Walking onto the tennis courts beside the baseball field, I felt like a tennis player.
I asked the Otterbein Women's Tennis team's head coach Pat Anderson if I looked like a tennis player. "In this day and age, yeah," she said.
So, now I felt like a tennis player and I looked like a tennis player. The next logical step would be to play like a tennis player, right?
The drive from the Communication building to the tennis courts isn't a long one. But it's long enough for me to mentally prepare for the match. With Kanye West's "Flashing Lights" obnoxiously blaring, I realized that I had no chance.
Lianne Simeone is a senior from Shelby, Ohio. She is a three-year letter winner in Otterbein tennis. She, and the rest of the women's team, is playing lights out right now.
The women's tennis team has won their last five matches, all against Ohio Athletic Conference opponents. Their record is now 11-7 and 6-2 in conference.
Lianne had just defeated her last opponent, 6-0, 6-0. Needless to say, I was pretty intimidated. But, I'm a guy, and guys don't show intimidation. It's in our DNA, right next to the gene that gives men the inability to match clothes properly.
Game time rolls around and it is time to see how I stack up against Otterbein's best. Lianne serves first. Lofting the ball, she strikes a rocket of a serve screaming to my left-hand side.
Now, I'm right-handed, so I move my feet and get ready to backhand the ball. My form feels good. The connection feels even better. I follow through and look up at the ball flying back to the other side of the court.
The ball goes over the net. The ball goes over Lianne. The ball goes over the fence of the tennis courts, and into the baseball field. Soon I am down two games to nil and trying to figure out why I am not good at this game.
I realize that I am not a natural tennis player. I have played a game of organized tennis and the majority of my playing was for a grade. But seriously, I'm not this bad. William Hung's singing is more artful than my tennis.
On the other side of the net, however, the real art is being made. I know Lianne was taking it easy on me. But, sans pity, she runs me all over the court. That is, however, if I could manage to get the ball back over the net for her to hit.
I asked Lianne during our mid-match break about some technique. "Finish high and touch the sky," she tells me. It didn't help. The only thing "finishing high" did for me was aiding my ability to send more balls over the fence.
My attempt at a comeback is worse than Britney Spears'. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that I looked better, and I only had one camera person following me around.
I did win a couple of points via miracle, so my pride is still intact, albeit hanging on by a thread. It is safe to assume that not only did Lianne beat the crap out of me, she did it without even trying.
Otterbein athletics 1, me 0. No win this time.
I asked Lianne halfway through our match what my game needed. "You need a backhand [pause] and a volley," she said.
So I asked her what my game didn't need. "You can run." t&c;
