Gold at Rahvapinks!

After 1–11 and 4–11 in the first two sets, nobody would have bet 1 cent that I would win my first Rahvapinks that day. Not giving up and keeping a cool head then is one of my greatest achievements in table tennis over the last years.

Playing Rahvapinks 400+ this season

Every year Rahvapinks takes place in Tallinn. It is a multi-stage competition for players not ranked in the top ones in Estonia. This year there are 3 categories:

• 150+, for any player ranked lower than the first 150 best male players in Estonia (there is an equivalence for women, who participate as well).
• 400+, for any player ranked lower than the first 400 ones.
• Unrated, for players without rating (so who basically have never beaten a rated player).

The rule for being allowed to participate in a category is the ranking at the beginning of the season. So while I have been in the 350 range for last two years, a poor spring made me fall in the 400+ category (I’m back at 347 currently).

I took this as a good opportunity to work on my consistency and set myself the challenge to end up in the first 3 places on the yearly ranking of the 400+ category. While on paper I can (or should?) beat all players there, doing it consistently for 5 to 7 matches in a row, during 10 months, is very difficult. There are many different styles, many problems to solve.

First two stages went well, as I took the 3rd place each time (in my previous participation in 400+ two years ago, I never did better than 4th). Each time I lost only one match and have shown consistency, calm and concentration. As lack of those have been some my greatest weaknesses so far, I’m very happy with this beginning.

October 5th, 3rd stage

For the 3rd stage, the objective was the same: No poor matches and reach the podium.

To do better than 3rd however, I knew that I would most likely have to play and beat the winner of the first two stages, an older Swedish player. I had not faced him yet. And as we were both seeded 1 and 2, unless we both lost before, we could only meet in the final.

I played seriously and concentrated all the way to the final. Three 3–0 and one 3–1 wins. First match in a very cold hall against a long pimple player could have been the perfect trap, but clear and simple tactics avoided having any bad surprise. I’m also very happy with the semi-final, which I controlled perfectly.

So there came the final, and as expected it was against the Swedish player.

Preparing for the final

I had the opportunity to observe my future opponent during his first and semi-final matches.

The most obvious problem to solve were his serves. In his first match, his opponent made lots of mistakes on them, as they seemed loaded with spin and hard to read. That was scary. However during his semi-final, his opponent could control them. That reassured me and I felt I should manage as well.

He won that semi-final 3–2. I felt his opponent squandered his chances by not staying calm enough in the end, taking too many unnecessary risks. Going into this final, I was determined not make the same mistake and to stay calm and concentrated no matter what happens. Little did I know how crucial this would end up be.

Final, part 1: Looked terrible

On point number 9, I finally won one and thought “at least I won’t take 0-11 in this one”. Not a dream start, to say the least. Second set wasn’t better, loosing it 4–11. I was down 0–2. Barely anybody was watching the final anymore. Close to the brink.

Why was it going so badly? I was returning the serves fine and staying calm, what was wrong?

I had never played him before and from just watching him, I wasn’t able to devise a tactic against what is an unusual style. Going into this match without tactic costed me these two sets.

However remaining calm allowed me to think and find the solution.

Tactics!

The biggest problem I had was that I wasn’t winning any points on my serve. I was playing my usual game based on varied spiny serves to the middle and backhand. But none of my spins were confusing him, and he was extremely good in the short game, putting crazy angles in the trajectories. I couldn’t do any attacking shot and made mistakes being moved around like this.

I needed to neutralize his strength and find a weakness. I managed both. First playing longer balls wouldn’t allow him to find so difficult trajectories. Second, I realized that he wasn’t able to forehand topspin long balls. He simply couldn’t move enough to take such a shot, which meant there was no risk at all in playing very deep into his forehand.

So the key tactical change I did was to forget any of my fancy serves. Instead I started serving simple and boring: Backhand serve with backspin deep into the forehand and only this. It’s not spectacular, but it gave me weak long returns. While I didn’t attack as many of those 3rd balls as I could have, I then managed to get into longer exchanges, I started to move him around more, he made more mistakes and gave me more easier balls that I could put away.

Final, part 2: Crazy!

I won the 3rd set. I was in this final. It was not over.

Still, with the tactical problem out of the way, nerves were now the biggest danger ahead. I needed to be pumped up to fight on each point, yet never loose concentration and calm. Spectators were coming back, adding an extra element to make abstraction of.

I won the 4th set.

We were at 2–2 and I knew very well from experience that for the player coming back from 0–2, the 5th step is the hardest. It’s very tempting to think you have done the hardest part and to not play the same way anymore as what allowed you to come back. But I didn’t change my tactics and state of mind. The 5th set was tight until 5–5 and then I took the lead, winning it 11–6!

Great feelings to win my first Rahvapinks in such a scenario!

And great to be the first one to beat him this season! Feels everybody was happy for me, congratulating me all.

Calm above all

So yes I almost lost this final because I had no tactics going into it.

But it was what I swore to do before the final, keeping calm no matter what, that saved me. If I had wasted any time and energy in showing nerves, it’s sure I wouldn’t have found the solution.

This goes for negative feelings of course, but also for getting overly excited after a good point. All of is a waste of mental energy that will be missed during the next points. Keep celebrations for after the match.