The 5 P's and the Tennis Gods

The 5 P's. Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. Parents tell their kids a lot of things. Some things stick, most do not. I'm not sure if there's a correlation between importance of message and likelihood of said message sticking, but for some reason this message stuck. My father used to say it to me, and his father to him. And since I hate not being prepared I tend to abide by this guideline. Today I did not prepare well and as the guideline dictates I performed poorly. Frankie, being the enigma that he is, prepared poorly and performed fantastically. 

Tennis Gods. Anyone who has played a decent amount of tennis knows that there are tennis gods and that they enjoy human suffering. Today they must've been howling in delight. There were so many highs and then so many lows. But as the tennis gods dictate you generally finish even par, a few strokes up on a good day, or a few strokes down on a bad day, and today was no different. 

The club. It has 9 clay courts and is quite nice. 

With today's themes now laid out I'll try to fill in the rest of the story. After a morning of very little activity we arrived at the tennis club about 30 minutes before my match. Now one of the things that has been really beneficial to my tennis, and especially beneficial to my tennis early in sets, has been getting a good warm up before matches. It's hard to actually find a court, but just jogging around for 15-20 minutes before a match and getting loose really has payed off. But as you should know by now I did not prepare well. So I did not warm up today. I was feeling lazy and even though the warm up helps a lot, I hate doing it. As we hit the first balls of warm up things were not looking good. Having not played for a few days was causing problems and I felt like a was playing tennis on a ship. I was bobbing up and down and actually fell over hitting one of my first backhands. After 5 minutes of groundstrokes I came to net and hit a few volleys. After I was satisfied I asked for a few overheads. My first overhead is a tremendous shank and I hear a sound that resembles a string breaking, but I immediately knew this was worse. I looked down and my frame had cracked right at the throat, just completely destroyed. Now you may recall from my earlier post (if you're a frequent reader that is) that this was the only racket I had, so now I'm racquet-less. Frankie runs and grabs one of his racquets and I begin my match with a frame I've never played with before. I guess you can file this under being both poorly prepared and the tennis gods smiting me. 

The pre-match coin-flip. Or in our case racquet-spin. Notice I have Frankie's racquet.

As I begin my match I'm not nervous because I know I'm going to lose. In fact, I know it won't even be close. But after 3 games I'm up 3-0. Not because I'm playing well but because I'm playing the dumbest tennis player in the history of tennis. He's a 16 year-old French kid ranked 4/6. His game is absolutely beautiful, huge forehand, great backhand, and just a monster serve. But he insists on hitting every ball as hard as he can. It's either winner or error, and he makes many more errors than winners. Within 20 minutes I've won the first set 6-2 and I'm thanking the tennis gods that I'm matched up against this kid. In the second set my focus is awful, as it has been all match, and the kid takes a 4-1 lead. He's not playing significantly better but my 12 year-old self would've roasted me. After contemplating how badly I don't want to play a 3rd set I beg my mind for 30 minutes of focus and for some reason it obliges. I win 6 of the next 7 games and win 6-2, 7-5. 

The only functioning stroke I had today was a serve.

Just after I get off Frankie goes on court. Right as he goes on the #1 55 year-old in France goes on next to him. Now this guy is absolutely filthy. I kid you not I watched him hit 3 drop shots that went at least 15 feet in the air before bouncing on his opponents side, and then jumping the net back onto his side. Every time he did this he giggled like a school girl and tipped his hat. I would kill for this guy's craft.

Despite Frankie's equally poor preparation Frankie comes out on fire. He's not just playing well, he's playing the best I've ever seen him play. He's hitting a world-class forehand and never missing. After a back and forth battle in the first set he breaks and wins it 7-5. In the second set he's playing even better than the first. He's up 5-1 in 20 minutes and he's made 3 unforced errors, I counted. 3 errors on clay in 6 games is legitimately world class. But the damn tennis gods. Just before losing a game to make the score 5-2 he breaks his second string of the day. Now he's out of racquets. I had one of mine strung in the mean time and now he's using it. This is what you want. Pivotal moment of a match and you have to play with a racquet that is radically different than the one you've been dominating with. Combine this with a substantial increase in play from his opponent and he drops the second set 5-7. 

Now that's a forehand swing.

The third set is a war. The first game lasts 18 minutes, I timed it. I've never seen anything like it. Frankie told me after the match that he knew he was going to lose the first game, but he just wanted to keep it close. He has mental problems. After a back and forth battle Frankie somehow has a match point up 6-5, 30-40. He plays solid, but not the aggressive manner that has been winning him points. He loses the point. A point later he has match point number two, and the same thing happens. A few points later he misses a backhand by a millimeter and loses the game. After a poor breaker he drops the match 6-5, 5-7, 7-6 (1). The damn tennis gods. The same day he plays the best tennis of his life, he loses a nail-bitter in which he has match points. 

Serving bombs. Well sort of. It's hard to really serve bombs on the clay.

I play tomorrow at 10:30 in the morning. I pray it's not against the old guy because I would be too starstruck to have a chance. I'll report back in the morning. 

-Max