Recount: First Tennis Experience!

Room 7 lined up outside of the classroom and made our way over to the Tennis Court, closely followed by our Teacher Mrs Tui. Where 2 large Tennis nets were already set up, with Tennis balls, Tennis Rackets and our new Tennis coach. Everyone suddenly broke out in whispers about how excited they were.

After lining up along the yellow line our new coach went through the line getting to know everybody's name. But for some odd reason he never mentioned his name. “Now just come grab one racket and one ball,” our Coach asked us after getting to know everybody's name. We excitedly obeyed and spread out throughout the tennis court. I immediately started to bounce the ball on the tennis racket. Which was what almost everybody else started to do as well.

“Try to bounce the ball on both sides of the racket, switching sides every now and then.” Our Coach said perfectly demonstrating. I did so trying to imitate our coach, which resulted to me running around the tennis court trying to catch my Tennis ball. After a few more attempts I finally got the hang of it and starting congratulating myself inside my head, very pleased.

A few minutes later our Coach wanted everyone to find a partner and spread out on either sides of the Tennis nets. I unfortunately didn’t have a partner so I decided to just buddy up with my best friend Rosrine and her partner. We then started to practise how to serve and hit the ball. It wasn’t very difficult, but occasionally I would hit the ball a little too far. Rosrine on the other hand was having difficulty trying to hit the ball at all.

Next we had a few rounds of Tennis singles and then Tennis doubles. It was just as fun as playing netball and I was also getting a real sweat out of it as well. So I was really enjoying myself. “Now since we are getting to the end of the lesson I think that we should have a game!” Our coach announced. Everyone then almost immediately broke into 2 teams on either side of the Tennis net. “Single file please!” Our coach asked us. We did so and waited for the next instructions. “Ok so basically you just hit the ball to the other side of the net, then the other person will hit it back. But once you’ve had your turn of hitting the ball you run to the opposite line and if you make a mistake then you are out!” Our coach instructed. Some people were still quite confused so our coach demonstrated and everyone finally understood and got excited.

One by one each person made a mistake and suddenly I found myself being one of the last 2 people left in the game. “Go Alecia!” I heard all the girls screaming. My palms suddenly started to become even sweatier and so was my forehead. The next thing I knew I was having a match with my classmate Richie. After swinging the ball back and forth we luckily tied. I was so revealed because I really wasn’t in the mood to be humiliated in front of the entire class. After our round we collected all the balls and rackets and headed off to class. But while everyone else was chatting I was silently smiling to myself more pleased than before.