Today was a rather rough day. I watched Natalie play at 9am, and then I played doubles with my partner Jordan at 10am. In doubles, we beat a team from Baldwin Wallace University in two games, 15-8, 15-13. Jordan and I played well, although I was personally struggling to keep my shots low, so many of the rallies continued much longer than they needed to. We communicated well though, so I was happy with how the game went.
I watched my team mates, went to the business school to work for a while, got Qdoba from the Memorial Union, and then came back to watch more games. I was watching a doubles match upstairs about an hour and a half before my singles game, and I decided to just go chill downstairs for a while since it was so cramped and uncomfortable sitting upstairs.
I was nervous going into my singles game against a girl from Utah State University. I knew from watching her last night that her serves would be difficult, she had no clear weaknesses, but that I felt I was better than her. My national ranking was much better. Hence, I went into the game trying to just be confident and play my game.
Her serves were indeed difficult, especially her Z-serves. And she put a lot of power on most of her hits. She got to things I thought impossible. She was weak at playing things in the back of the court. And I was nervous and anxious. I never really settled in.
In the first game, I came back from a 4-8 deficit to win 15-8. In the second game, she got out to an early lead, I caught up, and then she ran away to a 15-8 win on a serving streak. In the final third tiebreaker, we traded side outs for a long time. We tied at 8-8. Then I got up 10-8, before letting her come back and win 11-10.
This loss was very frustrating for me, mainly because I was unable to figure out a good strategy to use against her. I was also in better shape than her, but it did not seem to help. I was pretty devastated after the loss, as I had put everything I could into the game. I really felt like just finding a place to hide and cry after the game.
I should have refereed a game after my loss, but there were no games at my skill level left tonight, so they left me off without refereeing in this case.
Once our guys finished playing their 9pm doubles matches, we headed to Whataburger for dinner. I showered once I got back to the hotel, blogged, and then went to bed around 12:30am.
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