The 2012 Racquetball Chronicles Round 3

My regular partner is planning to ski this weekend and wanted extra time to recover so asked if we could play earlier this week. I love to play...I would play pretty much every available day if I could find opponents, so of course I responded in the affirmative, booked the court and we were set.

When I got to the gym things started to go wrong. I forgot my towel and lock. That meant leaving my wallet with my grocery money in it and my I-phone in an open locker...not something my mind was at ease about.

Then I could not get into a rhythm with the weights and ended up doing weird sets...instead of 3 sets of 7 at 110, I did 3 sets of 20 at 80 on the preacher curl, for example. And they all felt weird.

Then on the leg kick it started to hurt. The bench press I dropped 20 pounds off my normal weight...and then could not even finish the third set. It was bizarre.

The leg extension I could not adjust the seat so cut the weight in half (!) and still struggled to complete the reps.

I quit. No sense pushing and hurting myself.

I went downstairs and watched basketball for a bit, then the racquetball court opened up so I headed on over and started working on controlling the location and speed of my shots for about 10 minutes.

Then my partner showed up and...had left his racquetball gear in his car. So we got off to a late start.

After warming up for a few minutes, he hit a horrible lag for serve. And I promptly hit an unbelievably bad one that did not even get to the front wall. Ouch.

He started out hot. His serves were perfectly placed for me to crush passing shots down the line to his forehand he could only possibly return if I hit them too high and so they went all the way to the back wall. Instead I mis-hit off my frame over and over until he was up 3-0.

I came back to take a 5-3 lead with a couple nice volley points where I seized center front court and ran him side to side until i could squeeze a pseudo-kill shot he was too winded to get to or else a passing shot he just missed.

Then he got a couple strong serves I could not handle and won a couple volleys off weak returns to go up 8-5.

We went at it pretty strong until he had a 10-7 lead and then something happened I could not believe.

I have had great wind for about a year now. Between biking with Fluffy the Cat and playing tennis at every opportunity, I developed tremendous stamina.

Until tonight when, inexplicably, I developed a side-ache and complete fatigue. I actually had to take a time-out.

Now getting to the ball was tough, and instead of using position and planning my shots, I just tried to get to them and wrist them away from him. I actually thought to myself, "He is winning this game because of my conditioning."

What a huge switch. Always before he has won with a better serve, return and better shots. My massive advantage was speed and endurance.

He built a 14-10 lead and had a tremendous serve that I somehow got to, he hit a kill that I somehow got to and it was my serve.

Ace. 11-14.
Perfect serve down the line he muffed. 12-14.
Great line serve, he returned weakly, corner kill. 13-14.
Perfect serve down the line he muffed. 14-14. Ace. Game.

I scarcely moved from 10-14 until I completed the 5 point comeback. What a great, back and forth game that he should have won. I was ecstatic...he was a bit disappointed. We both knew he should have won and said so.

After a quick break he came out on fire. He always gets very intense after he loses a game. He ran off 7 points and it was not close. I was muffing the easy serves and not even getting to the hard ones.

Part of it was strategy. Late in the first game I had gone for a shot I have been working on. He is to my right waiting for me to hit it down the line to his backhand. I am center back mid-court and the ball is belly button high to my backhand. I like to hit it about 5' from the corner off his back hand wall. It then squirts to the center of the center wall and pinches against the side wall, becoming almost a passing shot kill to the mid court and virtually impossible to return.

Except I mis-hit it and smashed him in the side of the face.

So now when his serve got passed me and I spun, waited and wanted to hit it to his backhand corner, I kept seeing him in the line of my shot. Instead of calling a hinder as I should have, I repeatedly altered my shot and hit a soft shot to his forehand that repeatedly let him smash kill shots.

Worse, when I did return one with a solid defensive shot, I failed to seize the center court forward position. I was playing fatigued and he was putting on an old-fashioned tail-kicking.

I got the serve, dropped an ace, a tough one he gave me a good set-up and I won on a passing shot, and another service winner to come back to 3-7.

Then I could not handle his serves again. 3-8. 4-8. 4-10.7-10.

he went on a run and got to game point, 14-7.Ugh. It was a whipping and no mistake.



So was he and I won a couple of quick serves to get to 10-14. "At least I hit double digits," I commented.

Then we developed a crowd. See, the racquetball court has a glass back wall. It is right next to the girls locker room. And about 6 of them stopped and watch a point. It was the perfect point to watch...

I smashed about as good a serve as I ever have, coming low and hard and would have bounced twice before the back wall, about an inch from the wall. He got to it and squirted it to the back-hand, low and left. I tried a passing shot to the far wall. He got to it and caught me leaning the wrong way, hitting a passing shot to my forehand. As I ran to the back wall, I saw people watching but still flicked a no look over the shoulder that was going to come off the front wall soft. He charged for the kill, I charged to center court. His kill shot skipped, I plowed it into the far corner, he got to it and I hit a beautiful passing shot down the line that was as pretty a shot as I have ever hit.

It was probably the best rally we have ever had, with both of us returning 2 or 3 almost sure-winners hit by the other. After that fantastic display, our audience left...and it was good that they did because he then muffed a poor serve, I put away a quick winner, we had a short, ferocious rally that ended when, in front of him, I leaped and hit the perfect overhead smash into the pinch corner and, at 14-14, won on a service winner.

Yep. I scored 8 straight points to win a game he had in hand.

Wow.

He does not like to leave on a loser, so we had just 10 minutes left, we were going to play to time (even though in reality I suspect he would be ahead and want to finish the game.)

Again and again I muffed cake serves...waist high, easy to read, 4' off the wall. He was winning 5-0 before I returned a serve. I quickly scored a couple, he then scored an ace on a great serve and garnered another point on a serve that pinched off the side wall straight into me...two very good serves in succession.

Then he served a nasty driving serve to my backhand corner which I got a good ceiling defensive return....but he pulled a muscle in his....well...lets just say posterior.

And it was over for the night.

Looking back I really can see how much I have improved but another huge weakness has developed.

I fell in love with a shot that bounces off this back-hand wall, off the center wall, off his forehand wall. But I was hitting it poorly and he was able to stand at center court and hit numerous winners off that. I hit it too high and too far back.

Second, when I got tired I played a lot of back-court instead of trusting my reflexes. Once I started bouncing it to the back wall and sprinting to the mid-court I dominated. It was tough for him to dislodge me from that position, tough for him to get a ball past me without resorting to a high lob off the back wall...which I had more than ample time to get into position to hit scorching passing shots which allowed me to seize the center mid-court.

I need to stop letting him jump to big leads and learn to handle those z-serves, particularly on a night like tonight when his serve was not nearly as strong as it normally is.

Still, I feel great about coming back from 4 and 7 points down to win in adverse circumstances.

I also am going to work on my wind. Back on the bike I go.

Great night, lots of fun.