My brother in-law taught me how to play ping pong. In fact the single most important part of my game comes from him. That is as those of you who have seen me play know, is the way I hold my paddle. It is a very good defencive method.
He taught me everything I knew...that lasted for as long as it took me to learn everything he knew, then I started teaching him what I was learning on my own. Then pastor Otis came down from Georgia. And every thing that I knew from My brother in-law (Christopher Marks) and that I had picked up myself did little to no good. It took a year, but I finally beat Pastor Otis, once. Then back to the same old same old of losing. About a year ago now I started beating him every so often. As hard fought as are games are now days and as much as he says we are even with one another, I still believe that he has about a 3 to 2 advantage over me. This is best shown in a tournament that we held lately.
Pastor Otis and I as expected blow past everyone else in our respective brackets. He was in the top Bracket and I was in the lower. And we were set up to play each other in the Winner Bracket's final. First however me and my teammate in the doubles bracket played pastor Otis and his teammate in that bracket's winner bracket. Me and my teammate got hammered and we were sent down to the loser's Bracket where we pulled out a near run victory. So back up we went, to face Otis' team that had just beat us, in the final. We had to win twice and they only had to win once because they were from the winner bracket and were undefeated to this point. We changed that with a turn around win to force a winner takes all rubber match. They won in convincing fashion again.
Back to the singles match, where the two of us squared off for the final battle. I fought tooth and nail to get back with in striking distance and tied it up at 20-20. He had been playing better then me for the hole game so it did not come as a surprise when he rolled off two quick points to win by deuce 22-20. I had to play in the loser bracket after that but was able to carry the momentum from my 21-9 victory over the runner up of the loser bracket, into the championship against pastor Otis. I took a 3-2 advantage during the first serve and never looked back. Having anywhere from a 1 to 2 point lead the hole game. And I never had any doubt after the first round of serves as to how it would turn out. 21-19 was the final (yes that is close in score) but I really did not feel like I was being out played that game. The final game was a no doubter as well. He out scored me 3-2 every serve and the game ended 21-14. If we had played two more games I thing I would have won the fourth and been outscored 21-14 (or there about) in the fifth game. He will beat me 3-2 no matter how you look at it. I will one day hopefully (soon) turn the tables on him like I have to both my brother and my brother in-law. But till I can hold at 1-1 against pastor Otis there is no point in thinking about beating him 75% of the time. Let get 50% before the 75% shall we.
Robert L. D.
