Marching on...

I played much, MUCH better in my singles match last night. Still lost though, but against a strong opponent (a 3.5 who plays up at 4.0 and has taken out a 4.0 in a singles match)...she won 7-5, 3-2 (timed). I was serving 5-6 in the first set to get to a tiebreak, and I blinked. That's where my lack of confidence and experience come back to bite me in the arse!

Today, I hadn't planned on playing for the DC team, but a sudden injury meant that I was going into the line-up. I shuffled that sucker around about 10 times, consulted with team members, and ended up playing doubles with D at #2. And...we lost, 2 and 3 against two of my indoor teammates. *sigh* D wins all her indoor matches, and maybe it is just a matter of her needing to play more outside (and on clay) but when she is paired with me, she doesn't play her best. Not even close. And, I'm saying this as someone who self-admittedly is weak in doubles. But I was poaching and being aggressive at net. She stands and *stays* all the way back at the service line and tries to dig things out at her feet. Not an offensive position at all. And she was hitting a lot of groundies way long, too. Honestly, I don't see her play like this with others, and it may be time to end the tennis partnership as we just aren't 'gelling' the way we used to. If I'm the steady one on the doubles team, then we're in trouble!

The serve held up great again, and I actually can't wait to get back out onto court and practice it some more. The BH...oh, low and behold...I have a BH again. I know I'm still swinging late on the FH, but I'm confident I will get that back on track, too. You know, just in time for the end of the season!

So, another USTA update:

Lucky Stars
We had the bad luck of facing some really strong teams at the end of the season, and ended up getting pushed out of a playoff position. Still, we ended 12-10, and we are looking forward to doing even better next year. Such a great team...I'm very lucky (no pun intended!) to be there!

Select Auto
We had a bad loss today. It isn't going to help us, but we aren't out of the running quite yet. We have our make-up match starting to get played (court by court) this week, and then two more matches. Our singles players went down today, and those are two courts we usually claim. K got beaten by a sandbagger, no doubt in my mind. Not sure how this gal has avoided a DQ, but you don't beat KZ 0 and 2 and then try to pass yourself off as anything but a sandbagger. I hope she enjoys 4.0 next year (where she belongs!).

So, it might cost us, but we are not a team put together like that...we don't play those games. We follow the rules and go out and play our best.

Tennacity
With two more matches left, a win at one of them will mean a trip to districts. *crossing fingers*

Wrapped up the day with some strength training. I'm slowly starting to feel better, and have kept food in/down for over a whole day now! Not sure what was up...maybe just had something that realllly didn't agree with me. Onward and upward.