Pump up

A/note: Sorry guys full tennis chapter

The warm up goes quickly and after losing the toss you find yourself receiving. Being taller than most you prefer to serve but oh well you lost the toss so you have to deal with it. First point, you take your spot on the baseline and take a deep breath, The throws the ball up and its on, but only briefly, she starts the game with a big serve down the tee and catches the outside of the line. You do well to get a racket on it but that's about it. Second point, a nice sliding serve into the body cramps you up and you're **** to block the ball back short and she steps up and forces the error, pulling you wide on the forehand side. Third point you get a brief reprieve as she hits another good serve forcing you block another short ball back. Then she pushes the approach shot wide and loses the point. This however is the last point you get in this game, Scarlett not making the same mistake again and continuing to serve well, she closes the follow two points out with well placed winners.

“All good, she's serving well but I'm not phased.” you think to yourself as you head down the other end. Its still early and neither of you are interested in trying to play mental games with each other at this point, you grab a quick drink and walk to the other end.

First point, you hit a nice first serve but it seems to go directly into her hitting zone and she blasts a backhand return straight past you. You think you see a hint of a smile on her face as she walks to the other side. “She got lucky” you muse and immediately go for exactly the same thing again.

And in response she lines up another big backhand return but doesn't make as good contact with this serve as frames the ball into the net. You breathe a sigh of relief as that would not have been a good start. You relax a little after that point and while it is hard fought, you edge Scarlett out in a number of the rallies doing a lot of extra running in the process. 1-1, you take a deep breath and get ready to break her serve. 5 points later and a shitload more running you find yourself down 2-1. You walk to your seat and plonk yourself down at the change of ends. Something had changed since last time, it had only been a few weeks so its not like Scarlett had improved markedly and while she was playing well you just couldn't figure out what was happening.

You jumped up off your chair and resolved to make every effort to turn things around this next game. You take a little pace off your first serve and slice the serve out wide unfortunately she's waiting on this and she crunches your serve back across court for a winner. Things get worse from here as you go for too much the next point and push a forehand long. The next point you hit a double fault and set up three break points for Scarlett. Its only a single set so you know you cant fall behind early and you dig deep. You grind out the next two points saving two break points but unfortunately on the 3rd while you are winning the point she hits a low backhand that just collects the top of the next and trickles over. “Fuck,” 1 -3 this was bad, a break down and she was serving well.

“Oh sorry about that,” She throws out a weak apology, not meaning a word of it.

“Bitch,” you mutter under your breath as you walk towards first court.

“What is going on today, I'm playing shit, everything is going short and shes playing off her fucking tits. Come on Issy just dig deep, stop hitting the ball short and make her run.”

Your quick pep talk serves you well early in the next game, you try to step in on her serve and find some success with a couple of chip and charge points. A nice deep chip after stepping in on her serve takes a lot of time away and shes **** into rushed shots and overplays both of them. The problem with the chip and charge is, it's at best a change up. As soon as she gets wise to your new strategy her next serve slides into your body and tangles you up losing you the point. The following point she hits a nice wide kick serve out to second court stretching you wide and forcing the weak return which she puts away with ease.

Fuck there goes all the effort of the first two points. The 5th point is easily the longest point of the match so far, both of you understood how important winning this point is. If you won it would give you an opportunity to get back into the game but if she won it would pile the pressure on real hard. Both you are scrambling hard and both of you have tightened up to the point where neither wants to hit anything remotely risky. Until Scarlett decides shes had enough of it and lines up a big backhand down the line. For a second you think she's over hit it but then it drops late... Oh shit that's close. You give it a long and hard look, if the damn ball caught the line it could have only been with a single hair.

In the end you just weren't sure and while in a lot of situations you'd have just called it out, but giving your girlfriend a shit call on an important point would also have repercussions. You grit your teeth and **** out a “good shot”. She acknowledges it and you think for a second she gives you a knowing look but quickly turns around and returns to the baseline. You sigh and get ready to return. Unfortunately after losing a point like that you just don't recover well for the next one. She hits a nice serve down the tee on second court and you just don't get your feet in position in time. You make contact late and push the ball wide as a result.

