SquashTalk >News >WISPA USA >Sarah Fitz-Gerald in Salt Lake City
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Tough Battle in SLC, on to SFa
by
Sarah Fitz-Gerald © 2002
May
6, 2002 © 2002 <
Howard Harding's Report >
NATALIE PUTS UP A
STRONG BATTLE
I met Natalie Pohrer in the final round Sunday in Salt Lake City, and
was fortunate to come away with a victory.
It's good to see Natalie at the top again, but she made it very difficult for me, leading in each game.
I felt that I started well and the pace was furious by both of us. She got ahead with a 3-2 lead but then Natalie made a few errors in the first. Some of her errors were force by my pressure. But luckily for me she had a few unforced errors that went down. If they had gone up, they were potential winners. but
The second game I had a lead, but I made a couple errors and she made a few shots on me and all of a sudden Nat had caught up and then took a 5-3 lead. Again I had to adjust. I just had to change my thinking about what to do. She put me in a kind of corner there. I have a bad habit of hitting crosscourt, and she sat on those crosscourts. I had to think how to change that and luckily, it paid off. I tried to maintain the length and tight balls forcing her to make the play which paid off to snatch a tight 9-7 win.
The third Nat led 6-2 but I made a mental deciaion to keep the ball in play and rely on my fitness in these high altitude condtions to work for me. Sure enough a few good rallies and a few errors by Nat and I was back in the game and the tough rallies paid off again.
It was as tough as I had expected going in. Natalie is a confident player. She has a lot of belief in her ability, which is fantastic. I wanted to keep the ball back and make her deal with the rallies as being long and tough. That is a hard thing mentally, especially when you're down 2-love.
Now I head for San Francisco and the Court Kit event at the Bay Club.
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