You step onto the court

Authors note: I wouldn't mind a bit of feedback regarding this and the next chapter. They are both about the game rather than relationships or sex etc and i feel like its hard to make them interesting if you don't know anything about the sport. If anyone has feedback about how they can be a little bit better written or anything please let me know. Thanks

You barely think as the warmup flies by, she wins the toss and tells you to serve first. You bounce the ball a couple of times before throwing it up and banging down every players' favourite serve to first court, flat serve down the tee. Of course she is waiting on it and lines up her backhand, tees off and you watch the ball come back just as hard down the line for a winner.

“Ah fuck, let’s hope that doesn’t happen too often. Probably a fluke.”

But it wasn’t, two more first serves and she just seems to be ready for them, they weren’t winners but they set the point up so she easily finishes it off. You can see her arrogant smile and decide to put a lot into the next point being down 0-40. Bang one of the hardest serves you have ever hit…. Middle of the net, second serve big kick serve out wide… just missed. 1 – 0.

“Oh shit, lost my first service game and didn’t even get a point,”

Her smile grates into your soul as she passes at the change of ends, saying nothing, arrogance pouring out of her. Fortunately for you since she is fairly short her serve isn’t strong. Looking to assert some dominance early in this game you step up and try to punish her weak serve.

"Fuuuuuuck,” You push it just long. 5 points in a row now. Next point instead of trying to step up and hit the return, you attempt to chip your backhand back and get into the point later, it comes off the racquet poorly and lands short. Scarlett see this and steps up to put away the easy winner but luckily for you in an attempt to make the shot perfect she pushes it slightly wide, only a couple of inches but its enough for your first point.

You sigh in relief, hopefully your poor start to this match is over. However in the next couple of points it turns out this was wishful thinking as you proceed to make 2 more unforced errors off her second serve, then get wrong footed as she puts away an easy short ball. 2- 0.

This is bad, you start to feel your palms get sweaty, your breathing sucks, your fitness is dreadful. Thankfully its only one set so the fact that you are out of shape shouldn't come into it. You pause for a second

“What do I even do to come back? If this keeps up the game will be over in 10 minutes and I’ll be the laughing stock of the campus in my fucking cowboy boots and whatever the fuck else this bitch makes me wear. Gah, I really wish I’d done some training in the last few months, my old coach would be laughing at me right now.”

And he definitely would, you can remember vividly playing him many times last year you just couldn’t beat the old bastard. You broke more than one racquet in those losses and it was all because you knew you were better than him, you made better contact with the ball, you seemed to place the ball better you were younger, fitter and his shoulder was wrecked but it never mattered despite all this advantage you always lost.

His words echoed in your head right now “Your I'm better I deserve to win_ _attitude is the reason you lose, you act like just because you hit the ball well I'm going to roll over and let you win, you need to learn how to win not just how to play tennis. If things aren’t working you need to change, you need to look at your opponent and start thinking about what works for them and what they don’t like. It’s not enough to just hit the ball better.”

“Well Sam,” you think desperately, “It’s about time I tried that.”