Power Pong January 2008

I played two events, the 1250 and 1400, at this tournament. I made the playoffs in both events.

My first match of note was my fifth match. Before this I had a fairly easy time of winning in the round robins and one playoff match. This match was against the top seed on my table in the 1400. He was an older Indian man, who played a bit of a weird backhand dominant style. I won the first game easily playing my style. In the second game he made the adjustment to serve mostly to my backhand and with less spin. I was pushing these short and he was then doing a weird backhand attack into my forehand corner. He won this game and also won the third, but the third game was closer as I tried to figure out a way to stop this attack. I started to get back the first attack consistently in the third game. In the fourth game I started to gain confidence and felt in control of the match and won easily. Before the fifth game, I realized I was really tired, but had to play my 100% game to guarantee a win. I also had a good idea of which serves worked well and how my opponent would return them. I dug down and found the energy to win easily, but the well was almost empty after the match. I became worried that I wouldn't have the energy to perform in the playoffs.

As it turned out I was right. I lost my next to matches. The first to a lady who I had played before and won. She was a lot better this time around, but so was I. Unfortunately I had trouble finding the energy to win even a single game. The one game that I did find the energy I won, but the rest were pretty weak. I couldn't summon the focus to change my strategy either. I lost 4-1.

In my last match I was playing a defensive long pips user. I didn't have trouble against the pips and even used them to my advantage. I won the first and third games fairly easily and if I could have continued my play from the third game would have won the match. Unfortunately my legs got too tired and I lost control of my loops and lost the fourth and fifth games. One interesting note on this match was his preferred serve was a backhand serve from the forehand corner using his pips. This changed my service receive position to a neutral stance shifted about a foot to the right of my normal position. As I was attacking all his long serves, he was reduced to serving short to the forehand and backhand corner. I tried flipping a few of these, but didn't have the confidence with my tired legs to do this consistently.

One thing the last match taught me is that I should develop a controlled looping style that I can use even when I'm exhausted. I should be able to play a moderate to low spin game against weaker players, and win with placement and better technique.