Ultimate Tennis, Cooper Clinic
06:00 PM: Manny Gomez 7-5, 6-2
This match was important to me because, if I won, it virtually insured that I'd qualify for the August playoffs. I had played Manny once before and won fairly comfortably but word was that he had gotten better. This was indeed the case as his flat heavy serve caused me all kinds of grief during the first set. I adjusted during the second set by moving further back prior to the serve and then going forward as the ball was hit. This allowed me to get a little more on the return.
Rallies were almost nonexistant as he almost always attempted to end points quickly with his heavy slapped forehand shots that rocketed low by me often before I could even react. Hit without any topspin they really took away any time I might have to setup and offer a decent rely back. My slow reaction time is something that will keep me from ever really becoming a truly good tennis player. Hopefully as I get more experience I can make up for some of that by anticipating earlier.
Manny quickly took an 0-3 lead as he served first and then broke me. I was in big trouble but buckled down and put together a string of 4 games myself. Serving at 4-3 I felt I was in control but then I gave up a love service game to make it 4-4. I managed to break him again and setup serving for the set at 5-4 but once again he broke back. Ugh! But his serve was getting less consistent with a lot of first serves going into the net and I once again broke for the 6-5 lead. This time I was able to serve out the set to take it 7-5.
The second set started out with a long first game. I had several break opportunities but he always managed to get a low deep serve in to keep me off balance. He finally pulled out the game and took the early lead. I was a little more relaxed now as I had a set in hand, my serve was getting better and I held serve fairly easily through out the set. I managed to build a 4-2 lead breaking him during his second serve game and at that point I felt the match was mine. Indeed that was the case as I broke him again and then served out the second set at love.
If you are having trouble dealing with serve try varying your receiving position to get different looks at the ball.
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