Rutgers Intermediate Doubles Racquetball Intramurals
The Cook/Douglas Intramurals is a lot of fun. Basically it starts off playing everyone in the division for seeding. Then they have a regular single elimination tournament to see who gets the mug. Last year, I had a different partner, Joe Bockaire, and about six months or less playing time. So we finished third place.

This time my old partner had a second job to go to and couldn’t do Intramurals, so a friend suggested I ask Tony Pochesci to be my partner. We work on the same floor and we even played some racquetball together, for me chemistry was there. He’s a good guy and has a good competitive spirit, so I thought why not? He was just starting out and I was about a year and six months into racquetball.

Before we started we played some exhibition games against One Lee and Joe Bockaire and did pretty well. Tony’s serve was developing still and he was arming the ball. He’s a great Golfer and from what I read in Racquetball Magazine and how fast he told me swings his clubs, something was off in his Racquetball game.

Not that I was the picture perfect racquetball star, far from it. My mind wasn’t focused on Winning. I had entered a couple of tournaments before with disastrous first round results. So I still had competitive issues that Tony helped prevent this time.

Anyway Immediate Doubles proved to be pretty much beginner doubles and a lot of our matches were disappointing. There’s just not enough interest yet and we had a couple of beginner teams playing. So we had fun and won. One team I saw last year and that was the last time they played racquetball. I was pretty disappointed and considered myself a sand bagger for coming into Intermediates again. Then the most amazing and wonderful thing happened…we lost.

Alex and Ivan, The Russian Balls, two young and fit guys. I’ve hit around with Alex a couple of times and even had a close web match with him. So they attacked Tony on serves and did a good job of covering the court. They also sent the ball high on the front wall, so we had to expel energy running up to get it. By the third game they were still running around and we were out gas. Russian Balls defeated us 15-10, 13-15, 11-1. The near shut out in the last game was hard to take. So our perfect record went down the tubes and our optimism along with it.

The same friend that joined us as a team thoroughly dismantled us with negative comments. “Be happy with so many points.” and “It’s all about endurance and speed.” Talking to him was a chore sometimes because we both knew more of the same was coming.

Before and after each match I wrote up a game plan and a summary of our opponents. What worked, what tendencies they had, and what didn’t work. It was all an exercise until Russian Balls defeated us. Then it became critical and we had one last chance.

Now in the playoffs, Tony and I being ranked second, we played the third ranked team, Two Turtle Yakkers. They played a good game and had some good hits, but they really need some more polish for intermediates. We advanced to the finals with 15-8 and 15-5 and—as expected--so did our youthful nemesis the Russian Balls.

I don’t remember correctly, but I think the day of our final match we went for Pizza. I forget the name of the place, but it was off route 1 and near work. We sat at a table and with my court diagrams set the foundation for our serves, court position, and that’s when Tony made a transition between Golf and Racquetball that changed his swing forever.

I kept telling him there’s something missing from your swing, something that’s not translating over from Golf. He showed me how he grips his clubs for a swing and I told him to take away his non-racquet hand and there it was the bent elbow of early racquet prep. It was still rough, but it added more power to his drive serve.

Besides his swing we changed just about everything else about our game. They had focused on Tony, so we decided to focus on the weaker player also. We changed our serving position. Tony now would be on the left to free up my serves to right side and vise versa. Last time they wore us out by making us run to the front part of the court, so we switched to an “I” formation. I would be in front and Tony covering the back.

Our changes worked. I kept my position up front a little ahead of center court, which kept one our opponents in front of me and too far forward. So he was vulnerable to passes regardless of how fast he was. Every time he tried to rifle the ball high on the front wall Tony returned it with a ceiling return and kept it in play. We controlled the middle of the court and saved our energy, while forcing our opponents to run and hit from side to side with hard DTLs and Cross courts passes.

It worked great the first game, but they got on a roll and racked up points against Tony in the second. When it was 3-11 or so Tony and I agreed it wasn’t worth the energy to come back and we’ll place our chips on the tie-breaker. It was a classic battle and it came down to the wire.

