Sandbagger, part I

(Ed. note: due to length, I've decided to split this recap into series. Here's part 1)

This past weekend was the Leslie Allen Tennis Tournament. I have something of a love-hate relationship with these local tennis tournaments. I want to win one of these things to prove myself, but every time I do enter I get so worked up in the days leading up to the tournament that I psych myself out, play poorly and lose to someone I generally think I should beat. Yet whenever they roll around I sign up, and this one was no exception.

I decided to enter the 4.0 singles bracket. There's a little history here. When I first joined the USTA I self-rated at 4.0 in order to join a league here in Santa Barbara (see the previous post). After that league ended I was bumped up to a 4.5 rating, despite an appeal. I guess I did so poorly in the 2 years afterward that I got bumped back down. I decided I needed some confidence-building wins, and entered the 4.0 division, with much eye-rolling from my tennis buddies. My friend Ed also convinced me to join the 5.0 doubles.

The Wednesday and Thursday prior I started compulsively checking the tournament website (remember what I said about the days leading up?) and to my ever-growing horror watched the 4.0 bracket balloon up to 24 players! This meant that I'd have to win 5 matches over the weekend to take the title, not counting any doubles matches that I'd have to play. On Friday after work I headed over to the El Escorial tennis courts for a practice session with Ed, and that helped calm me down. Breaking a sweat helped clear some of the pent-up anxiety and put aside any doubts I had forgotten to play this game. If I was going to go down, I was going to go down swinging, and someone was going to have to play well to beat me.

The draw had me slated to face a guy named Darren in the opening round, Saturday morning at 8am. My normal wake-up time is 8:30am, so in order to avoid a short night of sleep I took some sleeping pills Friday at 8pm and was out by 10pm. I got a solid 9 hrs of sleep and was up at 7am, with plenty of time to prepare. I forced down a bowl of Cheerios and tried to drink some water to stay hydrated. The butterflies in my stomach were in full flight.

I drove myself over to the courts and the players started to drift in. Some had already hit the courts and were warming up. Every guy that I didn't recognize became Darren. When one of the players warming up looked impressive, I'd think, that's definitely going to be Darren! Then the call rang out "Jesse Small! Darren Stevens!" and we took the court. We started to warm up and it was apparent very quickly that his backhand was the weaker wing. And after facing Marcus weekly for the past year, Darren's serve and forehand didn't present many worries either. I quickly ran that match out 6-0, 6-0 and got off the court in less than an hour.

Since the match went so quickly I had just under 2 hrs before my next match started. I headed home, stretched and started rehydrating. Cramping has been a frequent enemy in my athletic past, and I was determined to nip that problem in the bud. My next opponent was Dave, the tournament's #1 seed. He had a bye in the first round and was going into our match completely fresh. My displeasure at this imbalance was tempered by the knowledge that seeding means next to nothing in these tournaments.

At 10:30am I was back at the courts. The upside to playing down at 4.0 is that I knew my game would match up favorably with most of the players there. The drawback is being the favorite, and having the expectation to win. Dave was clearly a step up. Whereas in my first round all I had to do was put the ball back, against Dave I had to rally a little more and move him around. He had this habit of presenting the ball before each point he served, as if announcing that the balls were new. At this same time he'd look directly at you. That's pretty rare; most players will glance at you to see if you've changed your positioning, or give a look to the service box, but this guy seemed to be boring holes into my brain, trying to pick out where I was going to hit the return. I decided to avoid his gaze and focused on his feet instead, changing to the ball when he began his toss. Dave had good hands at the net, most likely on account of a lot of doubles play, but I prefer a target and like when opponents come in on me. I also started picking on his forehand because he had a windshield-wiper like motion on that side. An hour or so later and I was back home with my 2nd win of the day, another 6-0, 6-0 double bagel.

Just a quick note about the doubles: Ed and I had drawn my buddies Ryan and Gary in the 1st round. They are both great players, and to beat them at any time is a big ask. We gave it our best, but went down 0-6, 4-6. I could feel the strain of 3 matches taking its toll on me. The warming up/cooling down is an underrated aspect of tournament play; just loosening up and serving practice put a strain on my shoulder. I was happy that I didn't have to play any more that day. I repeated my knock-out procedure Saturday night and slept like a baby.

Check back to read the next part of the saga! The series continues with Sandbagger, part II.