just plain tired

It is a good time of year for basketball fans. College and High School are hitting the playoffs and even the pros are attempting to make their 'sport' entertaining.

My tennis season is coming to the playoffs as well. My body is sore all the time and I love it. It is nice to feel that I have improved over the last two years. My maturity on court is improved as I can focus more on the point I am playing and less on the point I just played.
For as crappy as I played last Saturday; missing over-heads, volleys in the net and serve returns into the ground at my feet...and a singles player for my partner...I managed to stay focused enough to help my team win.
It was a tough match. One of our opponents won the club championship several times before some medical set-backs and the other is very strong in his game. My usual partner got called away by a death in the family and we had to default our singles match. So, our usual singles player played doubles with me.
Singles players don't play doubles the way doubles players do. So we had many mis-communications on court and our movement (as a team) was atrocious.
With my terrible first set play we lost down a break and most of the faults (!) lay with me. The second set we needed to recover from down a break to win the set in a tie-breaker. Due to the length of the match being already 2 hours (2 hours allotted per match) we began a super tie-breaker, first to ten points win by 2.
Here our athleticism helped win the day for us. My partner is very fit and we can both run down lots of shots. We played much smarter and more sound tennis. Hitting the ball in front of our opponents and moving them around allowed us to dominate the next and we won easily 10-5.

What I took away from the match: If I continue to use the proper form and continue to play the ball in front of me I still have a chance to win. When I get lazy and DON'T WATCH THE BALL it is very hard for good things to happen. Movement is a key to my game. By being quick to the net and at the same time covering court for lobs I can be a nightmare for the opposition.