On serves, the guy we were serving to just bought a new racquet, it’s a mistake I also made during last year’s Summer League. A Wilson 145 gram, so blasting drive serves to his forehand as close to the corner as possible was working. I think it was in the third game when I almost made a fatal decision. I wanted to switch my serve and that’s where Tony stopped me and kept me focused. I was going to switch sides on my serve, keep my partner in the box, and endanger our chance to win the match. Stupid.

Not sure what I served match point, can bet it was a drive serve, but I know it was returned with a bad ceiling shot. When I saw it drop and the familiar thud of it hitting the floor first. I was elated. Tony and I shook hands and we thanked our opponents for a good match. Only two points separated us, so it was a very close game. 12, (3), 9.

We were packing up and we were talking outside the court, I was pretty much interested in getting the mug. So I told Tony let’s get the mugs. We went to the Intramurals office and Katie, the Tournament Director, took our picture. Damn right I posted it on the web that night.

Tony and I still talk about it and the next day at work we told everyone and especially the cynic who thought we were too old, slow, and out of shape to do it. He reminded me there was a fifty percent chance, didn’t seem like fifty percent, but it kept us determined. We played, ”We are the Champions” by Queen almost all day. Yeah I know it was corny, but sure felt good doing it.

Looking back it was such a small victory, at a small league, in a place where Racquetball competes with other activities such as Wally ball. It’s still my first win in racquetball and reflected a personal change in my mental game.

It’s always easy to give up than to really risk defeat. I mean, we can lose and shelter ourselves from the loss by thinking if only…My racquet was better, I slept better, I shouldn’t have eaten this, my day at work sucked, my wife did… my friends did…The list is endless and it’s so easy to turn against ourselves or even our partner. To really perform well when it doesn’t look good and to risk losing without excuses is pretty tough.

So on to Advanced and hopefully another mug, but we’ll need to work pretty hard for months to have a chance. ;-)

Intermediate Singles
I thought I might as well do both Doubles and Singles and see how I did. I’m not going to get into such detail as I did with Doubles. Basically I faced the Russian Balls as individuals and they had the same game plan as in Doubles, make me run. So they would hit the ball high on the front wall and have me chase it. Since then, I’ve learned to take and control center court so it’s not so effective. So make a note people! So I lost to Ivan 10, (13), and 7 and during the tournament portion I lost brutally to Alex 11 and 3. Ouch!

I also won some matches, a three game tie-breaker separated by a point with Robert Angelo 14, (9), and 10 and another three game match with Humble 13, (3), and 5. So staying positive and fighting during those matches helped a lot.

Why did I lose in the tournament to Alex? A couple of reasons, primarily he knows what worked with making me run because of my bad court position. I also thought about Doubles, if I won the match I would need to play the next day and the following day for the Doubles final. Could be worse, I could of won the next two matches and then have two finals on Friday. So when I lost the first game, I wasn’t pushing for the second. I was too exhausted from Alex’s game plan and I wanted to get my rest for the Doubles finals.

After the match with Alex, he kept playing. I tried to tell him to get some rest for the next round against Vishal Goyal, but he kept playing anyway and lost the next day. Vishal played into Robert Angelo and won. Then defeated Silas Clark in the final for the mug. Vishal consciously tries to get into your head and mess up your concentration and game plans, some of his calls are just way wrong though, but his psychological attacks coupled with his shot power and speed makes him a pretty dangerous opponent. I think Alex underestimated that and thought he would have enough energy or thought since he had beaten him before, that he can manage. When Friday came for Doubles, I saw a different Alex and my confidence rose. I knew he wasn’t physically and mentally there. I on the other hand had about nine hours of sleep, which I almost never get. Anyway, when you’re in a tournament game coming to the game rested and prepared to do you’re best is the only thing that matters, even a tournament as small as this one.

Sorry it took so long to post this one, had the great opportunity to play a lot of tournaments this year and it takes a while to gather and reflect on each one.

Hope to see you on the courts,
--Joe Delgado