Personal Narrative: A Career As A Tennis Player

I started playing tennis when I was about 12, not knowing much about the sport or how it would affect me. However, Tennis taught me how to succeed in everything else. Tennis forces me to accept responsibility for my actions and manage my mistakes. Tennis forces me to cope with pressure and adversity. I am forced to make thousands of crucial decisions in a small amount of time. Through high school varsity, I learned sportsmanship and the meaning of teamwork. Through coaching tennis over the summer, I have learned to advertise my skills and how to communicate better with kids and adults. I have enhanced my discipline, developed a work ethic and learned to compete.

A few years ago I was training to be professional tennis player at one of India’s top tennis academies. I had been playing tennis only for ten months when my tennis coach suggested I participate in the upcoming national level fastest serve tennis tournament. There was a fear in me, a fear of facing the more skilled, experienced, and accomplished competition, yet my mind wanted to overcome that fear and trust my coach and ten months of training. My coach had immense faith in my abilities to perform well, but being the underdog, I lacked the confidence to compete alongside top ranked players. As the tournament date grew closer, I found myself battling between two paths - give in to my fear and surrender any chance of winning, or escape my comfort

We were on a trip to a homeless shelter to become amateur tennis coaches for the children there. Once arriving, we were sent out to tennis courts with torn nets and dead tennis balls. We then divided the children into groups, assigning a “coach” per group.

The sport of tennis has taught me several life lessons that have translated into other areas of my life. Through the discipline of tennis I felt what it was like to love, be passionate, and be determined for a specific interest. Tennis also opened my eyes to a world I had not seen as a player. That was the, so-to-speak, “behind the curtain” scene. All of my hard work developing as a player not only came from the will within, but also the aid of others such as tennis foundations, non-profit programs, and many tennis mentors who held deeper purpose/meaning in the knowledge that they fortunately shared with me. With the experiences (uphill and downhill) the sport has provided me, I am now able to provide mentorship to other children with economic, racial, or

I’ve played tennis for four years, and I’m awful at it. I can’t run fast, I can’t slam the ball, and I have no sense of balance whatsoever, but I do know that if I really tried, I could be less mediocre. I’m naturally a perfectionist. There’s always a more perfect version to strive towards, but with tennis, I never felt any motivation to become better. I would never be good enough to play college tennis, I reasoned, so there was no reason for me to try so hard on something for which there is no reward to reap. Satisfied with my logic, I pleaded with my parents to let me drop tennis, and they absolutely refused, and instead putting me in more tournaments. Their backward way of thinking – a sort of “fear conditioning”, if you will – struck a

It was the first day of practice, August 10th, and I was waiting at the courts with the others at 7:55 waiting for to start. I started to talk to others and realized that there were a lot of other new bees to the sport. The coaches split us into new and returning players. Rachel and about 20 other people went with Coach Sullivan to the back courts. She went through the basics of what tennis is, the scoring and rules. We then hit around and I realized that I wasn’t the worst person on the courts and that I did actually like the sport. That day I went home and hit the tennis balls against the wall in my garage all

In the seventh grade, there were 12 girls on the cheer squad and I was the only one unable to execute a cartwheel. To be a stronger cheerleader, you must know some basic tumbling moves. Therefore, I set a long-term goal to learn how to do a cartwheel. Achieving this goal was not easy. As a team, we took tumbling lessons a couple nights a week. Because I did not have the same skill level as the other girls on the team, I also took private tumbling lessons. My instructor told me that one reason I was unable to perform a cartwheel was that I did not have enough upper body strength. Therefore, he developed an exercise routine for me that I could do at home to help me gain strength in my upper body. It took about three months of diligently

During tennis season my passion for learning to play tennis paid off. I had the opportunity to play singles in a tennis match. I told myself that the lessons I have taken will help me win. Unfortunately, I lost the first set of the match and was down to the last set. The match was really close, with every point back to back. I ended up losing the match and I was so upset. My teammates ran over to me and hugged me for playing the match. In the end, even though I did not win, I realized that I never gave up. Not only was playing a tennis match an accomplishment, but I proved to myself that winning is not all that

We have outdoor courts at the middle school and high school, but have no indoor courts. I wanted to improve my tennis game, and I knew that just playing with my mom every summer would not be enough to get me where I wanted to go. It was at that point, my mom enrolled me in the Ann Arbor Rec and Ed travel team tennis program. I began playing year round travel tennis in seventh grade. The distance to Ann Arbor was a hassle, and I complained many times about not being able to hang out with friends on the weekends because of tennis. But with time, I realized that the sacrifice was well worth it. Through more practice with higher level players, I developed more knowledge of the game and improved my skills faster. Every weekend I played tennis, I learned more about myself, and I grew in confidence. I was forced to play matches which I hated at first, but those matches were crucial to my future confidence. I started at Rec and Ed as a mediocre player, with little belief in myself or my game, but in time both became

Through the locker room window you stare. Just moments before you give everything you got. The lights have a soft glare on the floor while the shadow of the net is still. You look out to see the stands packed full of people and there you see that pride stands still. The music that you and your team gets pumped to starts. Your adrenal gland is pumping and that locker room door rushes open. For one moment everything is silent. The yelling, the cheering, the music, it all goes away and you have one moment to embrace it all.

In my high school career, I have participated in numerous extracurricular activities that enriched me and inspired me to make my life meaningful. One activity in particular that has influenced me significantly is tennis. Tennis has taught important lessons about discipline, time scheduling, and competition. By playing tennis, I have learned the importance of mastering the fundamentals before performing a task. For example, before I could play advanced top-spin shots, I had to master the flat shots.

“I think you’re a really good player, but I think you would be a better fit for varsity reserve this year.” “Is he serious? This can’t be real’ he’s joking.” He was not. I had just been cut from varsity tennis. Having played tennis since I was five and competed at two singles on varsity my freshman year, I had just assumed I would easily make varsity at my new school as a sophomore. However, I certainly paid the price for my hubris. I briefly considered quitting altogether, embarrassed. Taking time to reconsider my choices, I realized the importance of settling for varsity reserve. Taking it as a challenge, I evaluated my own game to determine the weaknesses which led to my being cut. Next year I would make the team.

People always say tennis is an ¨easy¨ sport. Well, I am here to say how truly terrible tennis rackets are.

The one event that changed my life forever was when my dad first took me to the tennis courts when I was only three years old. Tennis has always been my father’s passion and he wanted to pass that on to me. As every young toddler, I would watch cartoons and children's shows, but when my dad would get home, I would watch tennis with him and it was equally interesting to me, even at a very young age. My life has evolved around the experience I have gained from tennis and wouldn’t be the same without it. This one time that my dad took me to the tennis courts, even though it was such a simple action, has changed my future eternally and nothing would be the same if that had never happened.

I was twelve years old when I went to my first tennis lesson, and immediately I fell in love with a game that I was completely in control of how I preformed. The next fall, in sixth grade, I joined the middle school tennis team. Three years flew by, and soon I was in High School. I was a freshman when I played my first varsity tennis match. With each practice, each match; I began to love the game more and more. I played all doubles my freshman year, but when my sophomore year came around, singles caught my eye, and I decided to give it a shot. Both my seasons were successful, but when my junior season