Struggling in Pool Play

Phil and I managed to escape out of pool play as the third place team. No bye this time around though as we have received in the other Grand Slams. We did the same thing last year so we will look to last year as our inspiration for this year.

We were seeded second in the tournament and played the 31st seeded Italian team. They played well and we lost in two. Truth of the matter is that we played very poorly. We lost 21-17 and 23-21. Phil was a bit out of sorts and I was just average. I didn’t dig a lot of balls although I sided out fairly well. Think I hit one ball out and got scooped a couple of times. Phil was struggling to sideout and pass. He hit 5 balls out and his passing, which is normally pretty good, was not great. He also struggled from the service line, missing about 60% of his jump serves before he went to the jump floaty. Believe it or not, he received more serves than I did. Probably not by much, but I would guess around 60/40. He also was aced 3 times. To give you an example, at 21 all in the second game, they served the ball down the middle. He took a step to the ball and was yelling ‘you go’ and the ball almost hit his foot. Then he proceeded to say to himself, “what are you doing?” One of those games where you are just out of sorts.

Our second match was similar to our first match. We lost to the Spaniards 21-18, 21-16. Mostly a sideout affair. Phil got a lot of serves again although probably about 40/60 to me this time. He did not hit any balls out but was a little shaky on the passing which led to him getting blocked several times. One of them I set him too tight and he got blocked. He also got aced on a wicked float serve down his line. I gave up my usual couple of scoopies for the other team which they converted for points. We were ahead most of the second but collapsed at the end of the match. Still out of sorts.

In our third match we played Estonia and beat them in the first 21-14. We played much better on offense and defense. They went right after Phil in the beginning of the game and he passed perfect and sided out perfectly as well. That made them go at me and other than one dig, they didn’t score at all. In the the second game we jumped out to a 7-0 lead and they forfeited due to injury. The left sider has a bad shoulder and he was struggling to put the ball away. Good win at this time for us. We needed it.

Now we have one more match to win today. We have to play in the first round of the playoffs but it will be a draw so who knows where we will end up. Hopefully we will get a good draw as there are some good draws and bad draws out there. Either way, we made our bed by not winning and now we get to lie in it.