The Mighty Mite

Dear Boo and Bubble,

I found myself in a heated tennis match yesterday. One of the men in our daily group here in Mt. Dora challenged me to a set of singles. Even though he was younger and.......yes.....a male, I found myself unable to say “no,” which is probably what I should have done. That's not in my DNA, however. Over the next hour and a half, we battled back and forth, serving lots of deuce points and breaking each others' serves until the score reached 6-all. We started a 7-point tiebreaker only to continue the seesaw battle through 8-all. Finally, I broke his serve and won mine for a victory at 10-8. Honestly, I was lucky it stopped there.....much longer and my old knees might not have lasted.

As you know, tennis has been a big part of my life. You probably remember me telling you that, when I was just a little girl (before Uncle Gene was born), Granddaddy sat Uncle Bryant and me down to say “Children, there are three things we can not afford – allergies, braces and golf.” At which point, he gave us wooden tennis rackets encased in braces to keep them from warping....... along with the promise that, if used properly, they would provide us a lifetime of frugal enjoyment.

Many things have changed over the years – the equipment, shoes, clothes and, unfortunately, the cost. But, the game itself has remained steadfast in Granddaddy's forecast of its pleasure. In many ways, I find it metaphorical to life itself depending upon the circumstances. Sometimes there are struggles very much like the match yesterday when it took every ounce of concentration and stamina I had just to stay on the court. Sometimes you play your very best and still lose; sometimes you're bad and win. Sometimes you think it will never end; sometimes you don't want it to. Sometimes the ball tips the net and goes over; sometimes it falls back. And then, sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time and you win through no effort of your own.

When I was twelve years old, I entered the Greenville County Parks and Recreation tennis tournament being held at the courts in the old Cleveland Park right next to the roller skating rink in downtown Greenville. The tournament was bracketed by age group with mine being the “Mite” division for players 12 to 13. The winner and runner-up in each division would go on to represent Greenville in the regional Parks and Recreation tournament in Greenwood. Winners there would continue on to the state championships in Belton.

When time came for the tournament to start, I showed up and checked to see who my competitors might be. Alas, there was only one other girl signed up in my group. The organizers told us to go ahead and play a match, even though we would both automatically be going to Greenwood. We did and I won.

As luck would have it, when we arrived in Greenwood a couple of weeks later, we were once again the only players in the girls' Mite Division. We were told that there was no need for us to play a match since both of us would move on to Belton. For administrative purposes, though, they determined me the winner since I had prevailed in Greenville.

Two weeks later, we arrived in Belton to find out that there were four girls to compete for the state title which meant we were actually going to have to play tennis this time – but not against each other. The first matches were in the morning. I won mine, but my compatriot lost hers.

That afternoon, I found myself poised to vie for the title of South Carolina Parks and Recreation Mite Division State Champion, having only achieved victory in two prior matches to do so. Nonetheless, my stomach churned with the ruthless nerves that accompany such an auspicious occasion. I arrived at the appointed court and met my opponent. We took to our sides to begin the warmup.

As I stroked a forehand to her, she swatted at the ball and the racquet promptly fell from her hand to the ground.

“Hmmm.....” I thought to myself. “That's interesting.”

I hit another ball to her. The same thing happened, making it less likely that the first occurrence was a fluke. After two or three more attempts, she called me up to the net.

“I want to ask you something,” she said, “and, I need your honest opinion.”

“Sure,” I responded, not really sure at all.

“If you were me, would you play with blisters like these?”

At which point, she opened up her racket hand to reveal a series of blisters across the base of her fingers and on her palm that almost snarled at me they were so nasty. They were the result of her morning match where somehow she had prevailed against the other girl from Greenville.

I found myself at the ripe old age of 12 in a moral quandary – if I told her not to play, I'd be handing myself the title. If I told her to play, and I won, I would have taken advantage of her. (Sort of on the periphery of this quandary was the prospect of advising her to play and then losing to her and having to live with that consequence for the rest of my life – but, that was only on the periphery.)

Finally, I determined it would be more humane to suggest that she forfeit - which I did - and she did - and thus, in the course of probably a total of three hours' cumulative playing time (at the most), I became the Mite Champion in Girls' Tennis for the great state of South Carolina.

Yes, boys, sometimes in life as in tennis, victory can just fall in your lap – but, I certainly wouldn't count on it happening very often. It's much better to prepare and practice so when an opportunity comes along, you can take advantage of it.