Australian Open 2014

[Fez]

Well, while you say "not every laggy player exploits this", I will say "None do". Because, think about it, how would they do it? You say some can exploit freezes, but you've yet to explain HOW this is even possible. It just aint.

[Robbin92]

Time to report about one of the most ridiculous matches ever played on TE ITST scoreline wise:
Pigrosofo 5-7 6-4 6-4 4-6 7-5 Robbin92

First of all congrats to Pigrosofo as he played at the best of his capabilities and played the perfect gameplan to make me play not as good as I can. However, every set had a strange scoreline, so a short summary of them all:

We both started pretty average and Pigro was the first to get some balls back into play on my service and I made some green errors in a row (all of them aimed too long for, the whole danger zone was out of court). I realized I had to put some more focus in and won some games in a row to get a 5-3 lead, where Pigro broke me to love when I was serving for the set. At 5-5 I could break him another time (despite some short slices which where predicted in the chat ) and this time I managed to serve it out.

I continued playing with the same strategies (open up court with short accel BH) and pretty much steamrolled to a 4-1 lead with some chances to place a second break there. Pigro adjusted his game to a more pushy style and managed to win 5 games in a row. The deciding break was converted by a short slice winner. The same story in the third set, I took a 4-2 lead but Pigro managed to win 4 games in a row again.

He continued in the fourth set, even winning 7 games in a row before his controller stopped (?) at 3-0 15-30 on his service. We rehosted and he managed to keep his 2 breaks advantage despite 2 break points for me. I decreased my errors after the rehost and got to 4-1, broke him for 4-2 when I started to believe in it again. He made some more errors and I even came back to 4-4. That is a difficult point mentally as in your head you completed your comeback but you are not there yet. I survived some break points I think and was able to break him for the third time this set.

I got to a 1-0 lead, where he opened the chat window and said something like "you switched into God mode, how is this??". I thought it was one of his Italian mind games, trying to put me out of focus so I told him "just continue". However I did lose focus and was not able to get my returns as deep as in the the fourth set after rehost. No chances on both services till 4-4. There I got to 0-40, thus creating three match point. The first two were worked away with good 1-2 punches, with one maybe being his best BH out of the entire match. On the third one he had to hit a second service, hit it to my FH which I tried to hit away to his backhand but my ball even bounced before the service line, I managed to stay in the point for some more hits but he won the point and also held his game. As often in tennis, in the next game he broke me after several deuces. I got to 0-30 when he was serving for the set but 2 1-2 punches and 2 aces did the trick for him.

I felt I could have played better, but I am proud that I was able to fight back even from such a "defeated" score. Too bad I could not fully complete the comeback by making of my matchpoints.Pigro did perfect by letting me work for all my points which was really exhausting. Congrats again and good luck against Richie