The exhibition match vs Hal: Stice takes a set and nearly wins — and balls swerve to his will

pivotal · 11 Nov YDAU

• When: 11 Nov YDAU, P.M., an unscheduled "off-record nonchallenge exhibitionish" match on the East Show Courts, ordered by Schtitt via Mary Esther Thode
• What: Stice, a "born net-man" with a McEnroe-Esconja segmented service motion, plays Hal (E.T.A.'s #2 boy, a division above him) dead even before a swelling crowd that includes the undercover journalist "Helen Steeply." Stice takes the first set to 6-5 pressure and splits sets, taking Hal all the way to 7-5 in the third; deLint charts him as "wise" to crank his second serve, and deLint calls him a "straight-out killer" to Hal's "torturer." Threaded through the match are the anomalous ball-swerves: shots that veer out or curve back against wind and their own vectors, "as if some freak gust came out of nowhere," leaving Stice "more surprised than Hal did." Hal, later, judges Stice choked away a set he was in physical control of "only because he didn't believe he could beat Hal yet." [Attribution/cross-ref: the near-upset ripples through the campus — the tunnel boys "don't see Stice take a set off Hal Incandenza and nearly beat him" (scene 129), and Mario later ties it to Hal's toothache, "You beat Ortho, and your toothache's gone" (scene 157).]