Nathan's Insights

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The last official day of play as we close out the tournament. Andrew and Josh lost their A Grade doubles match to a team that included Andrew Florent who was a former world number 13 in Doubles.  They got 2 games and seemed happy. Catherine and I had to play Brian Bishop and his daughter Kirsty again this year in the round robin stage. Unfortunately we couldn’t repeat our performance from last year and we lost 4-7, but not a bad loss as they played well. You can be very unlucky in who you get grouped with in the round robin stage. I know Catherine was disappointed but she played well. I didn’t go for an intercept at a critical time which I think cost us the match but no one mentioned. Later in the day we played a dead rubber and won 7-3. I played a lot more positively this time as I knew it was the last match for Easter. I really wanted to win so Catherine would feel better as well. I did feel for the young players we beat, they got a very hard group and I talked to them after the match and mentioned Catherine and I played in a semi a few years ago and we didn’t win this group. It seemed to cheer them up. Jason and Kara playing together for the first time won their first match 7-6 in a tie breaker with Jason hitting the winning shot (8-6 points). This gave them a chance to win their group but they hit a very good team and went down 1-7. Still not bad considering they have never played together before this.

Reagan and Georgia did well in their group without winning going down 6-7 (3-7) and 5-7 in their second match. Reagan broke a string and played with Andrews’s backup racquet and he thought it helped a lot. Unfortunately all good things much come to an end and at 1.15 pm Reagan and I said our goodbyes and started on the long drive back to the real world. For the first time ever I didn’t get past a group stage but I did play in wins in each group. I consider myself a little unlucky in the C Doubles (the team that won the group won knockout matches easily) and D Mixed with Catherine (Brian & Kirsty are very good). There is always next year unless I end up in Washington for work (here’s hoping!).