1529 The Racquetball Chronicles

Tonight was playing TA. usually good games; I can serve as strong as I want, he gets to most of them and there are never those strings of 8 or 10 points that are just me controlling the game with my serve.

We missed last week as he was doing some good work and I missed out on this week's competitive racquetball due to a variety of reasons, though I did get in one casual session with a new friend I am trying to teach the game to.

TA was fighting a bronchial infection so the first couple games were very slow. We would take 30 or 40 seconds between some volleys. A methodical pace.

Thing is, when the ball was in play it was an excellent game. Well, sort of...he had not played for two weeks and I had not played for a week. We were both fighting breathing issues, though he was far more than me.

As a result, we were both missing shots. I cannot count how many times a shot would be floating in the air, I would set up in perfect position, wait for it to drop, time my swing perfectly...and spike the ball into the floor instead of hitting the kill shot I set up for.

He was also struggling with his accuracy.

Points were hard to come by. After ten minutes we had dozens of service exchanges...and a point apiece. After 20 minutes it was something like 6-6.

After 30 minutes it was 14-10.

The thing is, I scored 2 or 3 points off my serve, he scored maybe one off his serve, and both of us hit a couple of winners...but MOST if our points were off the opponents errors, and honestly most of them were unforced.

We would be in perfect position and just...mis-hit.

Since we were both doing it the game was competitive.

In the second game it was different. I hit a few more winners and, more importantly, a few fewer unforced errors. And it was unquestionably a stomp, 15-4.

It was not that I was playing well...it was that he was playing awful and I was playing merely sub-standard.

See, I could make a chart of our abilities at this point;

I play my best game, he plays his best game, I win.
I play a strong game, he plays his best game, I win most.
I play a strong game, he plays a strong game, I win slightly more than 50%.
I play an average game, he plays his best game, he wins.
I play an average game, he plays a strong game, he wins slightly more than 50%.
And so forth.

I am so much faster than he is that I get to a vast percentage of the balls. He has slightly better strategy, but at least at this point in time, our strokes are about equal. He has slightly better touch, I have slightly better power, our accuracy is similar, and I have slightly more aggresion. I have a much stronger serve, but he has a stronger return.

The net is, and this is not meant to offend him or to boast, at this point I am pure and simple an overall better player if we both play our best games.

This was a night where game one was both our worst games.

Game two was a sub-standard game for me and his worst game for him.

Game three was a good game for me and a good game for him.

Once again points were at a premium. I think I scored three off my serve and he scored 2 off his. There were still a handful of shots that came from mis-hits, but this time most of them were actually winners hit by the player in question.

I was making a conscious effort to be moving when I hit the ball. For some reason I was off when I got in position and waited for the ball to drop. So now I made a conscious effort to be moving, whether sideways, forward or back.

And my shots improved. I got at least three rollouts off pinch shots. I was moving him around the court, then hitting solid passing shots.

But it was not all me; we had several good battles over the middle. When I was there he would hit a ceiling shot to move me...I would scrape the wall with my return to move him...and whoever first got the ball slightly out of their target zone would see the other player hit a probable winner.

I was feeling it this game...so fast that when he would get an opportunity to get up close to the front wall and try a tap shot, I was there to hit a passing shot and score the rally win. If he blasted it, more often than not I was quick enough to get the racket on the ball...win for me.

But he had a few roll-outs of his own as well and some great passing shots.

In the end I came back from down 6-2 to tie it at 6, then take a 10-7 lead only to see him tie it at 10 and again at 11.

I then ran off the last 5 points. I say 5 because at 14-11 I hit an intentionally mediocre serve and he just...missed it. I said, "No way is a game this good ending on that." He returned with a ceiling shot, I brought it down, he hit a ceiling shot slightly short that I waited on, stepped into, and drove a good but not great corner kill he could not get to. A legit winner.

We had now played about an hour and thirty minutes...and only completed 3 games.

We went one more.

His serve was ON. He took a quick 2-0 lead. I tied it. He took a 6-2 lead.6-4. 10-4.

That was the murderous run. I gave up about 5 points on his serve...and 3 of them I should not have. They were good, solid serves, but serves I should have handled. Instead I was outright missing them and I have no explanation.

2 of his serves were great...one was a sidewall pinch that rolled out from the sidewall and the next one bounced twice before the dotted line. Spectacular.

But the real problem was position; his serves were good enough that I was giving him too many easy kill attempts or at best feeding him middle court, forehand. He is too good to do that with and was racking up points.

Worse, my serve had deserted me so I was hitting a lot of second serves. He was moving me, and I could not move him out of position...he was in my beloved forecort center and my passing shots were bouncing off the walls.

This was him having a strong game and me having an average game.

He got up about 14-6 before I made a run, closing to 14-10 with a couple of service changes in there.

He mis-hit three or four balls in that stretch, most of them on his serve.

I meanwhile was mostly scoring on passing shots and outright hustle...he hit a lot of balls he thought were past me that I used my athleticism to gt to...including one where on a dead run I plastered a low, hard passing shot that I had to leap over myself and just about strained my groin.

But in the end, he got the serve back once too often at 14-9. My return was pedestrian and he hit a beautiful corner pinch shot to end the night.

things I learned; rust kills. My shot was off most of the night. Instead of keeping my passing shots down the wall, they were hitting the side wall and bouncing a third of the way into the court. My pinch and kill shots were skipping short. My serve was either short, hitting the side wall, or too high.

I need to work on my fundamentals so a layoff of a week does not impair my game that badly.

On the bright side, three of the four games were very competitive, and that is a lot of fun.