My take and an update from the Men's 45 National Championship at the Lauderdale Tennis Club in Fort Lauderdale.
I’m not sure what was better today, coming back from 1-6, 1-4 and a few match points down, or my full body massage from Bridgette Bonner after the fact. Sorry Bridgette, as great as that massage was, I’ll have to vote for the comeback. If I win tomorrow though, everybody will know it is because of the great job you did kneading the old bod back into some semblance of playing shape.
Quite frankly, no element of my game was up to snuff, except my desire to hang in there. That was probably because MJ was there rekindling the fire that was threatening to go out each time I hit a pathetic shot that would have embarrassed most of my students. Glad no one from Grandezza was in the house! But we live to stroke another day in the main draw.
And, I think the tennis gods are still with me. Although I was looking forward to playing Pablo “I floss with cat gut” Arraya (inside joke), I can’t say I’m all broken up about playing Charles Johnson. I think I’m more in his league than Arraya’s. Now, I think I have a bit more than the proverbial snowball’s chance of making it to round four.
I’ve gotta give the props to my man Eric Ernstrom. Not only is he ballin’ (2, 2 win today) but he’s callin’ all the matches on the nose. He picked Tres Cushing (12) to fall to Charlton Eagle and he did. He suggested that Gary Clermont might have some trouble with Steve Bucar and Clermont went down in two. He picked Al Cannon to get by Dave Smith and Cannon balled Smith out in three, 7-5 in the third. I hope he picked me to meet him in round 4. Game, set, match…
