Free Post 3.4.12

Tennis

  Now that I look back on my life from the time I was little to now the game of tennis has always consistently been apart of it. My mom, MJ, played tennis in high school and then went to college, got a job, and just had no time for it. After I was born MJ decided to join a night team at our pool club of the time and take lesson with a tennis pro as well. She always tells me when I lose a high school match or lose a match I play against her that whenever she first started back up again after my birth that she was losing straight sets. She couldn't even win one point! But now fifteen years later she's on three teams and has practice three times a week and once on the weekend. She really has inspired me to do well in this sport because it's always been something she's want me to get into, but I never really had until just recently.

  When I was in fourth grade I was playing competitive soccer which was practice three times a week, games every Saturday morning at eight, and almost every other weekend was a tournament in a random city in North Louisiana. I truly had a love hate relationship with soccer and seriously considered quitting so my mom asked me if I'd like to try tennis, so I gave it a shot. I could not do it with soccer going on at the same time, it was physically impossible. I was so exhausted I couldn't do my homework and I'd either be late to soccer or late to tennis and either way my coaches would punish me. I decided I had to pick one and picked soccer. I don't regret picking soccer but in a way I do because I was really good and on the best team in the state ,which it still is today, but I couldn't give up soccer for something I wasn't so completely ready to dive head into. I regret giving it up because two and a half years later I quit soccer which I will always regret. I moved on to cheerleading then ballet then soccer again at school for the next two years. 

  But in between my mixture of activities where I kept trying to choose my mom and I had decided at the end of 2011 school year that I would play tennis for EHS. I spent my whole summer out on tennis courts twice a week, every week at nine am with the St.Michael's tennis team. I was awful compared all of the St.Michael's kids that have been playing since they could hold a racket! I would cry in the car because I was so hard on myself for not being as good as them. Which now that I look back on it was a waste of tears because for just getting back into a sport I never really got that into I was giving myself no credit. By the end of the summer camp I was keeping up with the St.Michael kids. I was better, not good enough but better. After the summer I didn't really play that much tennis besides a few lessons with my pro Johnny here and there until off-season came at school. Off-season really helped me get some more experience with playing people that were on my level of tennis technique unlike at the St.Michael's camp where I was easily going to get beat without a doubt in anyone's mind.

Summer time tennis <3 can't wait

  Tennis has slowly but surely crept it's way back into my life and I am loving it. I really wouldn't mind going to college for tennis even though I would have to work so hard to get there, if I tried hard enough I know I could. I've always done sports that my parents have supported but but my mom has never wanted anything more than to see me play and successfully play tennis.  I now play doubles on the EHS Gold team with Victoria H. I'm actually pretty good and my mom and Johnny are so proud of me. My goal for next year is to successfully play singles for gold or blue team! I hope to be as good as my really close friend and tennis sister, Megan E. I used to dread going to soccer, dance, cheer, and even tennis (during the summer) but now I can't wait to get out on the courts any chance I get. I think about tennis when I wake up and when I got to sleep, I look up pictures of tennis players, I think about tennis matches during classes (except for Dr.D's of course!), I think about what kind of points I can make during practice that afternoon and who'll be my partner for Queen of the Court, and I watch ancient matches on YouTube just to see amazing rallies and points by the textbook greats. I haven't felt like this about a sport in a while and I'm loving it.