The way that I got interested in tennis was because when I was in middle school I started playing for fun with my family. During that time of playing for fun, I was playing another sport which was volleyball because in middle school there wasn’t a tennis team. When I got into my last year at the middle school which was 8th grade year I told my parents that I was done playing volleyball and I wanted to play tennis when I got into high school because I knew that’s what would make me happy.

The summer before freshman year I started playing tennis more and more. During the time of playing over the summer, there were different things that the school team was doing to where you could work on different things to improve a skill. I also started taking lessons over the summer to get some extra help and to be able to improve my game some more. I think that taking lessons helped me so much with my tennis game. I think that lessons helped me more because I was able to learn new things.

The first tennis match that I played that I recall was a doubles matches. My partner’s name was Bella, she is a grade above me. Bella and I can play very well with each other because we can communicate really well. We were playing Branson at the Branson High School. My coach told my partner and me that we were up to play on one of the courts. The first thing that I was thinking at that time was “oh no, I hope we can win this match.” When Bella and I got to the court we starting warming up against the Branson tennis girls that we were playing. After we got done warming up we started playing. Bella and I made many good shots against them, the match score was 6-0. With that being the score meant that we beat them really good so that made my partner and myself really happy since we beat them good. That was my last match for my freshmen year of tennis.

Now since my first year of tennis was over I started back up with lessons so that I could work on skills that I knew that needed some work. I did them till school ended freshman year and then stopped for a little to spend some time with my family. During the time that I stopped taking lessons, I would go and play tennis with my family so that I never stopped hitting before summer tennis started up. I think that over the summer I would spend time with my family but when I was able to I would play tennis in the free time with friends or just with my family. I always try to hit when I have free time before the summer hit club starts.

Summer hit club has started so that means that my summer is now filled up until school starts plus the first day of tennis practice. A couple of days before summer hit club started I began doing my lessons again. When I do my lessons I always have them for an hour. During the whole hour, I am working on different drills and skills that I know that need work before the season starts because I know the work that I put in during the summer plays off during the season. I would always look at my calendar to see when I can do something fun with my family and to see when I can do lessons between summer hit club.

My sophomore year has started with school and that means that girls tennis season has officially started. We practiced every day up until our first game. The first game that I played in was against Springfield Catholic because of the fact I broke my pinky metacarpal in my left hand on the second day of school at tennis practice. I was out for the first three weeks of the tennis season last year. When I was cleared to play I was really happy. I knew to myself that since I was cleared to play I knew that I need to work hard. When my partner, Bella, and I got told that it was our turn to play against them we started thinking “What’s going to happen? We know that they are a good team but are we going to win or not. I guess we will wait and see.” I think that when I got out on the court I knew that we would be fine and could win this match. We started warming up and then start the match. Bella, my partner, was the one who served first in the match. She served some great serves and we won that set. We kept going set by set winning. There was one point in time where the score got to 5-4 and the only thing that was going through my head was “Let’s go this is our game.” Next, we start the next set. Bella and I are up 40-love. The girl served to Bella and she made a perfect return on the serve. The girl that was serving hit it right to me and I did an overhead and the ball went right between the two girls so we won the point plus won the match 6-4. That ended the season of my second year playing tennis.

After the season ended I started taking lessons again and working on different things over the summer. I think that doing the lessons after the season was over helped me a lot. My lessons coach, Larry, gave me so many tips on my shots that I can make. My shots have been so good ever since I started taking the lessons. I remember his telling me “Hannah, no matter what happens in your game when you play it will be ok. You have good shots that you can easily make in your game.” I just remember that everytime that I go to play a tennis match. During this time we started doing summer tennis stuff with the school. I would go to all of the summer things so that during the summer I can stay in shape with some of my shots and everything else. I believe that some of the girls that went to the summer hit stuff started out good come time for the season.

The summer before junior year is officially over now which means that it is time to buckle down and start working hard. When we would start our practices I would work hard at them every time because I knew that it would help me in the long run. A couple of days after starting practice we started doing our challenge matches. I challenged a girl that was ranked number 6 on the team. I played her for 2 hours and 10 minutes. We started playing at 8:30 A.M. and didn’t finish till 10:36 A.M. After we got done the score was 9-7 so I won and moved up to rank number 6. I was so happy when I moved up onto Varsity.