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The stadium goes silent.
I lean forward; the anticipation kills you as your opponent bounces the ball on the court. Letty’s back is to us, so I can’t see her face. But once the ball stays in her hand, you know she’s ready. Tossing the ball into the air, her tennis racket moves toward the ball. The silence is deafening until the ball hits the racket, and she lets out a grunt at impact.
If Letty’s first serve isn’t deadly, that’s when you know she’ll start to doubt herself.
Barely, but it’s something.
She never misses a serve. The last time she missed one, she ended up losing the tournament.
The ball goes over the net, landing exactly in the intended square right on the line. Seeing the ball being hit with such brunt force leads it to bounce off rapidly, almost impossible for Olivia to catch. She throws herself toward it anyway, but her racket isn’t able to hit it by an inch. Olivia catches herself on her feet just barely.
Letty hit an ace.
Olivia couldn’t hit the ball in order to return it.
Claps sound around us, yet again.
“Fifteen-Love,” the chair umpire says into the microphone.
In every match, one player starts on the right and the other on the left. With each game out of the six, they switch from left to right so that the ball hits into one square out of the two right in front of the net.
Olivia looks worried, but it’s only the first game. She has five more to recuperate the set. The moment after an opponent hits an ace in their first serve, the mind games start trickling in. Olivia is probably already letting it get to her.
One of the ball kids throws a ball in Letty’s direction, and the silence consumes the crowd. It’s like this with every serve, their joy and then anticipation in stillness as the ball gets thrown into the player’s hand.
Letty serves the ball again. This time it hits in front of Olivia to return it. She hits it with as much force as she can before it lands in front of Letty. Letty hits it with grace in response and the green globe lands on the other side of where Olivia is standing. This time Olivia runs and hits it. But the ball catches her off guard; the only hope she has is to hit it. Maybe not with a brunt force, but at least she hasn’t lost the next fifteen points.
The ball lands close to the net, over enough to land inbound. Letty runs forward and hits it over again. Catching Olivia unprepared with the same serve she just returned in Letty’s direction.
It bounces twice.
“Thirty-Love.”
Olivia is putting up a fight. But I don’t know how far that’s going to take her when the exhaustion kicks in.
“You look like you’re about to burst,” Xavier says in the middle of all the cheers.
I shush him and he immediately backs off with his arms lifted up in defeat. That grin on his face was ever so present.
Letty serves again, just like the coin had decided a few minutes ago. Until she wins this game, she’s serving the whole time until the start of the next. They both have seven opportunities to gain points. By the looks of it, the game is going to end with five or six serves at the most.
Letty serves for the third time, her confidence heightening with every point. Olivia is able to hit the ball back with more speed than last time. Letty hits the ball in return, making it land in front of the single’s line.
Olivia has no ability to hit it back.
“Forty-love.”
Olivia’s head leans back in annoyance, and her eyes close. For a second, she appears to be in agony, which is precisely what Letty makes her opponents feel.
The point system in tennis at first seems bizarre. The first two points that are scored are given in intervals of fifteen for each player. The third point is ten points, and then the final game point has no precise value. It just means that you’ve won.
Opening her eyes, she squats down lightly in preparation for Letty’s next serve.
It feels as though thirty minutes have gone by, but it’s only been five.
Letty hits another vicious serve, but this time Olivia is prepared for it. The ball bounces right onto the strings of her racket. Her arms move backward and the grunt she lets out signals that all the power inside of her was forced into that shot. Doing exactly what Letty did last serve, the ball lands right in bound by the singles line.
“Forty-Fifteen,” the umpire says.
