tennis

I was worried about tennis this year. My doubles hadn't improved much, and I thought that my chance to play was in doubles.

But then practices started, and I was kind of sucking at doubles. Seriously.

After one of our practice/ladder matches, my usual partner asked if I wanted to hit with her for a while. She thought that she would do better at singles than doubles. I said yes, and we went out to the court. After we had started playing, our coach told us to play a set.

Now let me say that last year, I wouldn't have had a chance against this girl, I don't think. She could overpower me to the point that I couldn't do anything at all with her shots.

But I won the set, 6-1.

The next day at practice, coach had me hit with a girl--let's call her Ducky, since she sort of walks like a duck. Ducky is a year below me, and she played first singles on JV my sophomore year. She is a huge pain in the butt to play with, since her form is terrible. Like, textbook what not to do. But she is insanely consistent, which is how she managed to both beat everyone and frustrate the hell out of all of us. Last year, she was our third singles player on varsity. Coach hated having her play. Her form was embarrassing to him as a professional tennis coach.

Basically, this all added up and made me want to beat her really really badly.

6-1. YES.

Then coach gave me the first compliment ever.* "Nice playing," he said.

If I can beat her again, I have a chance to play third singles this year (*knocks on wood*).

This makes me so happy.


*He then proceeded to tell me all the things I needed to work on, but he usually skips the compliment part, so I feel like it was an improvement!