Unusual this time of year, a tennis tournament for the 60+ (and 70+ etc.) a draw of eleven guys which kinda reflects how many of us are still alive. The flip side is that most of these are the guys who kept at it over the years beating everyone else, made them cry uncle and give up tennis. They cheer when their competitors kick the bucket because that improves their ranking. Seriously, they all are pretty good players, mostly NTRP rating 4.0 and up. But then, every once in a while a "new" guy blows in with the wind:

'Lag. (whistling cowboy music)

OK, got my butt whooped. Twice. In fairness to me I'd only been playing doubles for the last month and wanted to get some singles in, probably wasn't going to get past the #2 seed in the second round. so, get some good hitting in the first round, hopefully win and leave it all on the court against the seeded guy. Then I get a text that the first guy has defaulted (Couldn't get off work, would have driven up from Midlothian) which was really not what I wanted, Then another text: another guy wants to play instead. Now, as a tactical issue I should refuse this to be as fresh as possible for the seeded guy but I stuck to goal #1 being getting the hitting in and said "yeah, sure."

Anyway, the guy whoops my butt 3-6, 2-5 it kinda hurts that he's in his 70s and to add insult to injury he's got fibromyalgia, (no, really) coughing and hacking between points. but as pre-arranged w/the tournament director he retires before the match ends, he's not interested in playing any more singles (he has a doubles match later) so I move on to the second round, gain valuable USTA points (which I would not have gotten with the default) then play the #2 guy and lose 1-6, 2-6 but played reasonably well, just one of those days where you can't win that one point to finish a game. Yeah, kinda like the Hokies against Miami. sorry for bringing that up.

So the odd result of all of this is I'm probably now a ranked Mid-Atlantic 60+ player despite never having won a set ever. On the other hand winning eight games is a decided improvement when the last two 60+ tournaments I'd only won a total of two games, that is total, ie 24-2. Even weirder is that seeded guy exchanged phone numbers so we might play again. Things are looking up.

On the side, did run into another tennis buddy whom I hadn't seen in oh 20 years? Just one of those vortex days, ran into a couple other guys I hadn't seen in a while too. Kinda great being retired so you don't have to go anywhere, just hang out and catch up.


















[Post edited by `lag at 02/21/2020 9:16PM]