Tennis!!!

You may remember this post, where I was really pissed off at getting cut. Well, some crazy things have happened since then.

Tryouts started on Monday. Returning players were called for eight am, and new players were called for four pm. The point of the morning session was to choose players for the varsity team, and the afternoon was for JV. Each team has about 10-12 girls (seven players plus spares).

So we all showed up bright and early and started to "play". The thing was, there were too many of us and not enough courts, so we were playing little matches on half-courts, with winners moving up a half-court and losers moving down a half-court. I started all the way at the bottom (curse that December birthday!) but somehow I managed to move all the way up to the top. I had moved down two spots or so by the end, but I was still one of the top ten players. The next morning I got to practice and found that no less than FIVE new players had been called up to join varsity tryouts. That day, I played doubles with a very,very weak partner. She had zero consistency and just didn't have either power or finesse.

I think it goes without saying that we lost.

That night, I got the email. I was confused. I had done well in everything except the doubles, and I thought that the coaches would have been able to see that my partner was more of a liability than an asset.

I talked to my parents and they made me send the JV coach (who I know better because she was my coach last year) an email asking if I could have a few minutes at Wednesday's practice to talk about what improvements needed to be made in my game. She basically told me that it was because I didn't play doubles. I told her that I've been working on playing doubles all summer. She said that she would let me play doubles that day and then, if I did well, she would send me back up to the varsity tryouts so that the varsity coach could watch me play.

My doubles partner that day was also pretty incompetent, but JV Coach watched almost the entire match. We lost 4-6, and I thought that was it. Afterwards, though, JV Coach came over to me and said "You did very well with a liability". I emailed her that night to ask what practice she wanted me at today (Thursday. She replied that I should come to the morning session with the varsity kids.

First, Coach Y (the varsity coach) had me play singles with a girl, M., who was on varsity last year. I actually won. And I won by a lot. 6-2.

Then we play doubles. I played with M. against two decent players. And we won! 6-1!

At the end of the practice, Coach Y called the names of six or so players that he wanted to move down to the JV level.

He didn't call my name. Did I just make varsity?