The season is getting long when you wake up in the morning and feel like you can sleep for 2 days. I felt like that this morning. Your sleeping and eating habits are so bad during Team Tennis. You eat at 11 o'clock at night and then you can't sleep before 1 am. Normally you have to get up by 6 or 7 am to go to the airport and catch a flight. You do this for a month and you are buggered. Our match against the Kansas City Explorers started at 6:30 so we had to move from St Louis. It was a 4 hour drive but took as a bit longer because we went through a thunder storm and there was 2 accidents on the way. We only got to Kansas City at 3:25 and our practice was at 4 pm. This is where you have to learn how to quickly adapt to new courts and surroundings. The team had a 45 min practice and we where ready to play.
The explorers played in the Plaza that is in the middle of the city between all the hotels. You can basically sit in you room and watch the match. The court is surrounded by 5 hotels.
We got of to a flyer with the girls winning 5-0 in doubles, Vania won 5-2 in Singles. The men lost 5-3 in doubles and Martin and Chani lost 5-4 in mixed. I knew that we had to go into the last match leading by 7 games otherwise we could be in trouble. Raven was playing against Michael Russel and lost 5-2 to him in Springfield. Russel is a gutsy player and I knew he was capable of winning 6 games in a row. Raven has struggled this season against the baseline players. Russel played solid and won the match 5-1. Kansas City was behind by 1 game and because they won the last event we had to go into overtime. Russel held serve and the score was levelled at 18 all. The crowd was loving it, as their boys was coming back from a 6 game deficit. I couldn't belief this was happening. A Super tie breaker is a 13 point breaker , so the 1 st player that gets 7 points win. We got lucky with a let cord at 5-4 up to give Raven 3 match points. Russel saved 2 and it was now 6 all. It all came down to 1 point. It was match point for both team. I was tense, if we win this we keep our unbeaten record and go 8-0 for the season. Russel played his 1 st loose point of the match and hit a backhand long. We went nuts. The team was thrilled. this format is more emotional than a marriage. We have 2 days of and then we are back in Springfield Wednesday. See you later
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