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Beep! Beep! I groaned as the alarm clock woke me up at the crack of dawn. I was reminiscing what my dad had told me yesterday. “You need to wake up very early tomorrow! We have a Tennis Tournament” I was already pretty late, so I finally decided that I had to eat my breakfast in the car. I got ready and we rushed and puffed as we got into the car, all set for a 2 hour drive. I just stared out the window, deep in thought of what it was going to do in my first ranking match! Eventually, we reached at Saltwater Tennis Club Reserve.
I met some of my piers and we had a good talk about tennis and how everyone was doing. Suddenly, we heard rain thudding onto the beautiful hard courts! My first ranking tournament had come with a dramatic twist! Eventually, the rain stopped pouring and me and my pals had a hit on the wall to warm ourselves and the hard courts were getting dry. At last my name was called to play against someone called A.N. ( I will call them by their initials because of copyright issues 😁 ) By the time I was on the court the weather was super windy so the ball would just bounce really high or really low.
After both of us warmed the match began. My palms started sweating and butterflies fluttered in my stomach as I set up to serve the first game. It was easy! I started fantastically going up 4 – 0 I won the set 6 – 2. The second set was more challenging as he started playing more consistent. There was a big moment at 3 – 3, he was serving and I had breakpoint! My mind said: PLAY SAFE, PLAY SAFE but my gut said: PLAY AGGRESSIVE, PLAY AGGRESSIVE! I listened to my instinct, and played aggressive…
I won that rally! A.N gave me a short ball and bang!! I smashed it through for a wonderful winner. It was smooth sailing from there. I won the next 2 games and WON MY FIRST EVER RANKING MATCH. I jumped up and down and my friends were really excited for me as well! I learnt that by playing tactical and believing in yourself, you could do anything! “Don’t underestimate your self, you are more capable than you think” – Roger Federer.