game for toffs. Unless the image of tennis changes radically in Britain, Wimbledon and Davis Cup wins are likely to remain once-in-a-lifetime events.

Week 5 was 3½ weeks after Week 4, and Week 6 won’t be until February. I didn’t make the schedule.

As usual, we played the doubles first. I seemed to have a target painted on me; whenever my partner served to the deuce side, the returner aimed straight at me at the net. I’m surprised I don’t see that tactic more often. I’m not a good net player and before long I retreated to the baseline. The first set was nip-and-tuck but we eked it out 7-5. We probably only won half the points, if that, but all three of the crucial sudden-death points went our way. So did a fourth in the second set which we won 6-2. There wasn’t much between us but we had the better of the longer rallies.

My confidence in the singles was boosted when my opponent sat down to send a text during the change of ends after just one (albeit long) game. I led 2-0, but on the last point of the third game I fell on the concrete and scraped my hand and both knees. I managed to get some plasters so that I could at least continue playing, but on the resumption I fell 4-2 behind. I was physically hampered, my ball toss was terrible, my forehand was starting to elude me, my opponent’s game was too similar to mine, I was getting very few cheap points, and things simply weren’t looking good. He chucked in two double faults to begin game seven, and I was able to capitalise. I saved a break point in the eighth game to tie things up, and I never lost another game all evening. I won ten games on the trot to win 6-4 6-0 without, in truth, playing all that well. As a team we lost 4-2. I’m feeling quite sore now.

So far this season I’ve won nine matches out of ten. I certainly didn’t expect that in Week 1. My most satisfying match was the 6-1 6-1 win I had in the singles in Week 2, coming straight off a heavy loss in the doubles (my only defeat). If I even have a zone, I was in it for those 45 minutes.

Donald Trump. It’s great to have someone sticking two fingers up to the establishment, isn’t it? Uh, no. Mr Trump, of the monstrous Trump Tower I had the privilege of seeing in Chicago in September, is very much of the establishment, and he’s a very dangerous man, currently benefiting from a very messed-up political system.

Work. The two-hour meeting we had this afternoon made it clearer than ever that I can’t keep doing this shit. Seriously.

On Thursday I played a practice set of singles at the club. I completely lost my ball toss and threw in 15 or so double faults including at least three in the tie-break which I somehow won 10-8. After that, I expected to have a tough time of it in this morning’s interclub.

One of our doubles opponents – the one I’d be playing in the singles – was from the north of England and had quite a footbally demeanour on court. “Come on boys, let’s get it together.” The four of us had a combined age of at least 170 but we were all “boys”. We won the first set 6-3 but went through a sticky patch in the middle of the second. We led 40-0 on my partner’s serve at 2-2 but I plonked an overhead into the net on the next point and we lost the game on sudden death. We lost the next game too and at that stage there was a distinct whiff of a super tie-break (and it really does pong as I’ve mentioned before), but from 2-4 we rattled off the last four games for the match. I still had ball-toss issues affecting my serve but I managed to keep them in check. We split the four sudden death points evenly.

Then came the singles against the second left-hander I’ve played this year already. In Auckland I’d go whole seasons without ever facing one. My opponent arrived in New Zealand in 2003, just like I did. He picked up the game as an adult; that suggests that he’s a better all-round sportsman than me. That I can play tennis is due in large part to hitting a ball against a wall, semi-obsessively, between the ages of six and nine. I played a lot with my parents in the back yard then too. By the time I stepped onto a tennis court I’d already spent three years developing appalling technique, which the lack of space in our back garden necessitated. But I could keep a rally going for ages. We had quite a few long rallies in our match this morning. I was just on the right end of most of them, and I beat him in a tick over 40 minutes without losing a game. I’ve now lost just nine games in four singles matches.

My partner won his singles 7-6 (9-7), 6-0, saving five set points in the tie-break. That match brought to mind a painful defeat I suffered a few years ago. We won overall by four matches to two.

These “weeks” of interclub tennis aren’t necessarily every week. This “week” I played with the same bloke as last time in the doubles. We’d had some practice in between. Our opponents weren’t as good as last time and we won 6-2 6-3. We won all four sudden death points – that made a huge difference. Both the games we lost in the first set were on my serve – I was having a shocker in that department. In the second we lost three straight games to go 3-2 down but in the latter stages they went off the boil a bit and we made very few errors. For a minute there things seemed to just flow. Hey, I’m enjoying this. The last game was a bit tense – we needed four match points (including sudden death) and I really didn’t fancy the idea of serving it out at 5-4 having had all those match points.

My singles opponent won the toss and put me into bat. After my travails on serve in the doubles, this wasn’t a silly decision. He promptly broke me to 15 (aided by two double faults) and went 40-love up in the next game. I wound up winning the set 6-1. He had a point for 2-0 early in the second. I won that set 6-1 as well, and I had the match wrapped up in 52 minutes – reasonably long considering the score, which was a repeat of my previous singles result. We had plenty of long rallies – we were both strong on defence – and he got a lot of joy by hitting cross-court forehands to my backhand. Despite that, I still won easily. Was it the weather? Had he had a late night? An argument with his wife? Was it just a match-up of styles that suited me? Then it dawned on me. Maybe, just maybe, I keep winning 6-1 6-1 because I’m not too bad at this tennis lark. Me being good at something is a possibility. Being good at something that matters, that I could make a living out of, well that would be bloody amazing, but baby steps…

A weird stat: 11 of my last 13 sets of singles interclub have been 6-1 sets, going right back to my last defeat which was in Auckland. I lost that match 6-1 1-6 6-1.

