But then, as I noted (and made a podcast episode about!), I joined my friend's team at the last minute and helped them have a nice showing at my first sectionals event in Florida. Little did I know then that I would be back at Lake Nona. I mean, like, in weeks.
I joined a mixed doubles team earlier in the summer and although there was only one other team in our group. Now, back in the day, I played a lot of mixed doubles. Mostly, I played with my ex-husband, whose kamikaze-style pretty much prepared me for any future partners (and opponents!) I might have. But I also played USTA, and in every division I possibly could. It was routine for me to play 7.0, 8.0 and 9.0 matches at three different clubs in the same day. (This was actually intentional and how I chose to live my life at the time.) But I loved it -- the fast pace and the knowledge that I was the worst player on the court and needed to be at my best for our team to win.
It has been a long time since I ate, slept and breathed mixed doubles and that was quite evident during my first match in this 8.0 league. I came into it with a fairly dominant record in doubles all year, so I was confident about my game.
However.
I played against a couple of old tennis buddies who I hadn't seen in years, both of whom I felt comfortable against, especially considering that my partner was a 4.5 player. But it became pretty clear that both my opponents had quite improved over the few years since I'd last seen them, especially the guy. He was killing me with his lefty spin and power and his partner was just being consistent. Not missing one thing. Myself? I was missing lots of things -- line calls because the ball was flying past me, volleys because the ball was flying at me and groundstrokes because ... you understand. My partner was also pretty error-prone that day and the first set was done in no time. Although I felt like I settled down in the second set, it wasn't enough and we lost it 6-4.
It was a rude awakening for sure. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about the lack of comfort with the increased speed and pace of a match outside of exposure to it. I knew I still had some good mixed doubles in me, but didn't really find it until about four matches in. But when my partner and I got into the groove, we were on. Which was good. The bad news was that we were only five matches in the season. And these matches were important. Whoever won the division would advance to sectionals. And we were going back and forth with them each week. Going into the last match, we were down to the wire. We were tied 2-2 going into the last two matches.
The first match was against one of the aforementioned old buddies, the big guy with the lefty junk. I knew his partner was a solid 4.0, so I felt like we were going to be there a while. Fortunately, my partner gave me some good advice to counter his serve and his forehand (specifically, he said do not hit to the forehand. Good advice) and my groundstrokes that had gone MIA all season long were finally connecting. Team win.
So we really couldn't afford to lose the last match because when it came to head-to-head tiebreaks, we would have lost out. They were ahead of us in sets and game percentage. But the last match for my partner and I was the team we had lost to a few weeks ago -- a mother and son duo. The son was big and had huge groundstrokes and mom was steady. We lost in a third-set tiebreak last time, so, again, I felt this was going to be a long one. It wasn't. We won in straight sets and man did it feel good to play good mixed doubles again. I felt like I was comfortable with the pace and was able to slow down enough to find gaps in the court so we could make winning volleys.
As sectionals approached, we practiced together, but you never know what you're going to get out there. Plus, one of my partners was not available during most of those practices, so the first time we had played together since our utter domination in June was, well, at sectionals. First up was this wily team, with an older guy who was obviously holding out in warmups. His slice was particularly annoying and he was killing me with it, keeping me back on the baseline trying to get them back in play without giving his partner easy putaways. It wasn't easy. His partner wasn't easily intimidated by my partner targeting her at net. It took us a few games to get back in sync. I'd say I got scared straight after losing my serve at 4-all after a game that had to have been at least 20 minutes long and a dozen deuces. I got really pissed and started playing better after that. We pulled it together just in time to win the first set 7-5. It helped that the guy seemed to lose steam as well after that marathon game. After that, we closed out pretty easily.
On the other courts, one line had lost and the other had split sets. Right after we had finished our match, it started raining. We had been dodging rain the whole morning but this downpour meant that was it for the day. On the outdoor courts. Our last court went indoors to play a set tiebreaker which they won before I could even make it to where they were. So, first day: Not bad. We were 1-0 and tied for first. Plus, without a Miami team to contend with (usually the strongest region in Florida), things were looking good.
Day two! Our first team up was also undefeated. The highest-rated team in each of our four divisions went to the semis, so beating this team would be helpful. Our opponents were a shorter lady with a cream-puff serve and a guy who had a very good spinny serve, just enough to keep us pinned where we didn't want to be. Picking on the lady in this setup was definitely the right move. But she was a tricky one. She was consistent with her returns and also extremely chipper, which, I'm sorry. It's 10 a.m. and I don't do that in the morning without caffeine. I still feel like the attitude was strategic and designed to annoy me, which was successful. She was VERY nice.
The match had the potential to be a spicy one regardless, because right away, our opponent called my partner's serve out, which did not look out. He circled a mark. Our teammate watching courtside let out a low whistle and our guy on the other side got defensive. "We're gonna be like that already?" he said. "With the sportsmanship?" Which wasn't the right term anyway, but also? How are you going to circle a mark that shows that YOU WERE WRONG and then have the nerve to get pissy about getting called out?!
Anyway, we won the first set 6-4, and it became clear that the other two matches were over because our teammates were now sitting courtside. We knew the team next to us lost, but we didn't know if we still had an opportunity to win the match. My partner noticed our teammates nearby and promptly said, "I don't want to know what happened." I didn't either because I didn't want to get tight if it was 1-all. But I went back to my bag and overheard my opponents saying that they had already won the match. Bummer. I didn't tell my partner, but we went back out, determined to take advantage of the momentum of our strong play towards the end of the first set.
Which did not exactly go well. We started out pretty flat and made some dumb mistakes and before we knew it, we were down 4-1. We pulled it to 2-4 and came up against the guy's serve. I realized during his last serve game that he really liked hitting that spinny serve down my middle on the deuce side, and the bounce was really high. I could manage that much better on my forehand side but this guy never hit his serves out wide. It was a risk, but I decided to stand closer to the midcourt so I could get around that spin, and hope that if he did go wide, I could get to it. This change in position kept us in his service game and before we knew it, we were in a long battle for this game, with multiple deuces. We did not win that game, even though we came close several times. Obviously, if we had, it would have made a huge difference -- serving at 4-3 feels better than 2-5. That last game didn't take long, and then we were in a tiebreak. We were up 5-1 and 5-2 in the 10-point tiebreak, and then it just fell apart. That chipper lady really came up clutch at the end with some key volleys. Team loss. Boo.
So, we were at 1-1 but hey, not totally out of it yet! If we could win and the undefeated team could lose, we still had a chance. We had about 90 minutes to reset -- and all of us were playing in the next match. I, for one, was ready. I wanted to beat someone's ass and our next opponents seemed up for the whupping. Actually, I had no idea how they played and we didn't need to know because the guy pulled up lame and we won by default. The rest of our team wasn't so lucky and we took a tough second loss.
Still, we had a great time out there and I definitely discovered some things I could still do to improve my doubles game. Our team was missing our captain at sectionals because she and her family were out of town. With the event happening so close to the airport (like, super close. We had to stop serves at times because planes were roaring overhead) she was able to rejoin us as the last match closed, so we got to leave as a team. It wasn't the result we wanted, but we had a great time out there and we do intend for utter domination next year.
For me, believe it or not, I will be back in Lake Nona in December playing sectionals in a league that I did not realize was a serious league. More about that in the next League Watch.
