Lost the Battle But Won the War

Lost the Battle But Won the War

Today was an on-court war. After buying a new Dunlop Aerogel 4D tennis racquet, a bag, and Kirschbaum Pro Line II strings, I've been playing the best tennis of my life. I decided to put myself to the test and battle it out with Juniors from all over Florida in a tennis tournament located in XXXXXX XXXXX. I had a bye to the Quarter-finals. Yay...

My first match was against a kind of friend named XXXXXXX. It wasn't much of a challenge. It was over in like 45 minutes and I won 8-2. My next match was scheduled to be at 11:00.

My next match was against the number 1 seed who looked like a defensive line-man all the way from the University of Florida. "Oh geez, this'll be tough." In the whole match, we only had 1 hold of serve. Every game was a break.

It went 1-1. 2-2. 3-3. 4-4. We were nearly dying from the heat. Our first 4 games went 7 deuces each. 5-5. 6-6.

Now we were nearly on the floor. 85 degrees with 30% humidity isn't easy on the body. I looked to where my coach and family was watching. This time I saw a few new faces. It was my friend XXXXX and his brother XXXX. This brought me newfound strength and a little bit of eagerness to end this match.

6-7. This guy really had me on my heels. If I didn't break him now the match would be out of my grasp.

It went to a deuce. "Oh for the love of goodness I hope this guy will have a heat stroke or just die or something," I thought in vain.

But my luck was out. He bombed a body serve and my forehand crashed into the tape of the net.

The next point was my last. He hit a nice kick serve and a hit an awkward backhand slice. He got REALLY lucky then. He hit a forehand on the frame and it tipped the net and plopped over. "Are you kidding me? AGAIN?"

Despite losing, I felt I was playing quite well and I think I'll have a good shot at my next tournament. All in all, it was a pretty productive day.

Chase