Runner Up Feels Like Winning

This past Saturday, I played in the South Reno Tennis Tournament at Bishop Manogue Catholic High School. It is part of the six singles tournaments that are played under the Sierra Junior Tennis Association. Since I am 15, I played in the 15 and under division. There were 8 players in the draw; thus, you had to win two matches in order to reach the final. All matches were played with a best of three sets scoring system. However, in lieu of a third set, a ten point tiebreaker would have to be played out.  

Being at the facility for almost seven hours, I have to say it was an extremely long day. Therefore, to change things up a little, in this article we will analyze my journey to being runner up in my first tournament of the season.

Arrival & Warm-Up

My day started at 5:30 in the morning when my mom came to wake me up. Now, I won’t lie, I was still kind of tired, but I felt excited for what lay ahead during my day. It had been almost seven months since I played a competitive singles match. I made sure my red Wilson tennis bag was ready, brushed my teeth, and blended up a smoothie for breakfast. If possible, I always try to put berries in it for the boost its natural sugars give you, as well as complex carbs to keep my gas tank fueled.

Once I got to the courts at 7:19, I went for a quick three minute light jog to loosen everything up and continued my warm up by doing some dynamic stretches. To increase the blood flow and prevent fatigue in my shoulders, a concrete routine of elastic band work did the job.

A few minutes later, I checked in with the tournament director, John. My high school teammate, Brennan, who was also playing that day, and I decided to get a last minute hit before they started to call up the matches. In my opinion, I would say the courts were quite fast, but had a normal bounce. Shortly after, my opponent and I headed onto court four, or perhaps known as the battlefield.

Grinding Until The End

As usual, we opened the can of fresh balls and started the match warm up. However, in some cases, players have a hard time understanding that you should already be warmed up before you head onto the court. Instead, the warm up with your opponent is the best time to analyze what their favorite shots are and look for their weaknesses. Unfortunately, my opponent did know about this customary habit.

The match started with me serving and actually getting broken in that same game. Being honest, I was not nervous, but just wasn’t hitting through the ball loosely and freely. I feel like I wasn’t having much intensity, having my heels on the ground, which made me struggle to get into a good position to hit my shots.

Not trusting my swings was also a big liability. I was keeping the same speed through contact, or in some cases even decelerating. On the other side of the net, my opponent kept changing the pace of the rallies with mid court low slices and limiting my options by charging the net frequently. I lost the first set 1-6.

Going into the second set, I told myself to go for my shots and add even more spin to my forehands. Every time I did so, the ball jumped up after the bounce and had him jammed. However, I would say the switches truly flipped when I was up 2-0. My opponent hit a few great shots and followed it with an amazing drop shot. I ran for it in time and finished the point with a counter drop shot winner. In fact, that was the first time I had a reaction, yelling a solid “come on!!”

From then on, my opponent started to get frustrated and I started to serve better, hitting about five or six aces in the entirety of the match. My balls were also landing deep, forcing lots of errors from him. As a result, I won the second 6-2 and took us to the 10 point tiebreaker.

At that point, I asked myself how badly I wanted to win and decided to let my opponent become the aggressor, while making sure to get my serve in. After recovering from a mini break in the early stages, I missed a backhand that had no reason to go down the line at 5-5. He took care of his serve points, making it 5-8.

In the end, I knew I could still win, so I just went for my serve and earned two free points. At 7-8, my opponent double faulted, followed by an error after a long baseline exchange. Thus, at 9-8, after missing my first serve, I spinned the second one in, having my opponent tap it into the net. It was the first time I had won a full singles match.

Mental Fortitude Breaks

After resting for about half an hour, I hopped onto court six to play the semifinals. My opponent was definitely a power player, hitting the felt out of the ball when he had the chance. Once again, I served first and got broken in the first game. This time I started with two double faults, fortunately these were the only two.

To add, I was hitting the ball great, placing it deep and keeping it out of his strike zone. Hitting lots of the ball long, I once again knew that keeping the rallies was the way to beat him. Getting him into a cross court backhand rally was also key, for I managed to then run around and start attacking with my forehand.

Unfortunately, this didn’t get me the break back, so when he was serving for the set at 4-5, I decided to maximimze my opportunities by stepping in on his second serve and following it into the net.  

Although volleys are not my forté, I decided to risk it and hope they payed dividends. Doing this and serving big put all of the pressure on the other side, causing me to go all the way and seal the opener 7-5.

Something that also really helped was taking the changeovers seriously. I had already been on the court for more than two hours that day, so I made sure to hydrate, take a bite out of my Trader Joe’s fruit wrap, and get into a calm state of mind.

In the second set, I knew that the first two games were important, since usually the player who lost the first goes out eager to get back into the match. Keeping the same game plan as before, I raced to a 3-0 lead, but then lost my concentration and thought I had basically won the match. The momentum switched completely, as my opponent maximized his chances on the forehand, while I made more errors and brought him back to 3-3.

Things got worse when I was down 15-40 and later saved a few more break points since the game extended to deuce. Being able to escape from that scare, my opponent also held, giving me a chance to get to 5-4. Having only two games till victory, my top priority was to get my first serve in and I started to play more aggressive.

In other words, I noticed that he would over hit the ball and miss when I injected more pace into my shots. To prove my point, facing match point, my opponent missed a backhand 2 feet long, which sealed me the match. It also meant I had made it to the final.

A Valuable Experience

Once I grabbed all of my things and celebrated with my parents, I knew that I would need an hour to rest up. My legs started feeling fatigued and I hadn’t eaten lunch. To fuel my gas tank up, my dad bought me a Santa Fe salad full of chicken, corn, tomatoes, and beans. It was a meal full of starch, which is any tennis player’s body’s favorite. I also made sure to stay hydrated. In fact, I drank six entire 16.9 ounce bottles of water during my time there.

At 12:30, our scheduled time, there was still no open court, so my opponent, Kiefer, and I talked about how great the rivalry between South Tahoe and Truckee will be this upcoming season. Since none of the matches finished, we were put on the far side, court 7. This was the most straight forward match of my day. I lost 0-6, 0-6 in forty minutes.

However, this was no suprise to me, but we still had some amazing baseline exchanges and points up at the net. The loss felt even better due to how relaxed we both were on court and the casual conversation we had on the changeovers.

Something I will say is that returning his high kick serves inside the court is the best way to take his advantage away and start the rally neutral. Furthermore, every time I hit a cross court backhand, he redirected it to my forehand, in search for a ball back to his heavy forehand. Hence, perhaps a switch in tactics can change things up a bit in future match ups.

Final Thoughts

Even though I lost in the final, there have only been a few times when I have felt happier. Although the tournament didn’t receive the medals in time, we still took a picture in front of the courts and sponsor banner. When they do ship it to me, it will feel even better around my neck than the fourth place regionals one I earned last year. Being the runner up in my first tournament of the season is a superb result. It really shows that all of my off season hard work has been paying off.

This was all thanks to my parents, who have invested so much time and money into this never ending passion of mine. It is only the beginning of my incredible season.