Missing out
At the beginning of this month I was faced with quite a difficult decision ahead of me. My coach wanted me to train a lot more and therefore miss cricket as well as the lesson I already miss: Design Technology, Latin, Art and Rugby the previous term. This was because I had got to the stage in the development of my tennis game that intensive physical training was needed to improve my strength, agility and core stability.
This was on top of the half an hour of stretching and core stability a day I do by myself to try and improve my tennis ability. However it was not enough at the stage in my career that I was at. The decision I was going to have to make was whether I would play cricket or not. This was not an easy decision for me seeing as cricket was my second favourite sport after tennis of course. Eventually I decided on giving up cricket. I felt quite content with myself after the decision; then again there were a few doubts in my mind. I already got an ear full from my school pals about skipping a large section of work to play tennis and it is not easy for me to miss out, because it means I get left out and discarded from recent events.
Then on the first day of the summer term the school told me that for this year I would not be able to miss cricket. I felt quite disappointed in a way because I had got my whole mindset that I would be able to go that extra mile with my tennis but then I looked on the bright side to the school’s decision: I would play cricket, I would be mixing with my friends and I would not be unhappy. I was still disappointed in the decision though and I was unhappy I was being held back from doing something I wanted to do.
At the end of the month in my half term holiday I played in the Park Langley Junior Open, a Sunday Telegraph Grand Prix Grade 3 tournament. I was hoping to do well there were only handful of players that had better rankings as me and as the week passed on some of those players crashed out of the tournament. So by the Thursday when I played my match against a boy in the last sixteen I felt certain I could reach the semis or even the final. I had played him twice before winning one and losing one. I felt confident, strong, fit with no injuries and ready for war. In the first set I went 3-1 up with a break however then plummeted playing the worst tennis I had played in a long time and lost the first set 6-3. The rest of the match went the same way and my opponent giving nothing away. My head went down and I lost the match 6-3, 6-3.
My coach Rafa was fine with my performance as we hadn’t been specifically getting me ready for competition. I felt down, despondent and miserable as the boy went on to the semi-final. I had ended the month on a low and had to face the questions from all my school friends about how I had done when I went back to school.