I’d rather drink bin juice than enter the ladies’ singles tournament again.
I was beaten in the final for a 3rd year in a row. This time, by a twelve-year-old. Yes, she’s been playing for seven years vs my four years, and yes, I probably have a good 18 stone on her, which isn’t easy to lug around the court, but still, she’s 12…
I roared, I fist pumped, I sliced deep to her backhand, hoping to get a winner, only to discover the bastard ball came back, I could not get through this girl’s defences.
She has a bedtime, I have knee pain, and the only thing I served was existential despair.
In the weeks running up to the final everyone kept telling me how good this girl was. I played her in the semi-final last year and won, so I thought, ‘Yeah, well, I’ve gotten better too; how much better could she be?’ Turns out, a shit lot better.
See, twelve year olds don’t have day jobs, periods, or 35 years worth of mental bullshit to deal with on a daily basis, they have playdough and santa. So, she had the time and energy to improve significantly.
Although I lost, I feel like I won a moral victory because the day before last year’s final I was busy spiralling and binging on chocolate, but the day before this final I focused on having a good day with healthy food, breath work and all that bollocks.
So mentally, I was in a great place for the match (with the usual riddled anxiety, please, I’m not Buddha).
In the run-up to the finals day, I’d a few practice hits with some friends, and I asked another friend to help me warm up on the morning of the event, to which she replied that she’d already made a note in her diary in case I asked. Awwwwwww.
Oh, and another thing, this girl’s dad has been playing tennis for over 40 years, whereas my dad (big love for him) is a chain-smoking, sit-on-the-sofa-and-drink-wine-all-day kind of guy. I also don’t play for the county, she does, I also don’t have 1-2-1 coaching with a variety of coaches, she does.
What I’m basically saying is that, of course, she was going to win, and really, it was good of me to turn up.
I told myself that if I kept trying, if I lost weight (which I did after an awful bout of food poisoning two weeks before) and if I put my love life on hold to focus on tennis, that this year I would actually win and get my name on the board at the club.
Turns out that it doesn’t matter how fat you are, how colourful your love life is or how dedicated you are, if you ain’t got the right shots and choose to do a drop shot off a high ball then really you were never going to win.
Will I enter next year? Absolutely not. What a thorough waste of time and energy. I could’ve been overthinking, having spiralling meltdowns, or regurgitating my childhood trauma, but instead I was playing tennis and trying to get better, what was I thinking?!
Next year I will smugly watch someone else get thrashed by a child, happy in the knowledge that it isn’t me.