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Ouch! Summerchase looks to be one of those teams that's just passing through. From the ALTA site, they've been B7 since at least Winter 2002, and taken 18 or 19 points each season. Here's the kicker, though: there was an A1 team there in summer 2002 and winter 2003. I think they picked up quite a few players from their A1 team, which means their former line 1s now play at 3 or 4. That certainly fits what I saw yesterday!

I played with Peggy for the first time. We held tight to them in the first set, but we couldn't break at 4-5 (we'd broken him twice already). It was all downhill from there, and we lost the second set 1-6.

What I did wrong:
- My net play was far too tentative. I have got to do something about that, especially in mixed. They'd hit balls that would whistle by my ear, and I'd just stand there. Our second set especially would have been much closer had I just hit the balls I should have. Peggy hit great serves, and I had all kinds of missed opportunities at great poaches.
- I didn't get enough first serves in.
- I stopped moving in the second set.

What I did right:
- We had a good strategy of lobbing over her head when she was at the net.
- I hit a lot to both their backhands, especially on serves. That helped amazingly well.

What we tried to do right, and didn't always succeed:
- Keep her at the net, so she didn't have time to wind up on us.
- Peggy's serve was inconsistent.

This was a really strong team. Phil had good pace and placement, and Vickie loooved to wind up and hit hard (especially at a net player). That intimidated Peggy a lot, and made it difficult for me.

Could I have done better at line 5 with Becky (as first scheduled) or line 4 with Sue (as second scheduled)? Hard to say, Summerchase was that strong a team. Their line 4s especially were very good, with the guy being a tall, powerful kid. Their line 5s were very good for their line too. Becky and I could likely have held it close, but I don't know that I could have guaranteed a win.

A few notes too: No Summerchase team but the line 5s looked like they were having any fun at all. In fact, Bob (at line 1) apparently said to their guy at one point something like, "C'mon and smile! You're really killing us - loosen up!" To which he responded something like, "I'm not here to have fun". The couple we played against hardly ever spoke to each other, much less to us. They were very polite, but I definitely got the feeling that they were there to get a job done.

At least we didn't play at their courts. They apparently don't have beer.

End result for the team: we only took 1 point, and dropped to 5th place with 7 points total. We do get to play the last place team next week, some poor sots who only have 2 points.

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