My First Tournament
by Tom Russell (9 years old)
(New Zealand- Southland.)
Once i was in a tennis tournement a reasonably big one.
My game was on at 1 hour but; oops i had come waaaaay to early but instead of leaving to courts i stayed observing other players technique and hits while i was waiting for my game.
Lots of players in the under 10's tennis games were very good. My first singles game had arrived and I plazyed the 3rd seed.
I tried to remain calm but i couldent stand knowing i was playing an experienced player. Anyway the game started my serve...
I tried to remember what my coach told me -
1.Straight high arm hitting the ball on an angled downwards shot,
2.Keep the ball toss HIGH,
3.ummm ill just make one up here ahhhh lets see ''CONCENTRATE''
Well i served not too fast paced but pretty good for a 9 year old. I was excpecting a hard placed shot back but instead it was a extreme topspin and very good placing to me but the werid thing was it wasn't fast but still he got me every single time well not every one but you know what i mean.
In the ending games i tried harder and started getting loads more points score 6-0 to my opponent i was losing but i had some very good rallys with them and i had won a few all right!
Anyway at the end when it was match point for him he did a big skyte shot because he wanted to try and look reallllly good at tennis.
Anyway game over i lost and he won.
Second game EASY i won 7-3 against a kid who hit the ball really high all the time so i got a fair bit of practising my overhead smash.
Anyway my next game against 4th seed i lost i could tell they used there best tennis against me and 7-0 to them still we had some fast powerful on going rallys in the game.
Since i lost that game it was the end for my singles but i got more games than loads of other compeditors. Anyway doubles with a reasonably good kid we lost 7-3 and yeah thats about all.
So all i was going to say that that was my first tournement. Also im 9 years old.
