by Our team went into the last round of matches with a chance of winning the post-Christmas competition. I don’t yet know whether this morning’s performance was good enough – it depends on the outcome of a match between two other contenders for the title.
We played the same team as last week but in a different order. My doubles partner was elevated to number one, so I played in the top doubles match against big servers and big hitters. One of them was a young Serbian who played in a Novak Djokovic shirt. I could tell he’d had many hours of coaching. In the first few games the rallies just went on and on and on… Actually no, it almost entirely rally-free tennis. Remarkably there were no breaks of serve at all in the first set. I don’t ever remember playing such a set before. We missed some break point chances but then had to save three set points at 4-5, love-40 on my serve (I’d won both my previous service games to love). We did save them and got to 6-6 and a tie-break, but that was our undoing; we quickly fell 5-0 behind before losing it 7-3. After that “macho” service-break-free first set, there were six breaks in the second which we lost 6-3 after having a point for a 4-1 lead. I had a bad time at the net in the second set, even by my standards. That was disappointing, even if we got closer than I expected we would given out opponents’ sheer firepower. We somehow avoided sudden death in the first set, despite getting to deuce a few times, but played three decisive points in the second set, winning one of them.
I played my singles in the heat of Wellington’s never-ending summer. My opponent, who turns 62 next week, works as a photographer. I felt confident that my younger legs would see me through in a match I needed to win to give our team a chance of winning the morning’s contest, let alone the competition as a whole. My opponent aced me on the very first point and I had to climb over the fence to retrieve the ball. Apart from that I started comfortably enough, but even though I won the first set 6-1 I’d lost my dominance by the end of it. I dug deep to open up a 3-1, 40-love lead in the second set, but on one of my game points I called a ball in that was out over the baseline according to my team-mate; to be honest I thought it was out too, but I didn’t know it was out. I dropped my serve, and played two absolutely shocking games to go 4-3 behind when I should have just about been off the court. I’d lost all confidence in my shots, everything I tried came back with interest, and worst of all I was stringing double faults together. I needed to win in straight sets for our team to win. It was all unravelling. But my opponent couldn’t quite keep up his level, I regained some consistency, and I won the last three games to give the team the overall win. We won three matches out of six, with every match being decided in two sets, but we won by an eleven-game margin.
And guess what? I finished the season with an unbeaten singles record. Nine wins out of nine, 18 sets out of 18. I didn’t expect that for one minute at the start of the season. I had my hairy moments along the way, not least the match a couple of weeks ago where I faced four set points in the first set, but I did it! My doubles record was nowhere near as good (four losses including the last three matches) but maybe that just shows that I don’t need other people. Flatmates, workmates, team-mates, who needs ’em?!
