Over the few days after my match against Samsonov, I tried to just maintain my excellent form. Let’s face it – I was in the best form of my life and was enjoying every time I stepped out on court like it was my last. The couple of days after my singles had finished, I felt fantastic. Then something changed and I am still not sure what.

My play began to feel laboured, I felt lethargic and I just started missing more. I didn’t worry too much as what how it feels in training bares little importance on how it will feel when match time arrives. I often find that I perform better in matches when I have been feeling poor in training.

We played Singapore in the team competition, which is ranked a very long way ahead of us at number 5 in the world. I’ve played very well against Singapore in the past and have had some of my best wins against the Singapore Chinese imports. The level of import has risen substantially in the past few years as they presumably have received more government funding and have worked out that it is much easier to buy than to build your own players from scratch.

We were on at 10am which meant a 7:35 bus, to arrive at the hall around 8:10 and get 80 minutes of practice before we were ushered to the checking area 30 minutes before the match. You go through a long process to checking your rackets, making sure you only have one small manufacturers logo on any piece of clothing or equipment (otherwise you must tape over or texta over the offending logos) and generally sitting around waiting to make sure the march-in runs smoothly.

I played against Zhan Jian who is a recent acquisition. Ranked at 25 in the world he was a tough opponent to face. I felt uncomfortable and unsure of my game right from the start of the match. I prepared exactly the same as I had done for my singles matches (where everything worked like clockwork right from the word go) however this time around I couldn’t get started. I thought he played well – he has short pimples on his forehand and good touch on his backhand. He made very few unforced errors during the match and I found it extremely difficult to get through his defences.

He led 10-5 in the 2st set (to win 11-8) and won the next set 11-3. I was being completely outplayed. I took a big lead in the 3rd set (8-3 I think) but at that point he shut up shop and decided not to miss for the rest of the set, winning 11-9.

It was a disappointing end to my Olympics. I had put in such a good performance in the singles, outdoing my own expectations and, as it seemed, the expectations of all around me and was gutted I couldn’t put on a better showing in the team event.

I’ll do a final wrap-up of my Olympic experience in the next blog and talk more about the emotional side of playing at the Olympics including the lead-up and aftermath.