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Wheeling Oglebay Senior Open Category II Championships To see more pictures, click on the "Oglebay - Category II" button above Day 1: This was my first “Category II”
tournament, and the competition changed significantly. These guys can play.
Most of the seeds are ranked in the top 10 in their states. The guy I played
was the lowest seed, and he was 15th in Georgia. I also got to
experience my first rain delay. I was supposed to play at 1pm, but didn't
get on the court till 5:30pm. Nothing to do but "mill around" and talk to
other crazy tennis fanatics. I fortunately had some friends from
Pittsburgh there, which helped to pass the time. Some of the pictures
included here are of
I lost my first round match 6-1, 6-1 – not much worse then my loss to the #1 player in Virginia a few weeks ago. I believe I played better here than I did in Virginia, but I am still giving away too many points. I gave away about 3 in double faults, at least 2 points in down the line backhands that were just poor timing – I was under pressure and should have waited to go for it. But most of all, I missed quite a few long from my backhand side. Interestingly, he played my backhand almost exclusively. That’s a testimony to how far my forehand has come this year, and I think I only made one unforced error on my forehand side. BUT – I’m not putting enough topspin on my backhand, and it’s sailing mostly long, and occasionally wide. I also lost several points at net that I should have won – one where I hit 2 weak overheads that he got to and hit back. I also had 40 love on one of my service games and lost that game. These things are what will keep me from winning more than 1 or 2 games a match if I don’t find a way to overcome them.
I’m happy that I’m “playing my game”, so part of my main quest is being satisfied, but losing every single tournament in the first round is starting to get old and depressing. This is the third straight loss in the first round and it bothers me a whole lot more than I thought it would. I’m trying to tell myself that it’s a long season, and I have a lot more tournaments to go, but in the back of my mind I think I know that I’m really not good enough to compete at this level, and that’s a hard pill to swallow. I did see however, that some of my tennis buddies lost in similar fashion, and it is true that I lost more points to his good play than to my bad play, so given a little Day 2: Today I played in the first round of the consolation tournament. These Category II tournaments are so big, the consolation tournament turns out to be as big as some of the local tournaments I’ve been playing. I played a big serve and volley guy (6’2”), and got down 4-1 in the first set, but came storming back to win 6-4. We then got to 6 all in the 2nd set, and I won in the tie breaker 7-5. I only “pushed” about 3 or 4 balls the entire match – I really played my game, and some super good shots and points. I didn’t serve very well, but it didn’t hurt me. I returned better than yesterday, but I need to keep hitting more topspin on my backhand. Day 3: Learned two things today. Don’t hit 100 practice serves the day of a match, and if I stay calm and don’t jump too much on the return, I’m more balanced to make the shot. I lost today 6-3, 6-4. I should have won. Since I struggled a bit on my serve yesterday, I decided to practice it before the match – and hit about a hundred serves for about 40 minutes. I now know that is a big mistake. On the positive side, I returned better, with less energy than yesterday. However, I did NOT put more topspin on my backhand as I wanted to – and lost at least 5 points for that reason. I also lost at least 10 points to double faults. I did save 5 match points though, but all to no avail. I hope I can play this guy again sometime. If I can get a hold of my serve, I might not fall apart like I did. If I’m not serving well, it gives me a bad attitude for my entire game. I lost the mental battle today. So, I move on with more lessons learned.
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