Saturday’s semi final doubles match was against the #2 seeded team of Hill Griffin of Atlanta and Ivo Barbic, , a former professional player from Yugoslavia and France, who has a Gold ball and is now the tennis director at North Fulton Tennis Center in Atlanta.
They won the toss and elected to receive; so I had to serve the first game (in front of a crowd of about 40 spectators – most of whom were cheering for us local underdogs). We felt good to hold and even better when we were able to break Hill’s serve in the fourth game.
But serving at 3-1, we gave back the break and went on to go down a break. Crossing over with them serving at 5-4, I told our fans, “Well, we got them just where we like to be!â€
So with Ivo serving we took a 15-40 lead but ended up NOT converting a total of five break points to lose the first set 6-4.
In the second set, we stayed mostly on serve; and with Ivo serving 4-5 to stay in the set, we had one set point. But we didn’t convert; and then lost our serve to go down 6-5. We played a close game, but they closed it out for a 6-4, 7-5 victory.
Two sets, two hours. And when I got home, I was down seven pounds from yesterday morning. I want to thank Dick Valentine for being a great partner! Time to eat and drink some beer and get ready for the Patriots!
Good run!
Awesome job. You battled the #2 seed and gave them all they could handle. You guys have nothing to be ashamed of. I bet the beer still tasted good.