Our World Is Getting Smaller With Covid-19
In the grander scheme of things, our sporting woes are small beer. But last week, on Tuesday, I played real tennis at Lord’s for the last time in a while. Earlier today we played lawners in an almost-empty Boston Manor Park, again probably on hold for some time, now that non-essential road travel is off the agenda.
The excesses of February seem a long time ago now:
Desperate times call for desperate measures. When socially distancing and only going out when necessary, we’ll need to exercise and play at home for a while. I have ordered some low cost, high value gizmondry for the purpose, which should be wending its way to us as I write…
…but in the meantime we dug out the little Butterfly miniature table tennis table:
We bought ours for a mere score, perhaps a score or more years ago. We’ve only used it occasionally and always enjoyed ourselves when we have done so. It is very small and very frustrating to play…in a good way.
Daisy normally wins at table tennis and I think had always previously won at the miniature variety. The speed of reflexes and balance aspects of the game play to her strengths.
Yet, strangely, since I started playing real tennis, my table tennis results against Daisy have been getting better. Would that also apply to the miniature variety?
Only one way to find out. We agreed to play a proper match, i.e. a best of 5 games, in which each game is won by the first player to win 11 points, and be at least 2 points ahead of their opponent.
The first game was an absolute humdinger, which Ged eventually won 21-19, after being 10-8 up and having far more game points than Daisy.
The second game Daisy won 11-9, keeping her nose in front pretty much all the way through that game.
Ged won the third game 11-7, in fairly dominant fashion after the first few points.
Then Ged took the lead in the fourth; at 8-5 up Ged thought he had Daisy staring down the barrel, but as so often at table tennis, the winning line seemed to evade Ged as Daisy slowly but surely turned the game around to win it 12-10.
So it was 2-2 going in to the final game. When Daisy went 4-3 up in the fifth, Ged even exclaimed…
…why do I always find a way to lose this stupid game?
…which, with the benefit of hindsight, is probably not the right way to project one’s confidence in winning at your opponent.
Still, despite that schoolboy error, Ged then managed a little run of points and then just about managed to keep his cool and his nose in front to win the final game and therefore the match 11-9.
What fun. Not quite the real thing, but better than nothing.