Senior Tennis and Fitness

Ft. Meyers Doubles: While Tom McCune and I were seeded #2 in the 60’s doubles at Ft. Myers, there were seven other teams entered that appeared to be as good or better than us. And after a first round bye, we played one of those teams late Friday afternoon.

Joe McAleer (who had beaten me in singles two years earlier) and Hank Rahn had taken out another strong team the day before; and we started our match with the Florida sun low in the sky at 3:30 p.m.

Tom and I went down an early break and were serving at 1-4; but we were able to play our way back into the set to bring it to my serving at 4-5. We played three poor points and found ourselves down three set points at 0-40. Somehow, we clawed our way back to win that game; then use the momentum to break serve; and Tom served out the set to win 7-5!

The next critical point was at 2-2 in the second set, when we had a put away at the net for game point – that didn’t get put away. So we proceeded to lose that game and the next three, for a disappointing 3-6 loss in the second set.

With the sun setting, we went into the third set and another 2-2 critical spot. We had nearly broken them, then held serve easily; and had them down 0-30 on their serve … but it was not to be. We lost that game and the set 3-6.

We had our chances to win this one; and probably didn’t because we weren’t as aggressive at the end of the match as we were in the beginning. Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

In the singles, the #2 seed, who beat me did get the finals against the #1 seed Jerry Parker from Houston; and lost in two quick sets.

Next week: The big international Tier II tournament starts at Naples Bath and Tennis. My first round match (in the round of 64!!) is against an unknown and unseeded Carl Gagliardi from Branford Connecticut at 10:30 am on Monday. Through USTA search I can see that he played in 17 tournaments last year; but no common opponents to compare against. So we shall see. More to come.