“1-4, uh oh.” Your head is down and you're feeling it as you sit down at the change of ends. Unlike the last change Scarlett is staring directly at you from across the court. She knows shes in a commanding position and she's letting you feel it. You hold her gaze for a while before getting up and leaving before you fall into mind games even more.

You take another deep breath, you're in a tough spot but its not over. Just knuckle down and grind it out. First serve... Just long, second serve a safe kick serve to the backhand. Somehow she's already a metre inside the baseline taking your serve forcing the early aggression in the point. If you were winning you probably would have just ignored it but in your position you didn't have that luxury. Unfortunately this didn't lead to a particularly productive point for you. You spent a lot of time running just to slowly be hit off the court, she works you from side to side and puts away an easy short ball, 0-15. Second point, you hit a big first serve right into the body jamming her up and forcing a short ball, you line up an easy forehand and unfortunately go for a little too much and push it wide, 0-30.

“Fuck me you are playing shit!” you yell as you grip your racket tightly , your temper threatening to flare out of control.

Next point your anger culminates in you putting a lot of extra effort into your serve. Huge ace down the tee, she even moves to it but still can't get a racket on it, 15 – 30. Big point, you opt for a pretty safe change up, lining up a big kick serve wide to second court and serve volleying after it. You throw the ball up and make terrible contact with it, it comes off the racket poorly and dribbles down the tee, completely the opposite of where you intended, however when you look up you notice that for the first time this match Scarlett completely misread the play.

“That odd, I guess I'll take it.” You muse to yourself a little confused.

Unfortunately she doesn't make the same mistake again and the following two points she continues to step in on your serve move you side to side and eventually put away the short ball. At 1-5 you are beside yourself. Your head is down, shoulders are slumped as you make your way to step up to what is likely the last game of the match.

You roll your shoulders back as she gets ready to serve and decide to go down swinging. Her first serve comes down a fairly predictable flat serve down the tee, instead of just trying to **** the ball back into play you step forward and make good contact with the ball sending it back cross court forcing the error out of her as she struggles to counter this return aggression. Dismissing it you amble over to the second and hazard a guess she is going to try that sliding serve into your body shes been doing all match. As soon as she throws the ball up you take a large step to your left and ready the serve perfectly crunching it down the line even harder than the first point for a nice winner.

“Wow... where's this been all match” You wonder as you adjust your strings and get ready for the next serve. “You've been playing like a pussy the entire time so that's where.” you chastise yourself internally.

Unfortunately your surprise good form takes a break and you continue to slap the next two returns but put them both midway up the net. Despite your lack of success your 'fuck it' attitude continues and to a reasonable amount of success. Next point she misses a first serve and because she knows you are going after her she puts a little too much into her second serve and misses it. Break point she goes for a gusty flat serve out wide and misses it. Knowing that her second serve is coming you openly stand on the baseline with your racket back for a forehand, you are baiting her to try another serve out wide. She doesn't take the bait but that means she serves straight to the forehand you have ready, a few steps for footwork and you make pretty short work of her weak second serve, 2-5.

“Well would you look at that... doubled my score.” You waltz back to the chair only taking a quick swig of water before continuing on. You smiled as Scarlett sat down clearly trying to refocus after your aggressive and completely unexpected change of tactic.

Eventually she gets up and moves to the other end. You wouldn't say the break gave you time to refocus but at least you weren't angry anymore just resigned to the loss. You continue your 'don't give a fuck' mindset into your next service game. Apparently mixing serves up and just going for anything was actually really successful. You hit some slow as fuck first serves and out of nowhere hit some huge bombs on your second serve. After hitting you 3rd ace of the match off a massive flat second serve down the tee you actually hear an audible huff.

