Nathan's Insights

It’s all over and time to return back to the city, my job and the reality of life trying to earn a dollar and being a good person.

The last 5 days for the most part have been good.   I got to spend time with people I don’t see as often as I’d like.   My footy team won, I made an unexpected semi-final with Catherine Coutts (well done Catherine!) but I also learnt a few things about how I need to get into better sharp.   The next few years should be my best not the start of the decline! Cleaning up the campsite is not very motivating, luckily I didn’t have to do much, somehow fit everything into the car, throw out the trash and keep an eye on the children.   Reagan, my uncle Paul and I set off for home around 10 am with a fully loaded car.   It took about 3 hours to get to Attwood and getting out of the car proved my legs are getting old (although grass tennis does mean you are stretching for the ball more – at least that’s my excuse!). Sitting back in Southbank uploading my photos from the holiday/adventure while my colleague were back at work I kept thinking that this is what life is for, to get away from the big city and have some fun with friends.   I’ve been up to Myrtleford 8 times now, I not sure how many more are in store but I do know that I much take breaks like this, especially when my work starts becoming very difficult.

The last day of the tournament and my last chance to do something up here.   When I returned from overseas I set myself some goals for the next 18 months, one of which was to win a tennis tournament.   Well all the goals are not looking good at present but this is a possible one.

My D Grade mixed partner is the beautiful Catherine Coutts who now lives in Canberra and who no longer plays regularly.   Catherine is only playing mixed with me so I’m very lucky she said yes.    Catherine is also nurse and she did a great job bandaging my hand so that I didn’t feel any pain hitting the ball anymore. Well we started off with a good 8-5 victory during our early morning match.   We played some very smart older players and I was just happy to get over the line.   Since my first win on Friday I’d lost 5 straight matches.   Winning does feel a little better than losing 🙂

Our next match was even better with an 8-4 win.   Again I hold my serve (making it 7 in 2 matches for the day).   We actually teamed very well and I knew early on we would win this match and therefore win our group and go forward to the Quarter Finals.

I watched my brother Reagan loss to our next opponents.   The team was Shane Bishop and his current girlfriend (forget her name unfortunately – good looking girl).   Shane is a very good young player so a hard match. The quarter-final match was extremely hard fought.   In the end we won 8-6 (I held my serve 4 times – 11 for the day in a row).   Actually there was only one break of serve (Shane’s girlfriend) and that should not have happened either (Shane missed 2 shots at the net).   I have no idea who would have won the tiebreaker.   Easily the highest standard match I played on the day and I think Catherine and I removed tournament winner.

I then watched my sister and Glen Hay play and incredibly close mixed doubles quarter-final.   The winner was playing my team in the semi-final so I took a keen interest.   I was noted how hot it was getting and that to win it all today would be a very good feat.   In the end Glen & Kara won and I faced the reality of having my first tournament loss to Glen (singles on the Friday) and my last to him in the mixed.

In the end Catherine and I lost 6-8 in a tight game.   We actually had them in big trouble at 4-2 up and Catherine serving 40-0 but the sun caused problems and they broke back and then Kara, who was playing extremely well, held her serve (we broke her earlier).   I’m guessing the match went close to an hour.   I kept trying to make Glen and Kara run a lot but they were up to the challenge.   I was very proud of how Catherine and I played (held 15 serves!!).   I was also happy for Glen, but especially my sister Kara who made her first Final appearance after only recently starting to play again since giving birth to Erin.

The D Grade Mixed Grand Final was again closely fought match.   Kara and Glen lost 5-8 to a team that included a 70 year old former Davis Cup player.   In the end I think Glen almost collapsed!   He plays a high percentage game, running everything down and tried to make you make the mistake.   It works great as he is fit but on a hot day when he had to play 5 long and hard sets in got very hard.   Glen headed straight for the beers later that night.   A very pleasing last day, I know I was glad I had one extra night instead of the long drive back to Melbourne.