Ashes

February 27, 2016

We tennised until we could no longer see the ball. Singles, doubles; mini tennis, champs of the court; volleys, groundstrokes; whiffs, aces.

I hadn't touched a tennis racket since the season ended in October. Plans made on a gorgeous Saturday a few weeks ago failed because of how spontaneous and last-minute they were. Zac called me at 5pm and we stepped onto the Deerpath courts at 5:10pm. One court was already taken over but from a distance, I could make out the profile of Max and Teddy, along with two others that were unrecognizable from far away. Zac and I hit a few minutes of mini tennis on a court adjacent to the court that the four other high schoolers are playing on and after those few minutes of disaster because neither of us have played tennis since October, we set up a game of Champs of the Court with Max, Bevin, Nick, and Teddy (first two and last two are each a doubles team, Zac and I were the third).

The other four have been practicing, some for perhaps a few weeks and others for months. Guys tennis is also way different from girls tennis. I was terrified standing up at the net because of all of those reasons, but also because my volleys are nonexistent because I haven't been playing tennis for a long time.

But there's something about the atmosphere in guys tennis, the conversations and humor and goofing off when playing with guys, that makes it so much fun. Teddy told me several times that I should be a manager for the guys team, which would would be fun, but that's such a huge time commitment, and I think Weronika and Sydney are already managers. Which for tennis is a vestigial role. IHSA rules for tennis (both guys and girls) state that managers can't hit tennis balls with tennis rackets...so what else would managers do? Tennis is a pretty low-maintenance sport (our school's tennis team has survived without managers for a good 6 years or more). However, having Max and Alex this year was pretty convenient not only because they helped pick up tennis balls and fed us tennis balls by underhand throws, but also because it was good to have more pairs of eyes watching during matches. We only have one Coach Gerber and one Coach K, but having two extra people to watch and help call one of the coaches over when they think we need some advice is helpful.

For an hour, jokes were cracked, awful puns with song titles/lyrics were made, and savage banter was tossed around. Oh yeah, and tennis balls were hit, champs were crowned and dethroned, and all of us realized we have a long way to go if we want to get good again.

As the sun set, it became increasingly harder to see the neon yellow balls. Groundstrokes were scarier and lobes became even more terrifying because no one knew where the ball was. We finally called it quits at 6:20 when the lighting became so ashy and dim and Teddy had to leave.

Ashes are what remain after a dazzling fire burns and burns until it can no longer blaze any longer.