Monday Morning Match Memories

MMMM #8: Johnny Kauffman/Jeremy Thomas vs. Andy Van Klaveren/Michael Ciesielski, 2007

I think that many coaches fear the way that their team will react in the match after they pull a big upset. If you look around the sporting world this week, Clemson men's basketball beat Duke by almost 30 points, a huge upset for the Tigers. Then, they lost at home to Florida State, who is a mediocre team at best. It's difficult to put together two back-to-back performances of a high level in sports.

Our team faced that dilemma in the 2007 Sectional. In the Thursday night match, we had played our best tennis of the year and pulled off an amazing upset of Sectional favorite Fairfield. We then had to respond on Saturday morning by taking on our local rival, the Goshen Redskins.

I wasn't sure how this match would pan out, but I knew that we would most likely lose #2 singles and #3 singles, because the Redskins had extremely talented players at those positions. So that left us needing both doubles positions. And both doubles matches were ones to remember. Daniel wrote about #2 doubles in this post, so I'm going to focus on the #1 doubles match.

Johnny Kauffman and Jeremy Thomas played our #1 doubles position, and had a rather successful year together. They were fairly good friends at school, and had been for a long while, and their chemistry often helped them on the court. Of course, there were times when they got really down on each other too. But for the most part they were fiery players who brought that energy into every match.

We had faced off once against the Redskins #1 doubles already in the season. At the Warsaw tournament Johnny and Jeremy had tumbled into the 7th place match of their draw, and faced the Goshen team to avoid last place. They had won that match rather easily, 8-3. But they had a slightly different lineup for the Warsaw tournament, and Johnny and Jeremy hadn't faced this specific team yet.

Things started off well for the Bruins. And that's probably an understatement. Quickly after the beginning of the match Johnny and Jeremy had wrapped up the first set 6-1. They had played good tennis, solid strategy and executed shots well, but a main ingredient was the nerves of Van Klaveren and Ciesielski. They had made many "unforced" errors, and allowed Johnny and Jeremy to get a big lead and not look back.

That changed in the second set. Having trouble controlling their aggressive shots, Van Klaveren and Ciesielski switched to a more controlled style of tennis. It seems as if they determined they would just get every shot back in the court and make Johnny and Jeremy finish off the points. This provided a new challenge for the Bruins, and the match teetered back and forth based on the errors of our team. Sometimes they would smash away full games and take the lead, but just as often they would make errors and hand the advantage over to the Redskins.

The second set went to a tiebreak, and I was pretty sure we'd be able to get the match won in the tiebreak. I was wrong. Goshen jumped ahead quickly and only allowed Johnny and Jeremy three points in the tiebreak, as they leveled the match at a set a piece.

The third set took exactly the same pattern. Goshen had found a strategy that suited their games well, and they were going to make Johnny and Jeremy fight frustration and nerves in order to win the match. Jeremy and Johnny did a valiant job pushing through tense times and eventually building a lead so that they were serving for the match. But again, forced to finish off points they gave up some loose errors, and Goshen pulled level again.

Finally the deciding set entered a tiebreak. By this point, all other matches were finished and the team score was 2-2. The winner of the tiebreak would push their team into the Sectional final, while the loser would be done for the season. These stakes were clearly known by the players, and the tiebreak began as a tentative one.

Unfortunately, a tentative game favored our opponents. We were used to playing aggressive and it is hard to tone that down. Your instincts are to go for it, but you are nervous, so you just go for it a little bit and you end up flubbing shots. And that's what began to happen. With every point the tension mounted, fans and coaches and players alike clenched their hands and paced behind the court.

I was up above the court looking down from behind the fence. Goshen's courts have a windblock built up behind them, and I was standing there with two of my friends who had come to watch the match and didn't know all that much about tennis. I was explaining to them the importance of this tiebreak, and they began to feel taken up into the pressure of the situation. But myself, I felt really calm. I could feel myself taking the attitude of "what happens happens, and then we'll deal with it."

Of course, Johnny and Jeremy did everything possible to try to break that positive attitude of mine. After winning the first 3 points, they went down 6-3 in the tiebreak, giving Goshen 3 chances to close the match. The first two chances were on Jeremy's serve. Now, many matches end on double faults, there's just too much pressure on an awkward motion like a serve and the muscle tension pushes the ball long. So I was scared for Jeremy. Especially when he missed both first serves. But I was so proud to watch him get the second serves in. And then we won both points too!

The rest of the tiebreak is a blur but I remember one point in particular. Tied at 8-8 Johnny and Jeremy came forward to the net. Goshen had been lobbing in that situation all day and did so again in this crucial situation. Johnny and Jeremy ran back together and as the ball landed Jeremy called the ball out. From my vantage point I could tell that the call was really close, but couldn't really see where the ball had landed. The Goshen players however, they thought the ball was in, and they went nuts about it. Even during the next point they were still whispering. I always wondered if that ball was out. Not that I think Jeremy and Johnny would have cheated, but I know from experience that sometimes when you want something so badly, you actually see it differently. I accept that they made the right call, but to this day I think of that point whenever I think of this match.

On the next point, which was a match point for the Bruins, Goshen lobbed again over Johnny and Jeremy's attacking heads. This time, neither Johnny nor Jeremy bothered to make the call. The ball landed clearly out and they threw their rackets in the air rejoicing! It was a wonderful moment to know that we were headed to our first Sectional final in my coaching career. I was happy for Johnny and Jeremy, playing under such pressure and making it pay off. I have to say that they tend to get their game going at the right times, both in that match and in this year's Sectional final.

Playing under that pressure is something that prepared us for this year, I believe. I think we wanted to be under that intense pressure again, because it means that you are playing for something. You are striving to reach a championship level. If it's no big deal then there is no pressure. If it is something valuable, then there is. With that in mind, I hope many coming Bethany players get to experience a close match like this, because that's what memories are made of.

Score
Johnny Kauffman/Jeremy Thomas - 6-1, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (8) - Andy Van Klaveren/Michael Ciesielski