Match last saturday

Played my first tournament match with my new team. I thought that I had never played with my partner before but now I think I remember him from one of our practice sessions. Either way that's a real bad sign. I thought that I had learned my lesson already that you need to know your partner well before playing a tournament match. Oh well. I guess you gain confidence over time and then that makes you stupid again. Needless to say we lost. 7-6 (6-2), 6-2.

Lessons learned:

• Make sure to have practiced with your partner before so that you know what they can do and they know what you can do (helps reduce nerves)
• When your first serve has collapsed, shift to your second serve and put some stick on it
• You can't wait for your opponent to make mistakes at the 4.0 level, you have to be aggressive and take your game to them
• Don't play the night before, I'm too old to recover fast enough (muscles are not as strong and do not have the same stamina the next day even if the pain is tolerable)
• Watch lots of tennis videos just before the match (especially the Bolliteri "Sonic Serve" instructional video) to promote visualization during the game
• You need to practice with 4.0 players if you want to beat them in a tournament match