Match: Todd Lang, Leslie Thomas (With Keith)

07/23/2010, Friday
Fort Worth Major Zone, McLeland Tennis Center

4:00 PM: Todd Lang, Leslie Thomas (With Keith) 2-6, 3-6

After my match with David I had doubles with Keith to look forward too but honestly I was dreading it and fearful that my performance would not be much better than what I had in singles. When you are playing bad its even worse to feel you let down someone else.

We had about five hours before our start time so Keith and I drove up to TCU to watch some of our friends and teammates (Enrique, Mark, Sam, Larry, Oleg) play in the 4.0 draw. I was very impressed with the college facility. All the courts were surrounded by grassy knolls that made viewing very pleasant and removed the need for windscreens. We made jokes about coming up from the ghetto to watch the "real" tennis players. Everyone was playing well and making decent showings at the 4.0 level against stronger competition.

Around 3PM Keith and I headed back to McLeland and prepared for our match. As we walked to the courts we noticed that the clouds were gathering. Little did we know that within the hour we'd fall victims to a very heavy Texas afternoon gully washer thunderstorm. So under the gray skies and cooler temperatures we started our doubles match. Immediately we were close to getting the upper hand as we had them love-40 and their first serve game. But we could not finish them off and that was a sign of bad things to come. I managed to hold our first serve, much to my relief after my disasterous singles match. But they broke Keith and took a 1-4 lead on their serve. Then I had a chance to close the gap but got broken to make it 1-5 and that was pretty much it. We had a slight glimmer of hope when we broke back to make it 2-5.

Then the skies opened up and the rain, lightning and thunder came rolling out of the south. It was pretty awesome considering that the forecast called for only a 10% chance of rain. Based upon reports from other venues the rain was hitting the entire area pretty hard. So we waited until 5:00PM when the two indoor courts became available. The lightning had knocked out some of the lights in the facility but we could still see pretty well. But our luck was not any better indoors and we failed to hold Keith's serve, largely due to my poor net play, and lost the first set meekly at 2-6.

The second set started with us, once again, setting up our chances to get the early break. At 15-40 we had two opportunities but could not get it done. Then Keith gave me three more break point opportunities on the ad side but I simply could not get it done. So once again we traded sides having let an opportunity slip away.

Serve was held until it was my turn at 2-3 and we lost an ugly game at love at make it 2-4. I felt horrible but to their credit they were hitting some very nice deep return shot winners down the alley and cross court. They held to make it 2-5 and I was feeling we had no shot. We fought hard to hold Keith's serve but could not find a break to stay in the set and lost 3-6.

Results wise, day one of the Fort Worth Major Zone was a totally disaster. But even bad tennis, and spending time with friends, beats a work day or most other things.