The Will to Keep Fighting

by Jonathan
(British Columbia, Canada)

Hey everyone, my name is Jonathan. This is a match I had a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to share with everyone. It was me vs my dad and we play tennis up to 10 games with a difference of 2.

The match started off well. I had a 4-1 lead over him and I was playing some good tennis. We then got to a score of 6-3, and my concentration dropped. My dad took full advantage of this to create an 8-7 lead. I felt like it was basically over (by this time we had been playing for well over an hour since our games take a long time to finish) as I was physically, and mentally tired. I thought that since he came back, and he was dominating play, that I was doomed to lose.

At the start of the next game, something sparked in me. A little voice told me "keep fighting, there's no reason to ever give in", and I listened to it. I evened to 8-8. Then my dad struck back with some amazing serving, and made it 9-8. He had a match point in this game, but I continued battling, and somehow I made it 9-9. I was astonished, because I played through a match point without choking or giving up. I then felt determined to close out this match.

The next game, I took to make it 10-9. Now it was my turn with a match point. But alas, it wasn't meant to be as my dad countered with great tennis as well (its strange, the more tired we get, the more brilliant rallies we were producing). We got to 10-10. We kept playing brilliantly, sometimes breaking each others serve until we were at 15-15, him serving.

This was the point where he rose above, and took his game to the next level to win 16-15. I was really nervous at this point but I still listened to the voice in my head and kept battling. Unfortunately, this wasn't working too well and he had triple match point on me (two of those points were from a net cord, so I was unhappy with that).

At this point, it looked like he would win, until some great serving, and a ripped forehand on the line, saved me from losing the game. We were now at 16-16, and the sun was going down. We were both physically, and mentally exhausted and so we called it a day, and both congratulated the other, for the efforts in the match. In the end, we both came out as winners for refusing to give up.

What you can take from this match, is learning that never giving up, is one of the most vital aspects of tennis. If you give up, you are handing the match to your opponent.

The reason I stayed in the match, was due to my determination to keep fighting till the last point and playing like every point was match point. I also learned, that I need to greatly improve my mental game, because I lost a lead of 6-3 (which happens in sports, but seems to be happening to me often now) and I need to work on playing great on break points/match points because I had a couple of these, but fell short the vast majority of the time.

Overall, I played great, but mentally I need to work on to play better tennis. Perhaps when I save up enough money (having just bought a new racquet) I'll purchase the Mental Manual for Tennis Winners to improve this aspect of my game that needs help =).

Thank you for reading my story!