Last week I mentioned that our team was successful in their semi-final campaign and made it into the finals.

My finals match was against a young Scottish doctor that I first mentioned back toward the end of 2007 after I jotted down some squash strategies following our first encounter. Coincidentally, he is also one of the opponents I mentioned in my semi-final post that I had lost to in a recent string of poor performances. If I was to stand any chance of winning the match, I really needed to bring the form from my semi-final match back onto the court.

A couple things I noticed I wasn’t doing in my semi-final was boasting enough and I was frustrated with my lob. This evening, while I still didn’t boast as much as normal – I certainly added more of that back to my game. However the point I’m most pleased with myself about tonight are the lobs, I think I hit more lobs tonight than I have in any other game and with the exception of a handful – they were all on the money. The side effect of a good lob is that it gives me a chance to recover court position, forces your opponent to run back to cover the ball and if the lob is well positioned, also limits the return heavily.

I think that I played at least as well as I did in the semi-final against Steve, however tonight it wasn’t quite enough. We were both moving around on the court so much that by half way through the fourth game I was hurting, a lot. The game score was 2-1 in favour of my opponent and I was up on points in the fourth – poised to draw the match but it wasn’t to be. I lost my serve and that was the tipping point – I lost five points in a row and the fourth game. While the game score was 1-3 against me, I’m happy with my performance tonight as I know that I lost the match as opposed to him winning all of it. What has become quite clear, if I want to move up to B grade the season after next – I absolutely must improve my aerobic fitness.

Despite my loss tonight, our team absolutely hammered our opponents – yielding only 5 games in total! In my time with the Robina Squash Club, teams I’ve played in have made it through to the semi-finals twice but never into the finals. It was a great feeling tonight, not only to be in the finals for the first time but also to win the squash season!

If you’d like to join the club for learn, fun or fitness – get in touch:

Robina Squash Club
University Drive
Robina QLD, 4226
0427 627 229