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The Retarded Child strikes back!

November 25th, 2007

After my new haircut (and the new growth of hair), as per Vishal and my dad - my looks best match those of a retarded child - lol

This name gives me a kick - demolishing people’s notions about me is immensely pleasurable!

This retarded child made a fierce comeback today in his pre-quarters match. I was up against AXA (Pune) in my first match at Josh 07. My opponent’s slices were a double edged swords because of bad condition of the only court where the matches were being played. Center part of baseline on one side and complete left part of the other side had absolutely no friction. So any slice hit by my opponent was like - ‘zuk’ ‘zuk’ !!! Top that with a slice hitter’s slow & consistent game! And on the contrary, all my top-spin shots lost their kick due to the court’s surface! I knew - I had a tough game ahead of me!

And on top of that when the umpire announced that the Men’s singles matches are going to be “best of 3 sets” - my hair stood at their ends! (last year, all the matches except finals were best of 11 games!)

Completely unprepared (and without any practicing on the court or stamina to stand for a 3 setter) we started the match.

The opponent looked like he have had some formal training. He knew how to use Wilson racquet’s “W” and “M” when it came to toss for side’n-serve, he knew that he has to practice for overhead shots before the game starts, etc.

It was a completely service game. Each one of us were holding onto our serves and the scoreboard showed “Mayank(2) - AXA dude(3)” in no time. I knew that I have to come up with a strategy - and fast, if I had to defeat this AXA dude. All his returns were just utilizing the speed of my shots - he was only blocking my shots, hitting none. He was hitting shots at almost 60% consistency - while mine was below 25%

Defeating slow players requires a strategy - Either a very fast or a very slow and consistent game is required! And since I had experienced this same scenario when I played (and won) the same tournament last year - I knew what I had to do! Play a faster game than him and increase my consistency (or decrease his!)…

That proved to be the turning point for the match & the game started to change to a rally based game. I broke his serve once in the first set and managed to win the set by 6-4. I knew my strategy was working! Niceeee!!!

Second set was altogether different… he was demoralized, was loosing energy much faster than me, I was more _into_ the game, I had found a way to avoid slippery surfaces of the court, I was returning almost100% of his 1st serves, I had more confidence & I already had one set saftely tucked under my name - in short, I was thinking!. It was an uphill climb for him, while my journey was more like that of a plateau. I just had to continue doing what I was doing + be more consistency with my first serves. I always had an advantage on this cemented court- my first serves were like bazooka shots! Whichever was in, I won that point… so much so, even the top spin second serves were proving deadly!

So the retarded child struck back & won the second set 6-4 in lesser time that what it took him to finish the first set.

It was a good game to start the tournament with. I had not expected such a tough opponent in the first round itself - but in a way, its good as well. Now I have one less tough opponent to worry about. (People might say that i’m scared of tough opponents - dude, this is a game & I am playing to win it! Strategies are required and every chance to take that point is needed at every step of the match! And 3 setter match is no joke!)

In a nutshell, I won my match today because my opponent was even more unprepared than what I was. BUT, this wont be always the case! Someone, somewhere might be preparing hard, with a dream in his eyes to win this tournament this year - ever since I won this tournament last year.

I’ll make sure that this dosn’t happens in the next match - God and luck always favour a prepared mind! I’ll be prepared the next time!

Note 1 - before ending, a big applause for my opponent - he almost brought me to my knees today. Had he been a regular player, I had little chance in front of him - but as I said, its a game & I am playing it to win!

Note 2 - An advice for the organizers - please respect last year rankings! Second year into the tournament and you cannot expect yourself to be ignorant of how lawn tennis draws are made and filled. There was no notion of rankings in the draw & it could have happened that the top two seeds are fighting each other in the very first round! Grr… - consider last year’s rankings!!!

Off to sleep now, I have a doubles lined up for tomorrow and even have to give another kick start to my Mixed Doubles partner - Pooja. More on that later…

Posted in Life in Pune, Tennis | Comments (6)