Chapter 11: Partners & Friends

Partners & Friends

Sunday 1st December 2013

I imagine most of you have already guessed. The semi-final was on Wednesday. It is now Sunday. Had we beaten the national champions, I doubt I would have remained silent for four days.

We lost.

Ross and Gemma beat us by two games to one and will play Geoff and Maddison in the final.

Sorry. I needed a few days.

Not because losing a university badminton match is an enormous tragedy. My degree continues. The Earth remains in orbit. But I wanted this one. Quite badly. And for a while on Wednesday, I genuinely thought we were going to do it.

That made losing worse.

You have been following this tournament since Paul and I became partners almost by accident, so you probably deserve the longer version.

Before The Match

I was horrible company at lunch. Sorry, Lily. Sorry, Paul. I barely spoke, which was apparently sufficiently unusual for Paul to ask if I was all right. I told him I had pre-match nerves. That was true. It was not the whole truth.

Ross and Gemma are the reigning national champions. I know I keep saying that, but there is knowing it intellectually, and then there is watching them play. We watched their quarter-final. They won the last game 21–0.

That is not a typographical error. Their opponents did not score a single point.

They were faster, more accurate, and so well coordinated that they barely seemed to communicate. Each knew where the other would move before the decision seemed to have been made. Paul and I had been partners for less than two months. Our communication is still a work in progress.

I was nervous in that horrible way where your stomach feels too small and every possible version of the next three hours plays out simultaneously in your head.

And yet ... I still thought we could win.

Paul made the reasonable observation that they were national champions because they were very good and perhaps we ought to acknowledge reality. I told him we did not have to accept anything.

Apparently this reassured him that I was feeling better.

My knee had been uncomfortable after our previous two practice sessions. Not badly painful, but stiff enough to remind me that I had been asking rather a lot of it. I had rested between sessions, stopped running with Lily and used ice when necessary. Before the match, I strapped it more heavily than usual. A lot more heavily. And Paul noticed during the warm-up.

I told him it was precautionary, which was true. I also told him it was fine, which was a carefully selected portion of the truth.

I knew this match would involve more stopping, reaching and changing direction than the previous ones. I told myself the extra support would be enough. I had played several hard matches without doing any serious damage. We only needed to win two games.

Mostly, I told myself those things because I desperately wanted to play.

Yes, I can hear the people who have been following the knee saga screaming at the screen. We will come back to that.

The First Game

There were perhaps thirty or forty people gathered around the court. The organisers had brought out low benches, and both sides were almost full. A lot of club members had apparently decided this was the match worth staying for.

It reminded me of junior competition. The waiting, the noise from other courts, the smell of the sports hall, people attempting to speak quietly while producing a constant background murmur.

Then Gemma served, and I stopped noticing any of it.

We won the opening rally. Then the next three.

4–0. Against Ross and Gemma.

The noise around the court changed. People were beginning to think there might be an upset. So was I.

Our plan was to keep them from settling into their usual rhythm. We varied the length of serves and returns, attacked the space between them, and tried to make them decide who should take the shuttle instead of letting those decisions remain instinctive.

It worked. Initially.

They recovered the four points, because of course they did, but they never managed to move decisively ahead. Neither pair put together a long run. Whenever one pair began to control the pace, the other found a way to change it.

Paul played brilliantly. He covered the rear of the court, called his movement, created opportunities for me at the net and produced several smashes Ross could barely return. I was getting forward early enough to make Gemma think about her placement.

And the communication we have been working on for weeks was simply there.

I didn’t have to stop and figure out where Paul was or which space I should cover. There were moments when I moved before he called because I already knew what he was going to do.

Perhaps that is how the telepathy begins.

At 19–19, I remember looking across the net and thinking we could actually do this.

Then we won the next two points.

21–19.

We had taken a game off the national champions.

I don’t think I have ever wanted the interval between games to last less time.

The Second Game

We started well again and moved three points ahead.

Ross and Gemma did not panic. They did not argue or try anything reckless. They adjusted. Their returns became higher and deeper, pushing Paul towards the back of the court and reducing his opportunities to attack. When I moved forward, they lifted over me. When I stayed further back, they dropped the shuttle just beyond the net.

They made us cover more of the court. Much more.

At 9–9, there was still very little between us. Then they began winning points in groups of three and four. That does not sound enormous. Against players that good, it is. Winning four points back is considerably harder than losing them.

We were not playing badly.

They were playing better.

They reached 20–16 and we saved two game points. For a ridiculous moment I thought we might drag it back, but we could not save the third.

They won 21–18. One game each.

By then, I was exhausted. My knee was beginning to tighten too. Changing direction and pushing off my left side became uncomfortable. Nothing dramatic had happened. No collapse. It was the familiar warning that the joint was beginning to struggle.

I should have told Paul.

I did not.

I stretched during the break, moved it carefully and convinced myself it felt better. Perhaps I believed that. Perhaps I merely wanted to.

One game. Twenty-one points. That was all we needed.

The Third Game

Ross and Gemma moved into a 9–7 lead. We were still close enough that one good spell could have put us level or ahead.

Then it became increasingly obvious that my left leg wasn’t doing what I wanted. Pain set in, and my knee felt less stable than it should. I began protecting it without meaning to, putting less weight through it and taking an extra half-step before changing direction.

I tried to hide it.

Pointless.

If I could notice the difference, Ross and Gemma certainly could. Ross noticed first, I think. Gemma immediately afterwards. They began making me move left again and again and again, forcing me to push away from that leg or change direction across it.

Before anybody criticises them—they did nothing wrong. If someone has a weak backhand, you attack it. If someone is slow moving forward, you play drop shots. They were playing the match in front of them. I would have done exactly the same thing.

Paul realised what was happening and tried to cover more of the court. Far too much of it. He moved across behind me, came forward from the back and reached for shots which should have been mine.

For a while, he nearly managed it. But doubles positioning depends on two people covering different spaces. Once one player tries to cover for both, gaps appear everywhere. Especially against Ross and Gemma.

The score moved away from us. I knew. They knew. Our audience knew. Paul knew.

21–13. Two games to one. Their place in the final, not ours.

We shook hands. They were lovely, congratulated us on giving them a real match and said something about seeing us at another tournament. I don’t remember the exact words.

All I could think was that I had lost it for us.

My Knee

I sat on one of the benches and removed the strapping. The knee was slightly swollen. Not enormously. Enough.

Paul came over after speaking to Geoff and sat beside me. He said it had been a good match. Close.

It had been. That did not make me feel any better.

I apologised. He asked why, which annoyed me because the answer seemed obvious. I said it was my fault. He tried to tell me we had both tired towards the end and neither of us had been in peak condition when we entered the tournament anyway.

I didn’t want him to be kind by pretending my knee made no difference.

We were two points behind when my movement deteriorated. After that, we won six points, and they won twelve. I know that does not prove what would have happened otherwise. Perhaps they would have pulled away anyway. Perhaps they had another adjustment ready. But I know what happened on the court, and my knee cost us the chance to find out.

I immediately translated that into: I had failed Paul.

I have spent several days trying to separate those two things. They felt identical on Wednesday. I don’t think they are.

Paul asked about the original injury, and I realised I had never properly explained it to him.

I tore my anterior cruciate ligament, the ACL, playing competitive badminton when I was sixteen. It is one of the ligaments that helps keep the knee stable when you stop, turn or change direction. Which, unfortunately, describes much of badminton.

I did not have reconstructive surgery. It was not available to me through the NHS at the time, and private treatment was far beyond anything my family could afford. I rested, had physiotherapy and strengthened the muscles around the joint.