One Year...

I just realized as I logged on to create this post that it's been a year since I started this BLOG. It's only fitting to reflect over the past year. So much has happened.

I have grown so much as a tennis player. This time last year, my league season ended with a valiant effort to move onto the state tournament. Our run was thwarted by the team that I played for this year, incidentally. As always at the end of the summer, I feel either burnt out or lost like you feel when the end of the school year comes around; you're happy, but at the same time, it's like what's next. There's a lull, you know.

I was pretty sure my NTRP rating was going to be bumped up because of how well I played and because of my team's success, but ratings don't come out until November and the uncertainty made me unsure of my next steps. At some point I committed to training and competing for national tournaments and I found myself training and working on my game.

The year has gone by so fast.

Last weekend, I competed both in Indianapolis for the Midwest Sectional Championships with my team and in Cincinnati for the Midwest Open Series Championship. I've talked about the events leading up to both so I won't recap everything, but when my team became state champions, I had a tough decision to make. All year, I had worked on my game, so I could be more competitive in the Midwest Open Series Tournaments so that I could qualify to play in the Cincy Championship. I qualified in doubles and only as an alternate in singles.

So, in 24 hours, I found out I was eligible to play both singles and doubles in Cincy and my team won States, sending us to Indy the same weekend. All summer my plan was to play Cincy if invited and play whatever matches I could in Indy, but as the weekend approached and I realized that my team was going with to Indy with 8 players (the minimum needed to compete and yes, I was one of the eight), Indy became more important.

Chances are, I will be bumped up again. And the makeup of my state championship team will change. Two weeks ago, Cincy was the once in a lifetime opportunity, but those tournaments will be there next year. And if I work as hard as I did this year, maybe next year, I can qualify outright. Next year, especially if I am bumped, it will be much harder to qualify for playoffs, let alone states and Sectionals. My team making it to Sectionals, as much as it was about the hard work we put in, was also in part of a lot of things going right for us and me. I had to leave a team full of friends, people I'd played with for a long time and who were always supportive of my tennis dreams. I had to play on a team who played on the west side of town which meant a lot more driving for me, more effort to play this year than last year. I had to trust my captain when she said that the team's goal was to make it to Nationals again.

I have played league tennis for years now, I can honestly say, the success we had is not easily repeatable. I have been on three teams going to Sectionals in ten years. Each of the three times I went, the captain approached me about joining the team and told me how the goal was to make it to Nationals. I can't say enough about the power of a plan and the success rate of a group when everyone buys into that plan. For me, the success rate is 100 percent. I have played on talented teams who fail to make playoffs solely because the team is not all on the same page.

At any cost, I bummed for a second about not being able to play singles in Cincy and about the possibility of not being able to play doubles there depending on the schedule of play for Indy.

Turns out, I was able to do both!

I played Friday and Saturday morning in Indy. After winning my Saturday morning match, I had to hit the road to Cincy even before my team was finished playing. I played one tough doubles match in Cincy before returning to Indy. Sunday morning, same routine. I played a match in Indy and had to hit the road again before knowing my team's results.

This weekend was the best of my life.

My team came up short in Indy. I came up short in Cincy.

Again, this was the best weekend of my life.

I learned a lot about my teammates in Indy. I haven't gotten to hang with them much this summer because I live on the west side and was always hurrying to get home after matches. But staying in the hotel with them, I realized...they are CRAZY!

It was like hanging with your family. (Or maybe it's just my family.) There are times when you are like, I am never hanging out with those people again, but then you get home and you're like, that was so much fun! I can't wait to do it again.

I got to find out which of my teammates drive like MANIACS (Hint: it's the same ones who ACT like maniacs!). I went grocery shopping with them. I now know who is crushing hard on Roddick and who is pretending to have a biracial love child with Cardboard Cutout Peyton Manning. I learned a few new Japanese words though none of them were curse words and that really doesn't do me any good. I was subjected to (or tortured by) a 15 minute discussion about the myth of refrigerating eggs which was reminiscent of my brother's month long debate on which was better Mortal Kombat or Street Fighters. (Can we just agree that this conversation is stupid?)

And I hoped they learned something about me...

Like, seriously, I hate when people get games on me, even in a 6-1, 6-3 victory. I drink Pepsi for medical reasons. And I am secure enough to wear three, four or five different colors to the tennis court.

I have no idea what is next for me, tennis-wise. I am exhausted! Last weekend was the fourth consecutive weekend of me playing three-plus matches in a weekend. I need a break, but I still have mxd doubles going on. We will see how far we can go with that team and then seriously, a break! Two weeks or more of not picking up a racquet at all!

Stay tuned,
KS