Yesterday afternoon, I played two squash matches back-to-back at the Y, and came out on top in both.
Originally, I only had one game scheduled. Terry, who had been at the bottom of the squash ladder for the longest time, had got his first win last week and wanted to play me, the next person up. I agreed to it, and he set it up. Then on wednesday, I got an email from Dave (the new bottom-dweller on the ladder) asking if I had a match lined up for the week yet. I said I did, but in a fit of pique offered a double-header, since in a double-header I would only have to pay one admission fee to the Y for both games. He accepted and set up the second game.
So I played Terry first, and then Dave. Terry I finished off in three straight games. I deliberately played to win, to try to conserve my energy for the second game. Then I started against Dave. The first two games in the best-of-five were laughably easy: he wasn’t really warmed up yet. But in the third game he started to pick up his game and get me running, and I started running out of gas.
Dave won the third and fourth games by close margins, and pulled out an 8-1 lead in the fifth and deciding game (we play to 9 points). I was in tough. I got the serve back and managed to run nine straight points to get the 10-8 win and a 3-2 match win. Whew! I managed to get the momentum by putting everything I had into the serves, and Dave only managed to return a few.
Now that it’s done, I’m tired and sore and have very sore feet, but knowing that I could dig deep and get the win late makes me feel really good about myself.
