This fall I played on two teams. As I mentioned last post, I moved up to Division 2 in my Gate City league. That's the neighborhood team that I've been playing on for six years now. I was a little scared to make the move, but felt like it was the right time to go. I tried to mentally prepare myself for a higher level of competition, knowing I might get whooped sometimes.
Well, to my surprise and delight, I made a very smooth transition to my new team. I played a couple of times on court 5 with Angie. That's the lowest court on the team. Then the captain moved me up to play on court 4 with Kimmy. We had a great time playing together. I ended up winning eight of my nine matches! Yippee! AND, my only loss came on a week when the captain moved us to court 3 and we were totally out of our league. We did get whooped that day. I also subbed down to play in Division 3 twice and won both of those matches.
Our team also did awesome. We finished in third place out of sixteen teams. AND we beat both the first and second place teams this fall. So fun! We're hoping for first next year!
Felicia, Me, Maureen, Laura, Angie, Kimmy, Mary, and Stacey
Some of my teammates,
a great bunch of ladies.
I'm having fun getting to know them better.
I also played in a USTA 6.5 combo team. For combo teams, you play doubles and one partner is a 3.5 and the other is a 3.0--adding up to a total of 6.5 in your ratings. This was my first year as a 3.5, so I was now the higher ranked partner and again felt pressured. I wasn't sure how it was going to go. But we had some strong 3.0's on our team and it went so well! I went undefeated during the regular season. Our team won the daytime league and went to a playoff against the evening league to see which team could go to the State tournament. Unfortunately, it was on a Sunday, so I didn't participate. Our team lost the playoff in a super close match. However, the evening team couldn't get enough players to commit to playing in the State tournament, so our team got to go. Woo hoo! I'd never been to states with tennis and I had a fabulous time.
I don't usually get nervous when I play tennis, but I had butterflies in my stomach when we played at States. I won my first match in a tie break. That helped get the jitters out. In my second match, I played with our captain, Debbie. She is probably the strongest 3.0 on the team. We also went to tie break and came SO close to winning. We were up 9-7 in the tie break and I was serving. I thought we had it in the bag! But we made a couple of errors and ended up losing 11-13. Darn it! I still wish I could have a rematch against those ladies! I won my third and fourth matches pretty easily. Our team took second place in our flight, but we didn't have a good enough record to advance to the semifinals. I'm so glad I had the chance to go to states. Andrew was amazing to help out with the kids AND teach my seminary class while I was off playing with my friends. I'm very lucky to have such a supportive husband.
In the fall, state tournaments are held in Wilmington. Yippee! A beach trip!
Dinner at at yummy Italian place.
Brenda, me, Mary, Debbie, Vickie, Ann, Jennifer, and Lynette
Our view during lunch one day.
I could kick myself for not bringing a swimsuit.
The weather was SO gorgeous (in the 80's!) that I could've used it.
But I still talked my teammates into walking on the beach
with me after one of our matches.
This was a parasailer powered by a huge fan.
I'd never seen that before.
One morning I woke up early,
so headed down to the beach by myself
to watch the sunrise.
Oh, how I love the beach.
Me and Ann after winning our last match.
Before driving home, I made one last stop at the beach.
Such a great weekend.
So, between my teams and tournaments, I won NINETEEN matches this fall and only lost TWO. I will probably never have another season like that. I sure enjoyed it while it lasted. :)
Using a tennis term, I "Love" this!
ReplyDeleteTime to go pro! Way to go Andrea!
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