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TIFU by telling my friend the truth

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TIFU: 50 year old made an Absolute Fool Out of Me and Took My Brand New Tennis Racket.

This happened yesterday, and I'm still annoyed with myself.

For context, I'm around a average to intermediate level in tennis and regularly play in my complex. I've seen this overweight uncle in his late 50s at my apartment complex. I've seen him play a couple of times. He's not particularly fast, doesn't hit huge serves, and looks more like someone you can move around a bit and snag easy points. 2 weeks ago I showed up with a brand new Ezone 100. Like any idiot with new gear, I was proudly showing it off. He asked to hit a few balls with it, took a couple swings, and he really enjoyed it and mentioned he plans to get one soon too.Then he handed it back and we went about our day.

Somehow we ended up making a challenge match with a side bet attached a week later. Feeling confident and probably a little arrogant, I agreed that if I lost, he could keep the racket. He just smiled. He also knew I'd been talking about getting a pair of Asics Solution Speed FF4 shoes I wanted to get and said he will buy them for me if he loses to make it more fair. The confidence with which he proposed this should have concerned me. Instead, I interpreted it as him just being delusional about his skill level. I was already imagining myself leaving with new shoes and this guy is slow and old enough to really threaten me. The match even started exactly how I expected. I got up 4-2 in the first set and was hitting bigger, cleaner balls. I remember looking across the net and thinking that the bet had been one of the easiest decisions I'd ever made. Around then he smiled and complimented me and said I was playing pretty well with good deep ground strokes and I got nice fast legs too and very quick on court.

Then the trap was sprung. Out of nowhere he started hitting nothing but drop shots and lobs. Not occasionally. Constantly. Every time I sprinted forward, a lob went over my head. Every time I scrambled back, another drop shot dragged me forward again. At first I thought I'd adjust. Then I thought I'd eventually wear him down. Then I realized I was the one being worn down. Around 5-4 he won a ridiculous point where I covered the court pretty well with one open spot and he gets it, and as I walked back gasping for air he started mocking me saying we are just getting warmed up and I already look pretty tired and exhausted. My fitness levels are poor and things like that. I brushed it off, but a couple of points later he did it again. I knew he was trying to get into my head, but it worked. My brain just turned into mush and I stopped thinking much.

Instead of slowing down and playing smarter, I got annoyed. I started treating every ball seriously so stretched and bent further to the max to get them back into play and lost those points as my shots became weak so he put them away easily. I lost the first set 7-5. By then I was already cooked nicely and gasping heavily. The second set was where things really fell apart. By then I wasn't losing because of shot selection anymore; I could feel the energy draining out of me. My legs felt heavier. My recovery got slower. The explosive first step I had early in the match was completely gone. He wasn't hitting winners so much as sending me on errands and having me chase balls. He just made sure to keep me moving and bending around the court, having me running back and forward, and had me stretching my legs and arms nice and wide across the corners to gas me out further from exhaustion. By the end I was completely gassed out and lost the second set 6-2 and collapsed onto the court, flat on my back with my arms and legs spread out. After we shook hands, I collapsed again and then he picked up my Ezone racket from me and told "You young kids always think tennis is about hitting the ball harder than the other guy. Sometimes tennis is just about making the other guy run."

I couldn't even argue just felt angry, embarrassed and flushed a bit. He had completely outwitted and outplayed me on all departments and rightly won my racket as per our bet. I'm now thinking about the jokes and stories he will say in my complex as I have become the butt of jokes...but it can't be helped ig...

TL;DR: Got thoroughly outsmarted. Making a fool of myself in a tennis challenge and losing my brand new racket to a guy old enough to be my dad.

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