The Racquetball Chronicles VI

Today was a game I was really looking forward to. I was playing my friend JJ, the guy I play tennis with frequently, who runs the softball team I play with some years. I really enjoy our games as he and I have similar outlooks at this point in life; we play for fun more than victory but still enjoy the win when we get it, just not at the cost of enjoying the process.

Early on I got a pretty good sense of our respective abilities. I had a vastly better serve and sense of strategy. We have similar reaction times, though mine are slightly quicker. He has slightly better control.



I softened my serve in the interest of volleys and it was an excellent choice. We had numerous volleys where one of us would hit a strong almost-kill shot, the other would return with a defensive shot that would put player A running back to the back wall for a long-shot attempt...there would be 4, 5, 6ish near winners that we somehow returned.

In other words, we had a lot of lengthy volleys including lots of running around and some pretty spectacular shots.

After four games we had one of "those" games where I just wrecked him. So I took a few moments to talk to him about little improvements he could make to his serve and sure enough, the next game he built about a 10-8 lead and it was a solid lead.

At that point I was working hard on proper serves...low, to the backhand corner...and he was making strong returns that had me running. We exchanged the service three or four times, then he scored to go up 11-8. I was playing full out and falling further behind.

Then he struggled to return a couple of brutal serves, I won a volley. He got the serve back, then won a point. It was 13-13. I got an ace, then we had a spectacular ralley that ended with me hitting a corner kill shot, him returning it deep and me getting the best passing shot I have ever had.

We finished with a 6th game that was tight but saw both of us, tired out by our 2 hour match, playing a lot of position racquetball instead of running madly.

Very fun game.

I love playing with JJ and hope we get in many more games.