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After an epic struggle I managed to edge the first game 12 - 10 and we both grabbed towels to wipe away beads of perspiration. My host had earlier given me a blue top and my current opponent had taken it to be a Chelsea FC top, so was asking me questions about Andre Shevchenko and Michael Ballack, classic sporting male bonding in action.
The pattern continued over the best of five games, at two games each we squared off for the decider; my opponent made a couple of unforced errors then got frustrated with his game, eventually defeating himself, which was a shame as up to then it had been really nip and tuck.
My third opponent could not have been more of a contrast, I had watched him in action a little earlier in the evening; very quick hand speed, using varying degrees of topspin and backspin. He greeted me in vary articulate English, with all the dramatic flair of a Popinjay by stating "This will be Germany against England."
I knew he fancied his chances against me, it took me half the first game to master the vicious spin on his serve. I put the loss of first game down to experience and decided to mix it up a little in the second. My tactics worked, to his consternation, I was able to dictate the pace of the game. A brief towel down and swig of mineral water later, we faced each other all square going into the third game. The match was developing into a duel of sorts; we could just have easily been circling each other with rapiers or pistols, watching each others moves, probing for a weakness to exploit. Unfortunately my forehand is less of a weapon than my backhand. He had spotted this and much of the play was being directed at my fore hand side. Thus he nosed ahead and won the third game.
One of my strengths is that I am a quick learner. By concentrating on my forehand in the fourth game, he actually improved my play, so that I was able to effectively smash him off the table and take the game. So now we played the decider....
He had the superior all round skills, I had to match this by mixing up my game and hanging on in there with the will to win. By now the other players had noticed our duel (probably the exclamations emanating from the pair of us on winning a point had something to do with this) and decided to watch. The first to 11 points would normally win, but you had to win by two clear points, we were now at 19 - 19 on alternate serves. If you lost your serve it became sudden death. I had the good fortune of a net court with the ball dropping on his side on his serve. On my own I went for a risky long serve that thrust him away from the table, applied some aggressive backhand cuts to keep him on the back foot, then dropped one short on an angle that caught the edge of the table 21 -19 to England!
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