The First Hurdle

After a frantic two days of last minute training in preparation for the MBPJ Tennis Open, the big day was finally upon me. I was nervous as usual as I have never won a tennis match outside of Malacca so i was heaping pressure on myself as I wanted to end my days as a junior tennis player on a high.

I was drawn to play Zuilairi Sudiro, the first time I saw him i thought it would be another premature ending to my tournament. He was lean, muscular and athletic and there I was, being myself. After reporting to the tournament desk, we headed to our assigned court to begin our warm up and then the match. During the warm up I got my first glimpse of my opponents game. He had powerful ground strokes and quite a menacing volley on him. I on the other hand seemed so ordinary compared to his strokes.

The match begins, I raced to a 3-0 lead to my surprise. HAHA. Then in the fourth game my opponent made a dubious line call and I lost my cool for a while leading to him winning a few games and at the change of ends although I was still in the lead my confidence was shattered. So with the score at 5-3 in my favor in stepped up to serve for the set. I quickly won the first two points racing to a 30-0 lead before being pegged back to 30 all. Then of anunforced error from my opponent I was handed set point. I served for the set, he returned the serve and moved in on the net, but i was up to the task, I hit a passing shot and won the set to my delight.

In the 2nd set I began really sluggishly slumping to a 0-3 deficit. I then told myself that i had won the 1st set and I had the upper hand. I then began playing my game, hitting those ground strokes so familiar to me in the training ground and before i knew it I was leading 5-3. Obviously deflated, my opponent steeped up to serve to stay in the set, however i comfortably broke his serve to win the match to my delight.