Game 61: June 14th

6-1

4-6

6-3

Rating: Absolute Cinema

Venue: Playtomic Barn

I really like a Sunday night game of Padel as a way of squeezing all the juice out of the weekend.

I had nothing planned but saw an hour long game with two guys I'd played with before a long time ago.

Usual Partner couldn't make it so it was left up to chance and the partner of the guy with the broken glasses scooped up the spot. This was excellent as I thought his rating was much lower than it should have been and he had some excellent smashes when we played against them.

Down to business and my partner arrives literally straight from another game, maybe thinking that he was going to have a nice wee hour long knockabout but instead he walked into a 90 minute epic.

We started off very very strong and soon raced to a 5-0 lead, our opponents got a game back (on Silver Point) but we managed to serve out the set.

I was playing left side and playing very well, lots of passing shots, accurate lobs and lots of overhead winners. My partner was also playing well, big wingspan, agressive to net and some great directed smashes off the double glass.

Second set it went a bit tits up.

I got broken in the second game through a catalogue of errors so we were 0-2 down and then the set was a cacophony of missed chances on both side. more breaks than a kit kat factory.

We had so many chances to pull it back but our opponents had stepped up a gear, were content to play safe until we would play a short lob and their left side player would smash the bejesus out of it. a couple of Por Cuatros and a flat smash that came back to his side (first I've seen against me being particular highlights). I'm good at returning smashes but I struggled today.

Basically I fell back into being too defensive and obvious. overused the lob, overheads confidence crumbled after a few bad ones. My partner was great though, kept me on an even keel and I returned the favour when he had a run of unfortunate errors.

Luckily what I'd noticed was that the non-smashy opponent always let a lob bounce. I quickly told my partner to try that as a pressure relief valve and, while we weren't able to get the set back, I felt like we had a way forward.

The problem was, we only had an hour and the first two sets had taken up 55 mins.

I'd suggested a tiebreak but the others wanted to play a set as the feeling was there was no one on the court after us. Thank goodness for that as we managed to get yet another epic set in.

We started REALLY strong with a break in their service game and a hold in ours. my tactic of lobbing to the non-smashy player was working a treat as he tended to send up a lob in return. given my lobs were really close to the glass, his lobs were truncated and my partner was putting them away with gusto.

We didn't break them in their next service game but I held my serve very well. my serve gave them problems all night and I think they brought it back to 30-30 from which I had one ace (an absolute googly!) and one where the return caught the spin and flew into the back glass. 3-1, we'd consolidated our position and it felt pretty comfortable.

My overheads were still pretty bad but I stopped trying too many lobs and instead focused on quality as we were still being punished by smashy opponent frequently. I started to push the net more, to aim soft to the tee so that the ball dies on the back glass and I realised that the backhand of my smashy cross court opponent was for defence only. Again, I let my partner know this. Reset lob on non-smashy, go to the backhand of smashy if you have a choice.

3-2, then 4-2 (quite emphatic on that game I think). 

4-3 and then I held my serve for 5-3, again my serve was worth at least 2 points and didn't give them a sliver of a chance in this set.

We broke them in the last game as they were unlucky. one smash into the net, one more clipped the top of the racquet and went behind the opponent to their own back glass and the match point, a thing of beauty.

I return the serve with a lob (a bad habit I have of trying to lob everything back), it's short and heading to smashy.

He winds up.

I run to the left fence and 2nd fence post, facing out so I can track the ball.

he unleashes, I keep my eye on the ball as it rockets off the ground and the glass.

I overran it a little so had to play a high backhand, no look, gently into the corner. 

When I whipped my head round I saw that it had slipped past my confused opponents and I watched it bounce gently once and then die in the corner. An ABSOLUTE CINEMA shot to finish an Epic Gladatorial Game. 

I mean, the ratings for the 4 of us aren't that good. But I tell you what, what a absolute fun game that was. 

Afterwards, we were talking about the game for 5-10 mins courtside, 4 strangers, some from different cultures even, spending time together and having a great time. 

I did tell the non smashy opponent about how him letting the lob bounce gave us time to reset so it may be even more gladatorial next time.