I had a very enjoyable evening at the pub tonight with five other blokes, one of whom is interested in living with me.

The ABs are guaranteed to win the final which kicks off in a few hours, even if it’s the Aussie Bastards.

I played interclub again last Saturday. We had a bit of a shocker in the doubles. My partner was a nice bloke but we’d never played together before. Our opponents clearly had, and they were simply better doubles players than the pairing we faced the previous time. There were very few of the ten-plus-shot rallies that I do reasonably well in; I guess it was, unfortunately, proper doubles. We were competitive in the latter stages of the first set which we lost 6-3, but got wiped out 6-0 in the second. We went oh-for-three (pardon my American) on sudden-death points. In one game on my serve in the second set, we lost the first three points, then won the next four, only to lose the last two. I double-faulted three times in that game in the swirling wind, including on the sudden-death final point.

My singles opponent (who we faced in the doubles match) was left-handed like me. This is usually bad news. He had a look of confidence about him as he stepped onto the court. I’m not sure I even got his serve back in the first game and I didn’t hold out much hope for the rest of the match. Remarkably I only lost one more game all match, in the middle of the second set when he hit four winning drop shots. I never imagined I’d win 6-1 6-1, and neither did he nor the handful of people watching. He came to the net too often; I was able to pass him and occasionally lob him. I respected his game though and kept my foot on the gas until the end.

My doubles partner lost his singles in three sets after winning the first set on a tie-break. He took a very long break after the first set for no apparent reason. I told him after the match that he should have got on with it; when you win the first set on a tie-break you have a ton of momentum and you need to make the most of it.

As a team we drew 3-3 but won 7-6 in sets. There was another interclub battle going on at the same time as ours, involving a 77-year-old bloke who was on the away team. Sometimes you’ll see that in the doubles-only grades, but in singles, wow.

Last Saturday I played interclub tennis for the first time since I moved to Wellington. I was a bit apprehensive as you might expect. The first thing I found out was that they’d changed the rules this season. Doubles matches would now feature a sudden-death point on the second deuce, and the third set would be replaced by a super tie-break up to ten points. I like to look back at matches I’ve played over the years; some I remember very well, a lot I’ve forgotten. The ones that live long in my memory nearly all involve 22-point games and/or three sets. Never playing any more than nine points in a game, or two real sets, turns everything into a whole pile of meh. (Do people still say “meh”? I have no idea.) The professionals have used a similar system for a while now, so change was probably unavoidable, but it was likely brought about by people in the first paragraph for whom playing four hours of tennis, let alone hanging around in the glorious sunshine (like we had on Saturday) in between matches, is completely incompatible with taking Sophie, Tom and George here, there and everywhere to achieve this, that and the other. I was very relieved to find out that singles was still three proper sets, with proper deuces, but give it a few years… Indeed, my singles opponent suggested before our match that we play a super tie-break instead of a third set, and I suggested to him “no bloody way” as politely as I could.

Anyway, on to the actual tennis. It was a fantastic morning for it. We played doubles first, and as isn’t always the case, I’d played with my partner a few times before so we knew each other’s games. This was a big help. Our opponents weren’t so good that involving them at the net meant instant death, and I felt able to play my natural game which usually means a lot of running around and scrambling. It was a scrappy match but that’s how I prefer doubles. My partner was up-and-down, as he usually is, but he became more consistent in the second set. We won 6-4 6-2. The sudden death situation cropped up five times: we won just two of those, but one of them came on my partner’s serve in the penultimate game. We saved five break points in that game – the most you possibly can under this format – and that was huge in the context of the match.

I thought I would win the singles. (Confidence! Amazing, isn’t it?) When I played in Auckland, winning the doubles but losing the singles was a rare occurrence. Sure enough, after ten minutes I led 4-0 having lost exactly one point in each game. But I’ve been there before. Opponents relax, they get used to my game, they simply get better. And he certainly did, most noticeably on serve. In contrast I started to get bogged down and didn’t want to take any risks (I was fully aware of this and tried to become more aggressive). The rallies got longer. We took longer breaks at the changeovers. Still, I led 6-1 3-1. That became 3-3. The crucial seventh game (to go all Dan Maskell) was a long, bruising affair which I won, but he then held for 4-4. I then won my own serve and was able to do enough with his strong first serve in the next game to get into the rallies. We had plenty of them. I dug my heels in on the match point, as if I was down match point, and eventually won another long rally. It felt good to come through that match against a tricky opponent whose game was similar to mine, and hopefully next time I’ll feel more relaxed and able to play my shots.

As a team (I played in the bottom position) we lost out by eight games after tying 3-3 in matches and 7-7 in sets. We still got a point for every match we won.