7-23-2016: It's not often I feel proud of my accomplishment, but this morning proved an exception. As I do on most Saturday mornings at 6:30 a.m., I played one set of tennis against a former Penn State college tennis player as a freshman, Andrew Foley who is 6'6" - yes, with wickedly fast and powerful serves - with the largest shoe size in the department I used to head. I know his shoe size because we bowled one year as a team building event, and I obtained all 40+ employees' shoe sizes to submit to the bowling alley prior to.
This Saturday morning began typical of many others; neck and neck throughout the set. Fast forward to 5-4 Andrew ahead, then 5-5, then 6-5 to Andrew, then 6-6 and we go to tie-break.
Tie-break began with 4-0 to Andrew's advantage much to my vocal frustration. I blew all 4 with unforced errors; very atypical of my game since my strength is consistency which often frustrates my opponents. I lost the next point, and since I can't remember how, I'm assuming this point was not as regrettable as the first 4. Now I'm down 0-5. What is the probability of pulling out a win at this miserable juncture? It would literally have to be out of my ass, so I scoured the internet for tiebreake probabilities, and here's what I found:
"Seppi trailed Federer 4-5 in the fourth set tiebreaker. His win probability was 34 percent"
I managed to rally to a 6-4, which in and of itself was a feat, especially since Andrew had 3 overhead chances at the net to put one of those points away easily; I lobbed all 3 overheads, the last of which he was too far to my right at the net to have a chance at returning. That was easily the point of the match, which I happily vocalized.
I can't remember the rest of the exchanges, but we each had one set point before I won the last two in a row to win the tie-break and the only set we played that morning (10-8?). Fuckin' ay, now that's something to be proud of. Andrew was obviously very disappointed for letting this one slip away. In the past, he has told me some of his bitter losses nag at him at nights when he's in bed. I'd imagine this experience would illicit a slightly more pronounced reaction then.....
9-1-2018 (a little over 2 years after I posted this original blog entry): The event I've described above was, until today, a monumental event in my tennis history. But, alas, over 2 years later I surpassed even that feat! This particular morning, I was down again 0-5 to Andrew in our only set tie-break when I won the next 7 points to win the tie-break! And immediately after Andrew, I played Mario who is the best player I've played against. He was up 5-2 in our tie-break, and I won that one as well, 8-6.
This Saturday morning began typical of many others; neck and neck throughout the set. Fast forward to 5-4 Andrew ahead, then 5-5, then 6-5 to Andrew, then 6-6 and we go to tie-break.
Tie-break began with 4-0 to Andrew's advantage much to my vocal frustration. I blew all 4 with unforced errors; very atypical of my game since my strength is consistency which often frustrates my opponents. I lost the next point, and since I can't remember how, I'm assuming this point was not as regrettable as the first 4. Now I'm down 0-5. What is the probability of pulling out a win at this miserable juncture? It would literally have to be out of my ass, so I scoured the internet for tiebreake probabilities, and here's what I found:
"Seppi trailed Federer 4-5 in the fourth set tiebreaker. His win probability was 34 percent"
34% at 4-5?? That's roughly a 1/3rd chance of winning down by one point. I'm not sure how to extrapolate that to 0-5, but if I were to use a straight-line method, I stood a 93% chance of losing.
I managed to rally to a 6-4, which in and of itself was a feat, especially since Andrew had 3 overhead chances at the net to put one of those points away easily; I lobbed all 3 overheads, the last of which he was too far to my right at the net to have a chance at returning. That was easily the point of the match, which I happily vocalized.
I can't remember the rest of the exchanges, but we each had one set point before I won the last two in a row to win the tie-break and the only set we played that morning (10-8?). Fuckin' ay, now that's something to be proud of. Andrew was obviously very disappointed for letting this one slip away. In the past, he has told me some of his bitter losses nag at him at nights when he's in bed. I'd imagine this experience would illicit a slightly more pronounced reaction then.....
9-1-2018 (a little over 2 years after I posted this original blog entry): The event I've described above was, until today, a monumental event in my tennis history. But, alas, over 2 years later I surpassed even that feat! This particular morning, I was down again 0-5 to Andrew in our only set tie-break when I won the next 7 points to win the tie-break! And immediately after Andrew, I played Mario who is the best player I've played against. He was up 5-2 in our tie-break, and I won that one as well, 8-6.
