Little Bit Good, Lotta Bit Lucky

I have most of my next post ready to go, but not quite, and I don't have energy to complete it this (Sunday) evening, so I thought I'd summarize today's tennis tournament, quickly.

It was at the LTC Modrany club, which is among the hardest for me to get to on mass transit, if it's not actually the hardest. Took me over an hour to get there. Bus, to bus, to 10-minute walk.

Hop, skip and a jump

Happily, though, I had a ten minute wait while transferring from one bus to another — enough time to get a cappuccino and a croissant from a convenience store (the 20-year-old woman behind the counter got out her calculator to figure out what change she owed me for a 37-crown charge paid with a 50-crown piece, but, sure enough, she got it right!).

Then, while I waited outside for my bus, I was able to take two more photos.

A nice, absolutely accurate screen on this urban bus stop showing how long until the
next bus shows up, for various lines

There is no chance they don't know what this word means, but I have to admit ...
I can't figure this marketing scheme out.

Anyway, once there, I started playing. I won't go into too much detail, but it was a successful tournament. Started out with a very tight match — I won 7-6(4) against a guy playing his first tournament, though it was tough. He was up 2-0, he was up 5-3, 30-0, and he was up 3-0 in the tiebreak. Playing new players is always tough — the rules require everyone to play their first match at a "Sport" level tournament, but that means they could in fact be much worse (and will play subsequent tournaments at the "Start" level), or much better (and will play subsequent tournaments at the "Challenge" level). In addition, even if they are at the right level, because nobody knows how good they are, sometimes you get a really strong player in your group when you wouldn't have had they known how to seed him correctly.

That's what happened here. He was really good, which wasn't ideal for my very first match on a cold day. Still, somehow, I got the job done.

Next match was against Miroslav Lehocky, the same guy I was super lucky to beat in the last tournament 10-8 in a tiebreak, after I rolled a ball over the next for a winner on his match point. He had played in yesterday's "Masters" tournament as well — playing in six sets before losing in the final — and had just finished his first match of the day today ... and he's 69 years old! I beat him 6-0 this time, though we went to deuce in either four or five of those games.

That meant, because of how the other matches played out, I had already won the group with one left to play — and that was against Martin Pech, who I've never lost to in four matches over the years, all of them fairly easy wins. We stayed true to form, and I won 6-0, again, putting me into the semifinals.

I then took a break for a small Pilsner.

I mean, I'm in the Czech Republic, right?

My semifinal was against a guy I played in my very first tournament here in late November, when I beat him 6-3. He has a killer forehand — in both matches he must have hit 8 outright winners against me with it — and is a lefty, making it a little more difficult for me to find his backhand, as my natural shot goes to backhand-for-righties. But I started, after seeing another winner rocket past me, to focus on getting it to his backhand, and I ended up beating him pretty easily, 6-2.

Putting me in the finals against Filip Tesař, who I played once before — in a tournament a year and a half ago, where our really close match was at 4-4 when the rains came, forcing us inside, where we got a photo op with recent Wimbledon champ Marketa Vondroussova. That match was never finished.

He's the guy right to the right of Vondroussova — our right — in the gray t-shirt

That match in July or August 2023 was crazy. He would hold his serve easily, and then I would need two or three deuces to hold mine each time. It was 4-4, but I was hanging on by my fingernails.

I was not optimistic this time either, as I had watched him play — and destroy — the guy I beat in the first match of the day in his semifinal, 6-3, with the two of them exchanging really hard, nice, deep shots back and forth, in a way I cannot.

Still, I was already happy just making the finals, and heck — you never know, right?

Sure enough, although at one point he was up 4-2 and had several game points to go up 5-2, I hung in there, and served for the match at 5-4. And lost that game. And served again for the match at 6-5. And lost that game. At which point I was completely satisfied. I had taken him to the limit, could hold my head up, and go home to my pizza. I even told myself not to worry about his seven exhortations of "yesss!" and "pod'" ("come on," in Czech), though my friends know that deep down that was irritating me. 👿

He won the first point of the tie-break ... and then I reeled off the next seven, to win going away, 7-1. Again, as in the semis, I just focused exclusively on his backhand, which wasn't bad at all, but it was a purely defensive shot, so he'd eventually either give me a short ball I could put away, or would himself miss one. Either way, I was able to outlast him. And, unlike his semifinal opponent, who went toe-to-toe with him, I didn't really have that kind of consistent power, so I moved him in and back — and my defense kept points alive much longer than other players he played against — and he just wasn't as comfortable trying to hit short shots hard ... and he started to get lazy with his footwork as he grew fatigued.

Well, either way. Whatever the explanation was ... my second tournament win in a row. I think he was a better player than me and played better than me (same with the guy I played in my first match of the day). But they made just enough mistakes for me to sneak through with the win, and I'm not giving either of them back.

Zoom in. There's a "1" on my trophy, baby!

That's it. Took me an hour to get home, again, and I found a hungry cat waiting for me, confusingly unimpressed by my trophy, even when I explained what I had to go through to get it. Weird.

Took a long hot bath, ordered the traditional victory pizza, and now watching some Michigan basketball. 'Twas a good day.