Final

Finals today.  Of the office table tennis tournament (advanced bracket).  I gave myself a 1 in 5 chance of winning, against a not always better but certainly more consistent player than me – and the same guy who beat me in the 1st round of the last tournament we did.  The final score, I lost 3 sets to 2.  From leading 1-0, and then 2-1 up - yep, I still contrived to lose.  In a close one.  Devastating.  I was even up in the last set, and then I proceeded to tighten up and lose a string of points to give the game away.  I don’t think I’ve ever won a trophy before, even as a kid (?), and this was as close as it comes.  I’m gutted, destroyed, broken.  Perhaps it would have been better to have been blown out 3-0, rather than getting as close as this.  It was somehow inevitable – I’m not a winner, never have been, never will be (especially when it comes to sports).  The psychology of the game was probably fascinating, whereas my opponent was steady as a  rock I was fluctuating wildly in my form – sometimes great, sometimes really bad.  What was also interesting is that the crowd (and it was a sizeable crowd of maybe 50) was relatively quiet – I don’t think the standard of play was particularly high (and certainly not as high as we’ve played before), but I’m sure it was an engrossing match and made for a good spectacle.  It might take me a while to get over this, but as I said in my e-mail to the table tennis group afterwards – “It may take me months of therapy to get over losing the final, but it was fun!”.  More fun if I'd won.