Tennis Court Match Narrative

In order to establish exigence, Hogan relays his personal experiences about his times playing tennis to the reader. The author makes it clear that, in the words of the colonel, “Tennis is the one game that, once you learn it, you will be able to play for the rest of your life.” As a result, Hogan reveals how he played it every year of his life since he was first introduced to the game (Hogan,106). In his narrative, the author tells the reader that, with the help of the Colonel, tennis helped him find focus and a way to relax. Because he was not the best at the sport, the author was able to learn to be happy not by being the number one player on the tennis courts, but instead finding joy in the magnitude of his skill. Hogan tells the reader that even though the sport has changed since he first started playing, from a rich man's sport to a competitive

While my athleticism developed, I neglected honing my mental strength, leading me to not achieve my potential during matches. Allowing my mind to dictate my emotions rather than produce strategies led to frequent defeats. However, with motivational tales recounted by my coach and plenty of work on my part, I gained the ability to focus and rise up to become a nationally competitive tennis player.

On the afternoon of August 8th, 2016 a young girl was facing the tennis match of her life. The Girls 14s Nationals were coming to a close and the championship trophy was only 3 games and 1 set away. Everything she had dreamed for was so close, yet so far. The extremely sunny sky glared into her eyes, making it impossible to think. But she couldn’t lose hope now, if she won this match, she would be crowned the Girls 14s Nationals Champion for Tennis. All she had to do was clutch this game. Just a few more points…

As I first joined the Prince George’s Tennis and Education Foundation tennis team, I was extremely pleased with the environment. I was met with friendly individuals and warm personalities from my peers and coaches alike. The coaches were exceptionally supportive, and I maintained a healthy, competitive relationship with my peers. Athletically, the PGTEF coaches were devoted to assisting the members of the team in comprehending

“Oh no, please don’t tell me this is happening. Mom, can I just skip this tournament?” I pleaded, “There is absolutely no hope for me.” Being the dramatic person I am, I lamented the imminent end of my tennis career. I went into the tournament with an expectation of failure. I started the match by accidentally whacking the ball over the fence, tripping on my own feet rushing to end the point. The little confidence I had when going into the match dissipated within a few minutes. I continued the match pondering how to angle my racket to put spin on the ball. Every time I failed, I blamed it on the high skill level of my opponent. Unsurprisingly, I lost in an hour. When looking back on that match, I realized that it could have gone differently had I not brought myself down before. My lack of

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

My journey on my high school tennis team has been a peculiar one. Going into my freshman year I was touted as one the stellar players, one who was on the path straight to varsity. Unfortunately, I tore one of the ligaments in my right wrist and was sidelined for the months right before the tennis season. Going into my season, my confidence was low, I was worried about making the junior varsity team. I would end up making JV but not varsity. The next year I was back with more determination. Injury free, I had high expectations but lacked confidence. As I entered try-outs, I was shocked. My teammates were waiting for me. Each one of them came up to me and told me that they knew I was going to play this year, and that I was going to live up to

With the start of the second set, my outlook became slightly more positive. Though my newfound optimism allowed my frustration to subside, I was still unable to close the points. At the first switchover, I found myself down 3-1. Words of wisdom from my trainers were playing on a loop in my thoughts. Pivot, step into the shot, attack the net. I used these thoughts to maintain composure as I gained my first lead at 4-3. Being just two points away, I could almost taste the victory. I took the court with the most confidence in my shots that I had felt the entire match. However, my confidence was not enough to gain the set. Falling to 4-5, I was unsure of what approach to take to keep the set alive. One game was enough to change the outcome of the entire match.

With about 30 minutes of a quick break Coach Gad gathered us into the hallway for a congratulations and another motivation speech. From what I can remember of the speech it had a lot to do with how everyone doubted us and no one believed we could make this far. After hearing this I and probably everyone else got this huge spark of fire ready to win the championships. As we made our way back to the gym the buzzer buzzed and the game was about to begin. The team we were playing was Marlboro one thing everyone knew about this team was the had this star player named Grace who basically was the whole team. Every set was basically for her for her and every dig she seemed to get. Knowing this made ourselves play smart and try our hardest not to spike the ball to her. We were serving first Alyssa gave a beautiful float serve that Grace passed and spiked which gave Marlboro the first point. Losing the first point didn’t break our confidence, throughout the entire set the points were coincidently going back and forth. A key play in the first set was when Grace was approaching for a spike Megan roofed her. Everyone who was cheering for us went crazy you could feel the floor shaking from our screams. Even with our enthusiasm Marlboro was determined to win the first set 25 to

Noreen was inspired to start playing herself, by watching her brother from the sidelines. Although she discovered tennis at a very young age, she did not start playing, until she was ten. Noreen was preoccupied with dance and other activities, and never got around to actually playing herself. Noreen began training recreationally but soon started playing at some academies. This year, she entered into high school and joined the Piedmont High varsity tennis team. From being a part of a supportive team, with amazing coaches, Noreen has learned a lot from her teammates along with exposure to many remarkable experiences. With an abundance of wonderful role models from her team surrounding her, she is inspired to constantly try her best and to appreciate tennis. She aspires to be more competitive when it comes to playing, and to progress in improving her playing overall. Her hope is to never lose her passion for the sport and to continue playing it throughout her

My ascent to the Baylor Men’s Tennis Team is a story of using relentless hard work to accomplish a goal that seemed like a long shot

As a member of the Varsity tennis team, I am no stranger to facing what seem to be impossible odds. Being a singles player, during a match it is all on me to figure out what is going wrong and make the adjustments to fix it. Halfway through a match, I found myself down one set to none against the seventh ranked team in the state. The break in between sets is time to reflect on the same thus far, and to think about what you are doing right and what you aren’t doing so well. At this point in the game, I was down on myself and I couldn’t get anything in my arsenal of shots going. Instead of continuing to try to hit shots that I hadn’t hit all game, I decided to go back to the basics and try to gain some confidence in my shots. My main goal was

Yet again, I had to fight hard to beat one of my toughest opponents, Navratilova. In 1975, I won my first Grand Slam Title and I went on to win in the next four years, consecutively. One strategy I took to win a Grand Slam title was to shoot for the lines…. “I felt hungry to win...when the chips were down, I went for passing shots and I made them. I hit the lines.” Although tennis was my passion and I loved it very much, I had hard decisions to

All eventually-successful tennis players know the difference between a good and a bad loss. Each year, they set the ludicrous goal of beating a seemingly infinite number of equally determined people. They aren’t looking for opportunities to win, they are looking for the select few people who can beat them. Resist as they may, at some point, a more experienced player will get the better of them. Faced with this inevitable failure, they do what any successful person would, they learn. A loss reveals more about the chinks in a warrior’s chainmail and the stutters in a programmer’s code than a win could ever

That afternoon after losing the spelling bee, KG went to the tennis court with his dad. At the court he found Justin to play tennis with. Justin was a college player who was about 22 years old and was one of the best tennis players in town. KG had hit with Justin a number of times before, but they had never played anything competitive against each other. As KG and Justin were warming up and rallying back and forth, KG’s dad suggested that they should play some games against each other to see how much KG has improved over the past couple of weeks. So KG and Justin decided to play a match. KG was feeling a bit shaky and nervous in the beginning while Justin was very confident he would win. But as KG started to win he started to trust himself in making the right shot at the right moment. In the end, KG