100 Games of Padel

No score as very much a friendly game Rating: A new player enters Venue: Centre Court  Isn't Padel great?  We'd talked someone new into play and he was hooked within the hour. A slight tennis/squash background he has quite soft hands and good control, once he get used to the court size. the other two players were the Cricketer and another slightly newer player who I'll call Guile due to his love of retro games and the way he whips low flying bolts of lightning like the streetfighter 2 character. After the intensity and disapointment of the previous match it was good to have a no stakes, fun game where I could try different techniques. Nice weather, nice to get out the office, nice to get someone else interested

6-1 2-6 8-10 Super Tiebreak Rating:  we'll always have Paris. Venue: Centre Court   An eagerly anticipated match against the aggressive player and the OG, for so long the benchmark in work Padel.  We came out the blocks absolutely flying but just got gassed. That's the truth of it. 25c and long rallies. too timid in the second set, where we looked to not lose rather than win, too many unforced errors from me. Was utterly utterly raging at the end. 8-8 in the tiebreak and we miscommunicated, ball dropped slowly between us and no one went for it. Gassed. 8-9 and I defended against a couple of smashes but blocked one too long into the back wall, like by millimetres, must have bounced at 43 degrees. Raging Ach, a lot of it was fitness. 25c and long rallies. fitness was the key. They'll not beat me again though

    6-4 6-x 6-x Rating: Reinvigorated Venue: Centre Court Absolutely Re-invigorated after going to watch Premier Padel in person in London. First serve. Serve a new way by lifting and moving one foot as I've seen the pros do. I get to net and split step as opposition hit the ball. They lob it back and try the new preparation I see the Pros do and smash it for a winner. First shots of the match. It was a good match, 3 sets to love. First set was tight, everyone stayed on serve till the 2nd last game. We nicked it and I served out. 2nd set I had a wee wobble as I made 3 unforced errors in a game and we lost it but it was really overthinking. Had too many options and tried 7 or 8 difficulty returns on 6 difficulty balls. So thats 13 or 14 difficulty and 50% too high. Was against El Classist and Aggressive player. At one point I lobbed over him "yours " he said to this partner who covered so I sent it right to the now empty corner and the El Cassicist got that back so I sent ...

  Rating: Aussie Rules Venue: Centre Court Another Re-run of El Classico and not sure of the score to be honest although we did win. The match will be remembered for being the first time me and my usual partner shifted to the Australian serving formation. The time that the positioning in the net REALLY hit home for him, he'd tended to creep closer and the change to standing just in front of post 2 gave him so much time on the ball. Final thing would be that I hit an absolute air shot on an overhead. My preparation is far too open for anything beyond a Bandeja. Still feeling that I am not playing well, that Mexicano will take a bit to get over

  6-2 6-3 5-3 Rating: Rut Venue: The Beach Catching up with my ongoing Odyssey. This game was El Classico and it felt a bit frustrating to be honest. I'm writing this with 3 weeks distance and through notes I made at the time but the poor performance in the Mexicano affected me mentally and my mentality.  I felt low and played low. We won but it was much close than the box scores. One opponent had been  injured and this was their first game for a few weeks and they were really good, such energy and happiness to be out there. The other had upgraded his shoes and racquet and it made a difference. I hit some nice viboras but one of the opponents tends to stand in front of the baseline and in the perfect position to defend them. My overriding feeling was that I wasn't playing well

Mexicano 14th of 20 Losing game average. W2 / L3 Rating: Ay Carumba Venue: Playtomic Barn Well that was disapointing.  annoyed at my performance in that tournament. It was played to 32 points with serve switching after 2 serves which was too short. Won first game with eventual winner Lost second game heavily against that guy and another guy that finished 4th. Paired with a guy that was pretty good but a dickhead. After he got tagged from a smash "I don't blame you, I blame my partner" prick Third game, paired with a last minute stand-in with a really low playtomic rating against two guys that finished 5th and 2nd. great... absolute doing but at least not a whitewash Fourth Game, paired with the guy who finished bottom but thought I could carry. Nope, I played pretty crap and he made a load of unforced errors on smashes. beaten by 4 Last Game, confidence in the toilet, battled to a 1 point win. still felt I played bad. I just don't like these rushed games, it feels lik...

 6-0 3-6 5-4 Rating: Potato Salad Venue: Centre Court A nice normal match with sides changing after every set. I played with usual partner in the forst set and we brought playtomic dissapointment energy with us to the first set. second set, me and another partner were well up in the set but the others managed to pull it back.  Third set, should have been a bit of a breeze but was a real struggle, we just managed to nose in front in the last game after pulling back a break. Overall it was good but I feel like the bar has been raised for Playtomic and that's the level to aim at not work games. Work for play. playtomic for work