In the blink of an eye the score had turned around to 3-5. One more break and you were back in it. The happy go lucky style had served you well over the past 10 minutes so you felt like you should keep it going. Unfortunately Scarlett had other plans and decided to adjust her game. Instead of the big serves she had been going for she was changing it up to slice out wide to first court. This was annoying for two reasons. Firstly the extra spin made it difficult to just try to slap a winner as you needed a lot better footwork and positioning, secondly you hand to move in and take the ball early to **** the return back cross court if you chipped down the line you pretty much guaranteed yourself to be running for the rest of the point.

So against your strategy you decided to go with the safer option you still stepped in but you hit your forehand return back cross court. This in turn meant she kept the ball going back and the rally turned into something of a war of attrition. She pulled you out wide giving you an opportunity, you were well outside the singles court but tried for the big winner anyway. Unfortunately it was a little too ambitious and you miss 15-0.

“Maybe a little too aggressive”. Second point you feel a little more comfortable because you know her kick serve out wide is coming and this one you step up to and take it early. You deliberately get into a good position and move her from side to side, there are a few times where you could finish the point early but you want to make her suffer a bit so you prolong the point just to see her run more before finishing with a drop shot, she looks grumpy with you, 15-15. She goes back to her old reliable serve next point jamming you up again by serving at your body. Similarly to how things have gone in the past you just manage to block it back and she gets aggressive on the short ball. You just take a guess at where shes going to hit it and happen to pick right, you find yourself in the right place at the right time and take advantage of this opportunity and chip an easy winner into the open court, she looks downright livid at you, 15–30.

You can't help but smile a little as you move to the next side, you guess that due to her temper shes going to throw down a big flat serve down the tee so you decide to wait on it. Unfortunately you guess completely wrong and scramble as the familiar kick serve out wide comes down, you late reactions cause you to mishit the ball into the bottom of the net, 30-30. You exhale sadly and walk back over to first court. Next point you psych up for a big serve and are very surprised when she rolls over a slow serve and tries to come in behind it. Seeing this as an opportunity to give yourself a chance to put the game back on serve you step in and try to line up a big backhand down the line. Unfortunately you slightly mistime it and end up blasting it straight back at Scarlett's face. Time seems to slow down as you see her brain register this and panic appear on her face as she slowly tries to pull her head away. Luckily for her she just manages to pull her racket up in time and the ball makes contact with the frame of her racket before knocking the racket into her nose.

The worst part of all this is by some minor miracle the ball trickles back over the net giving her the point. So now you were down match point and you had a very grumpy girlfriend to contend with.

“Sorry, I didn't quite hit that where I wanted.” The scowl on her face suggests she doesn't believe you and in fairness you did hit it straight out of the middle, just not quite where you wanted.

You try to push this out of your mind and psych yourself up to defend against a match point. You pick the standard kick serve out wide but elect to take a safer approach and hit a backhand deep cross court. With that the pace is set, both players understanding the importance of the situation and neither player willing to do anything risky.

The rally gets to about 30 shots long and you being to get a little impatient. It was clear she was prepared to just rally you to **** to win this game and you weren't interested in that kind of tennis. She loops another shot deep to your backhand and instead of just moon balling it back you step around and open up the court with an off forehand. A nice deep shot pulls her wide and opens up the court. She gets there and hits a fairly weak backhand that works well because it just drops at your feet as you move in forcing you to hit an awkward half volley which just clears the net. You watch Scarlett sprint from where she is towards the falling ball. You take a second to admire just how hard her 3 layers of sports bra are working as she runs.

She barely makes it getting her racket under the ball and you get a good look at the trajectory, its going wide, shes done well to get there but just slightly overcooked it. You relax as you turn to watch the ball. It's going, it's going... then it just seems to hold up in the air and drop like a stone.

“Oh fuck,” You watch in horror as you realise you have misjudged it. You legs seem to feel like stone as you try to tell yourself to move. It doesn't matter at this point there's nothing you could do, you watch the ball bounce once...twice and that's it you lose.