The match
Beat Jason Peoples 6–2, 6–0 at Harborview, an hour on court. The venue moved twice during the day and landed back where it started, which is worth a laugh and nothing more.
He is still working his way back into form and mostly just blocks the ball back. So the whole night was about staying focused and hitting my own shots. Do that and the points came easy.
The plan going in was the same one I have written before every match this season: first serve in, four-ball points, count my own errors. Nothing clever, because nothing clever was needed.
The serve was the story again, but this time in the best way. Strong first serves all night and not a single double fault. Twelve aces across the two sets. When the first serve is landing I am a different player, and tonight it landed from the first game to the last.
First set. I broke him to open, held, broke him again with an ace, and held after an advantage to go up 4–0.
His two games both came the same way. He stopped trying to hit through me and started junking it up with weird off-pace balls that made me run. That is the one thing that bothered me all night.
I closed the set out serving at 40–0 with three aces. 6–2.
Second set was a bagel and it was never close. Broke, held, broke, held, broke, held. The opener went to a deuce and after that every game finished at 40–0 or 40–15. Three aces in one service game, two more in the last one. 6–0.
Zero double faults. That is the number from this match, and it is the same lesson as every other match this season, just pointing the right way for once. First serve percentage high, no free points given away, and it is a rout.
The one wrinkle worth remembering is the off-pace junk. Both games I dropped came from being pulled around by someone taking the pace off rather than adding it, and that is a problem I have not had to solve yet.