How Rick lost his Ping-Pong Groove

The last several weeks at the South Bend Table Tennis Club have not been good. I was at the top of my game in January, but then things started to go south and I've yet to recover.

I hit my peak one night in January. I was at the #3 table and was poised to move up to the #2 table, where I'd go up against some very top notch players. In the final match that night against a player much, much better than me, I had managed to take it to a deciding 5th game. In that final game, I was up 10-8 . . .but, I let him come back and ended up losing.

Maybe that took too much out of me, being so close to my own version of table tennis glory. But ever since then, week in and week out, I come out with maybe one win each week, if that. I lose to players that I used to routinely beat, and I lose 3 games to none.

I'm playing in a big tournament this month. I have a week to get my ping pong groove back. We'll see what happens.