10SNE1

That is a license plate one of my high school teachers told me about. Translation: "Tennis anyone?"

So I played a lot of tennis in high school, I mean a lot. I had to make up for the lost time, since I only began playing it in 8th grade. I did the whole lessons, tournaments, ladders, etc everything. My tennis pro was awesome. Gary, he looked exactly like the principal on Ferris Buhler's Day Off. Exactly. He always pushed me, but would take my smart ass mouth that I directed towards him. The only problem I had was I wasn't that competitive. I was one of Gary's best students, I just didn't care when I competed. This was evident in the tournaments I entered, where each time I lost in the first round...every time.

In high school I was a bit more competitive, especially in doubles. We won quite a few matches in doubles, a few less in singles. My coach though was absolutely worthless. He was fat, lazy, and never picked up a racket my whole career there. He was utterly worthless. But I made the best of it. My Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior year I made districts. One year at districts I was one win from state. Again I just couldn't win under pressure.

My senior year of high school I couldn't stand the coach anymore. I had been in several fights with him and thought enough was enough. Instead I asked the girls coach if I could be there manager. The girls coach was awesome, and I wanted to learn from him. He didn't know who I was, so first he I thought I was some perv, then learned who I was and made me an assistant coach instead. It was awesome. I learned a ton. I taught the girls. And I was called the "ass coach". What happened was I told a friend there was some nice ass on the team, so he started calling me the ass coach. One of our friends was on the team, and she heard him call me that. She assumed it was a shortening of assistant, so she told the whole team, and they started calling me the ass coach. Including the photo that is framed of the team and has on it, "To our #1 ass coach."

Also that year I went to Florida to tennis camp. I played next to Marcelo Rios, Jennifer Capriati, and Martina Hingis. It was great. Hingis even hit on me. Well not really, she did say hi to me, and I wasn't paying attention and just said, "hi" back not realizing the #1 lady in tennis just talked to me. What did suck there was the training. My pro "forgot" to tell me that it was rated UltraIntense by Tennis magazine. I hated him for it. As soon as I got back before I could say anything he was laughing at me. I was also the only public school kid there. There was one other private school kid, the rest were boarding school kids...I didn't even know those still existed.

In college my tennis career took a major hit. I tried out for the team, but could only give 60% at try-outs. Turns out the reason why was because I needed surgery on both my ankles. That made me give up tennis until now.

And now the reason for this post. I wanted to get back into tennis. I basically hadn't played in about 7 years. I played off and on in college, but never continuous and never against anyone my level. I decided to join a United States Tennis Association(USTA) league. The USTA rank people to determine what league to play in. The highest is 7.0, think Roger Federer or Andy Roddick. It goes down to like 2.0 someone who has never really played before. At my peak in high school I was probably a 5.0 (maybe a little higher). Now since I hadn't played in so long I didn't know what league to sign up for, so I signed up for a 3.0 league.

We have had 2 practices so far. I have dominated in both. I lost my first set the first practice, but after that I was awesome. It felt so good to swing the racket again. I wasn't sure how good I would do, or what I would remember. My serve has always been my best shot and in both practices I not only had aces, I also manage to leave welts on two different guys...they should have moved or swung their racket. I am assuming I will be moved up to 3.5 as soon as I start playing, which will probably be good.

The best feeling was today when a new guy came to our team. Most of the team is 40-50 year olds, but today a kid my age came to practice. He for some reason brought his girlfriend to sit in the car the full hour and just watch. I thought that was kind of weird, but she was a nice distraction because she was pretty hot. This was one of those kids who had a good serve, decent ground strokes, and thought he would dominate who ever he played. I think he brought his girlfriend to watch him do that, kind of show her how good he is. Well that didn't work, and if this was an 80's movie I would totally have taken the girl home with me. I destroyed him. No, that isn't strong enough, I guess humiliated him. I won the set 6-2. I was up 4-0 at one point. I guess if law school has taught me anything, it is how to be competitive and to finish off an opponent.

Game, Set, Match.