Headgames

Found out that my new mattress is being delivered tomorrow, so rescheduled my ping pong semi-final for today.  Bad idea – I was ill prepared, distracted by various things (specifically work, but also issues with my home laptop – details to follow in a future post), and in absolutely no state of mind to play.  And, inevitably, I lost.  Again.  It was close – I lost the first set but won the second, but messed up the deciding set.  Massive feeling of déjà vu – I tightened up and missed easy shots in the decider, in exactly the same manner that I lost the final in the last tournament, even though there wasn’t any audience to speak of for this game.  Really disappointing.  I should have rescheduled for Friday, but honestly I don’t know how much difference it would have made to the result.  Gutted.  So, so, so, so frustrated.  But I still feel I will get over this one quicker than the final I lost.  I suspect I need to take a Roger Federer-esque break from the game, and come back stronger and better than ever.  And I know that I need to significantly improve my mental game if I’m ever going to have a chance of actually winning something.  Loser.