I won last night! As I suspected, the match was pretty tough. I got off to a good lead in the first game, 7-2 or so, and then my opponent (his name was Ron) came back and beat me 15-10. I started to play more aggressively, moving forward and trying to control the center as well as mixing up my serves a bit in the second game, and was more successful, winning 15-7. Ron helped me out in that game by driving quite a few shots into the ground and giving me some much-appreciated freebie points.
I started off the third game with a big push. I got up by about four points right off the bat, and this lead very slowly eroded as we traded service back and forth. I wound up ahead at 10-8 by focusing on every point as if it were the last one, giving everything I had to win it. I lost service on match point, and Ron scored on my subsequent mistake returning his serve. I took service back on the next point, and when he tried a pinch shot later in the final rally he used too much angle and didn’t make it to the front wall. Final score: 11-9.
Ron was a gracious opponent and a tough competitor; it was certainly a worthy match for the gold medal. Since it was Robin and my 14th anniversary on the 22nd, we celebrated afterwards by going to Batman Begins, which was a fantastic movie to cap the evening off with. I’ll be reviewing it shortly.