SE Michigan Champions

Serena stole my serve!

This weekend, my day and night teams competed for the right to advance to the state championships and my night team came out victorious!

My biggest challenge this weekend was getting up and being competitive for my 8 o'clock matches. I played six matches this weekend with three matches in the morning; Friday 8am, Saturday 9am and Sunday 8am!

BRUTAL!

Most of you know that I am the first to admit that I am not a competitive person in the morning. If you want to get together and rally back and forth, chit chat a bit, tell a few jokes at eight o'clock in the morning, I am your woman. My hockey friends joke about putting their "ugly" on before a game. Well, my "ugly" doesn't go on until noon, at least! There have been several matches that I have played where I've played the same woman in the morning and then again in the evening and the scores are totally different.

Knowing that I had early morning matches, I prepared for them the whole week preceding the district tournament. I woke up early and hit with a friend of mine at 8am everyday. On Friday, the morning of my first match, I got up at 5:15 and drove down to Plymouth-Canton HS courts, the site of the tournament. I made a quick stop by Panera Bread's drive-thru, so I could grab an egg and cheese sandwich and a regular Pepsi. (Seriously needed the caffeine.) I drove to Canton with my music blaring loud enough to wake everyone who lived between Clinton Twp and Canton and hit with Sue for an hour to get the blood flowing. I picked Sue to hit with because I always enjoy drilling her with the ball and I couldn't think of anyone else who would get me fired up to annihilate an opponent like Sue.

My first match was against a hard hitting lady that I managed to run over for the first four games. Then up 4-1, she began to come back and I began to fall asleep. I managed to win the first set 6-4. In the second set, I focused for four games and after the fifth, found myself up 4-1, but this time when I fell asleep, I would lose the second set. I managed to find the finish line in the third-set tiebreaker, but it wasn't easy.

So, I slayed the early morning dragon in match one. I was relieved, but also happy. It was a good first match. I wanted a match that wasn't a walk-over. I also wanted an opponent that could hit the ball and wasn't a pusher. I've gotten pretty good at beating pushers, which was a goal early this year, but it has also conditioned me to panic when I face a stronger opponent because I so rarely play someone who pounds the ball. Also, winning in a tie-breaker was a big confidence boost because it was the first match all year where I had to gather myself after losing a second set and focus on the winner-take-all set. And I prevailed.

The second big challenge for me was my fifth match where I knew I would face someone I'd lost to earlier in the summer. The loss was one of those where you don't even know what happened. Less than an hour after going down on the court, you find yourself coming back, barely winded and with most of the water you carried with you because you didn't exert enough energy to warrant hydrating. That loss bugged me the rest of the season, but when it became evident that I would face this woman again, I really began to worry. My team, always so supportive, gave me the choice of playing number one singles, which I have always done, or taking my chances at number two singles, where I wouldn't have to carry that mental baggage with me on the court. The morning of the match, when I was asked, "Number 1 or 2?" I said 1, but I had to force myself to say it quickly. I was committed to facing my fear.

I have never played a match where I was so focused. Every point, it was not about winning the point, but hitting the shot that I've hit a million times. Every time I hit the ball, I wanted to hit it with the same confidence that I hit that same shot in practice. No pressure, right?

But it worked. Before I knew it, the match was over. 6-2, 6-0. The results better than I could ever imagine!

Now my team is on to the state championships this coming weekend in Ann Arbor.

After taking Monday off to recuperate (six singles matches is NO JOKE), I hit this morning with Sue and I have a full week of tennis ahead of me.

Bring on States!

Stay tuned!

KS