Done with Danish tournaments

So, reaching the end of this past weekend, I´m done playing Danish tournaments for quite a while. As I wrote earlier I will be going to Britain for 6 months to study and play tennis at Loughborough University.

The weekend went pretty well, regarding tennis. I was up against no. 4 seed in singles. Though he´s only seeded 4, he was probably the best player in the draw, so it wasn´t really a great draw for me to be honest.
Anyway I knew I just had to get out there and do the best I could. It wasn´t impossible, and as long as I remembered the things I wrote down as preparation to the match, I should be okay.
One of the most important things for me in this match was to keep cool, even if I came really close to winning the match.
I started extremely well, and broke his serve in the very first game of the match. I don´t know if he needed to get used to the surface or he just started really slow, but suddenly I was up 5-1. I broke his serve at 5-1 to win the set.
In the second I got broken in the first game, which wasn´t really the best thing that could happen. I just tried to hang in there for the rest of the set, to see if I got the chance to break back. And I did. At 5-4 to him, I played a really good game, and suddenly I was at 5-5.

Then it happend. The only thing I told myself not to let happen. The first thing I thought was, wow, now I´m at 5-5 serving. If I can just get this service game, I´ll get a tiebreak at least, and be really close to make a huge upset.
The second thing I thought was, damned, this is exactly what I can´t think right now. I need to stick to what I have done for the entire match so far.
I started out making to more or less unforced errors with my forehand, which I haven´t missed for the entire match up until then. Suddenly it was 0-30, and I was under severe pressure. I doublefaulted, and facing 3 break points it looked really tough. He broke me straight back. even though I was up 30-15 in the next game he managed to hold his serve and win the set 7-5.

I kinda expected myself to have a hard time staying positive after this. But in the beginning of the third set I broke him to get a 2-0 lead. Then again, the same thing happend, and instead of a 3-0 lead, it was only 2-1, on serve. I´m pretty convinced that if I had gotten the 3-0 lead, I would have closed the deal....but I couldn´t. I lost 5 straight games. Even though I got back on 4-5, he played a good game to close out the match winning 1-6, 7-5, 6-4.

In doubles we had a bye in the first round, and in the quarters we faced a good team. We started out well, and won the first set 6-3, without beingin trouble. In the second I think we lost a great deal of focuse, and we managed to throw the break we got early away. We went into a tiebreak, but got an early minibreak and never looked back. We won the match 6-3, 7-6 (3).

On Sunday, it was time for the semifinal in doubles. We faced the 2nd seeded team, from my own club. I guess you could name them favorites. I started out really badly. I made 5 doublefaults in the first two of my service games. We lost the set 6-4. Only positive thing from the first set was that we started dominating the match at the end of the set and could bring that to the second. We started well, and up 3-1, we had the chance of getting on 4-1 if we could keep my partners serve. After a crazy point my partner missed an easy overhead at 40-40, and it prooved to deciding. They broke us back. even though we got on 4-3, keeping my serve, my partner got broken again, and we lost the match 6-4, 6-4. A match tiebreak decision had been fair in my opinion as we clearly dominated the second set. But that´s tennis. If you don´t take advantage when you need to, you can´t win.

All in all I´m pretty satisfied with the weekend. I played really well in my singles match, even though it would have been amazing to win it, I´m pretty glad that I played well.
In doubles we got to the semis, which is pretty good. I´m pretty sure we could have gone all the way, if we got past the semi, but it wasn´t meant to be I guess.

Focus is now on my to final exams tomorrow and on the 22nd - when I´m done with those I´ll more or less be off to Britian, which is gonna be fantastic.

I´ll be back shortly, when there is more to tell


Till then