We crawled our way back from a 7-2 deficit to win the finals on a tiebreak, at the end it; the official score was 8-7(7-0).
It was the finals of a doubles match at the FTC's (Filipino Tennis Club-Singapore) 2-day Open Tournament on Labor day. I paired up with Wilmar Ancajas, a former office/project-team mate at NCR-Cebu. It was also the first time we partnered, on a tournament that I joined for the first time too.
We were up against a veteran pair; veteran meaning, they have played together on a lot of matches, some "commercial" ones even. I am referring to "Commercial" here as matches where there're wagers, one of them was even a tennis trainer. They were a good pair, the trainer had smooth fluid strokes and speedy footwork where he can just outrun the balls till you break down. His partner, had a wicked kick-serve. So, to sum the match up, it was a bit intimidating; especially when you kept hearing side talks prior to the match.
We were a nervous wreck, we were playing either too careful or over-aggressively that we were spraying balls from all over the court. Even a no-brainer-sitting-duck-good-to-kill floaters were either dumped on the net or were at least 2-feet off the lines. I believe, we were winning points at 20-30 percent overall, this was a very low percentage considering that we were able to pull off our pervious matches at ease earlier with large score gaps. What could have been frustrating was that we'd actually lead at 40-15, 40-0 on our serves or 0-30, 15-30 on their serves, only to throw those leads by blowing them. The sudden-death rule on deuce just added to the pressure. This pattern went on; even Famela who was at courtside watching, had to leave coz she couldn't bear watching us being slaughtered by our own errors... until it was around 0-5, my serve when we held it... finally, we broke the love-set (zero score in tennis). They held serve again and made it 6-1. On changeover, this was where we started to regroup. We changed our game plan, and took calculated risks. I can't remember the details anymore as to what happened in the next succeeding games, but we crawled our way back into the match slowly to take the match into a tiebreak.
We regrouped and changed our game plan, it was just simple... in doubles, we had to play serve-and-volley on our serve or chip-and-charge when receiving. The intent was to sit at the net as much as possible to close the court. We had to hustle, this meant running down and scrambling at every ball on every corner and making them work. And lastly, GUTS... just pure GRIT and GUTS. We pumped fists and celebrated at every point made, held our ground on our errors. It was intense...
We crawled our way, but it was still tight... at 6-7 our serve (mine to be exact) I double faulted at 40-30, making it deuce 40-40. With the sudden-death rule on deuce, that made it more nerve-wracking coz they actually held championship-point. There was pressure... all that hustling and fighting back into the match and it came down to a double at 40-30 to make it deuce, championship-point to them. Crucial, critical for both of us... holding serve, meant we still has a chance... broken meant it was over. I took my serve at deuce, t'was a percentage serve... just made sure it went it in on the first serve. Then, BHAM!!! We closed the match on a tiebreak at (7-0)...
They returned a floater; Wilmar was waiting at the net... ready to poach on floaters. And he whacked the ball into a tiebreak. The tiebreak ended in a shut-out. We played the same game plan, but this time... We were just more intense, more driven... or maybe we had already broken them down.
When we closed the tiebreak at 7-0, Wilmar dropped his stick and we were screaming all over the court. After the customary post-match handshake, we were celebrating again, we sang a line "We are the champions" by Queen and we are all smiles from ear to ear...
The Singles Category is another story…
http://picasaweb.google.com/herbert.lacay/TennisFtc2DayOpen# and http://picasaweb.google.com/herbert.lacay/TennisFtcTeamBullionPark#
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