Nathan's Insights

On the last day of the long weekend I ended up playing 2 matches with my beautiful partner Catherine:

Won D Mixed Doubles 8-4

Lost D Mixed Doubles (quarter final) 6-8 in a tie breaker (5-7)

I had a chance to hold serve and get to a tie breaker in the last match but couldn’t do it.   The team we lost to had won their previous 2 matches 8-0 and 8-1 and they thought we were a very good team.  I had a great time again this Easter.

Overall I played 11 sets, winning 7 sets, the game count was 75-53 so 128 games overall.   Not bad for 4 days play, especially since it doesn’t count the Wednesday night comp or the practise match on Thursday.   I really love playing in the country and catching up with old friends.   The mental break alone is worth it.   Now I’m on count down the first of my two big trips,   5.5 weeks and I’m on my way to Los Angeles!!!

Back to reality today.   I ended up playing 5 matches for the day:

Won C Doubles with Cameron 8-4

Lost D Doubles (quarter final) with Reagan 7-8 in a tie breaker (5-7)

Won C Doubles (quarter final) with Cameron 8-4

Lost C Doubles with Cameron 2-8

Won 1st mixed with Catherine Orton 8-4

The best result was the mixed as we had to beat Brian Bishop and his daughter.   Brian is a very good player and I considered this a major upset.   If I had of won my match with Reagan we would have been thrashed in the next round, our opponents only got 1 game in their next match.

Today was also the day of Erin jumping up the slide, yelling  ‘Ready,  ‘Set,  Gooooooooooo and away she went.   After about 26 shots Kara decided it was time to watch tennis.   Erin was not happy with this decision; I have no idea where she gets her energy from.

Magical Saturday!   What a great day, I ended up winning my three matches today.   The rescheduled C Grade doubles match with Cameron Hendy 8-4, and two D Grade doubles matches with my brother Reagan, 8-0 and 8-1.   The second match was against Leon Roche and his young son Daniel which we played in very bad light and the rain but we wanted to finish the match as I knew I had a lot of matches scheduled for the Sunday. After the days play we headed off to the Tournaments pasta night at the Railway Hotel.   The kids all had heaps of fun playing billiards and talking about their great achievements so far. As for me after diner I went in to the pub with my mixed doubles partner for this year Catherine Orton (previously Coutts), last year’s mixed partner Jacqueline Damien and their respective partners Glenn and Troy among others.

Unbelievably my football team Essendon beat Carlton in a thriller.   This meant that Bernie Coutts had to wear an Essendon cap all day tomorrow. Finished the night off playing billiards with Ryan Monaghan and I won both matches hitting the last shot.   In fact in the second match I was hitting them in from everywhere, I think the alcohol might have helped somewhat.   What a day, undefeated at tennis, my footy team wins and I play off my head in billiards, brilliant!

An 8.30 am start today playing in my first event D Grade singles.   Over the years I’ve done fairly well in the singles competition with my best finished being a semi-final.   This year not so much, I lost 8-5 in a match I could have won, probably would have won 2 years ago but the extra weight I’m now carrying combined with a young local player playing on grass was too much. During the day we surprisingly got a lot of rain and lost about 2 hours of play.   I was scheduled to play a C Grade doubles match at the end of the day but it got postponed until 8.30 am tomorrow. Basically a very easy day regarding match play but still I got to watch some very good tennis, my niece Erin enjoyed herself immensely and we all enjoyed the traditional good Friday fish and chips night with our Mt Carmel / Sunbury group (about 30 people all up).