After my victory on the Squash World Tour match in Zagreb, Croatia, we had to drive back to Slovenia where we would spend the night close to our next destination Maribor. Back in the car after some decent Croatian food and beers, #teamorange immediately moved to the back seat of the bus and fell asleep – or at least pretended. I kept driving…
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#teamorange played me again
At about 10pm on Saturday night we arrived at our billet. Our court was booked on Sunday at 9:30am – in theory, plenty of time. #teamorange made a smart move: he put his clothes in the washing machine (he took only one orange shirt with him – and you remember that he forgot his shoes, right…), and about 30 minutes after that he went to bed. I realized that the machine was still running and waited about two hours until it was finished, hung up the clothes and went to bed way after midnight.
In the morning after a short breakfast we hopped into the car and headed to our next battle field: the university sports center of Maribor. We arrived a little late, but the squash courts are not overbooked (yet) – so it wasn’t a problem. To our surprise the courts where locked with cable tie – maybe to keep out the squash addicts… We managed to get in and played!
Good start for #teamyellow
I started the first game like I had finished the last in Zagreb the day before: I controlled the rallies, produced some decent drops and took game one 11:5. I made the final point without a racket in my hands…
#teamyellow letting it slip
I was feeling confident and my anger about Joel’s tactics was gone. I took the second game too easy, allowing #teamorange to make some points, and despite a comfortable 5:1 lead in the beginning, I managed to lose the game 8:11. Joel was on fire now: he ran for every point. Wherever I placed the ball, he was already there. One thing suited his style of play: We used a Victor ball this time – the ball has a much higher bounce than the Dunlop ball we had used the day before. At 10:9 I missed a game-point through an easy fault, and #teamorange turned the game into a 12:10 for him!
In the fourth game again I was dictating the rallies, but my drops just bounced too high, #teamorange killed them all. I was getting more and more exhausted and just thought, he cannot continue playing like this for another game – but unfortunately he could! At 10:6, I managed to score three points in a row – still not enough. #teamorange took the game and the match: 3:1 (5:11, 11:8, 12:10, 11:9).
#teamorange pushed me to where he wanted to have me. The Squash World Tour was turning into psywar! And it should get even worse in Graz…