... is the text on the new T-shirt I bought in London this week. A very applicable title as this short summary of our match against Delft of two weeks ago is way overdue. I hope it was worth the wait… I thought I’d follow suit with the English and all since the very lovely Bjorn Borg-fitted Ladies III were also in Delft at the time and wrote their piece in English.  

For our match that Friday we were very much on time, come to think of it, we were the first ones there and actually felt a little lost in the empty lounge. Always-late-Diana Moerman, Delft’s number one, came in at 8.30PM setting a new record even by her standards. This gave us more time to chat though and come up with a solid battle plan. Roos started the evening off with what we all recognized as unbridled enthusiasm. It is a joy to watch her play these days as she runs across the court hammering away opponents with a big smile on her face. With three seemingly simple games she defeated her opponent, Femke, who is new to the Delft squad (a position we decided none of us would like to fulfill. We’re even thinking of adopting her next year). Next on court was yours truly against Mylene. Mylene is a very experienced player with good kill shots who likes to slow down the game as much she can with what in Dutch we call ‘dwarrelballen’. The first two games were close but nonetheless ended in my favour. Mylene got the overhand with her slow game in the third game. Luckily enough I woke up from her spell in the fourth and forced my fast game on her again, 3-1. Lieke had a tough time against Diana in her match. Diana was playing extremely well and decided to volley every single one of Lieke’s shots or, if she couldn’t take the volley, ask for a let. This was rather frustrating for Lieke who, as a consequence, had a hard time getting into a sense of flow. She lost the first two games but as the match progressed Lieke started hitting more volleys and tight drives herself and the odds started to turn. Sticking to her plan and believing that it was the best thing to do got her the third game. In the end, Diana was just a bit too eager and too focused for Lieke to win the next three games as well. Diana won with 1-3. The last match of the evening was our very own Diana against Hester. For very different reasons, both Diana and Roos didn’t play last season and are now both delivering an amazing comeback! Because of her Achilles heel injury Diana has lost a bit of her speed on court but is still the queen of tactics and shot placement. With her sister and us cheering her on she won her match with 3-1 by exploiting her opponent’s weaker point (wenden en keren) and accurately placing her shots left-right and centre. Completely red-faced after 4 games with long rallies she came off the court victoriously!

We won our match with 13-5 and are currently second in our league. Once again this promises to be a great season!