On The Court

I pitch the ball and serve strongly with the perfect angle. An ace. I won the first set 6-3 against the greatest player in history of tennis and I'm twenty years younger than her. I go take a seat on the beach next to the chair umpire and take a towel to get my face dried a little. I'm ready for the second set whenever she stands back up. I try to focus on my strategy. I go take place on the court after weiting the score on the piece of paper. She stands up and go take balls on the side of the courts. I get prepared for her serve. Her ball hits the ground one time. Two times. Three times. I don't hear anything else than the sound of the ball on the hard surface. She pitches the ball. I hit my backhand as good as I can, to return her wide service. But she hits a winner down the line with the amazing forehand she's got. The points in this game all look the same, except two of them, in which I hit a drop shot and a smash winner. She wins the game after a 40-30. In my service game, I find a weapon in my drop shot and decide to use it a little more. I still make a couple errors and she takes my service game to take the lead 2-0 in the second set. I focus on returning her service with my forehand. I'm decided to get placed in the right position to hit my forehand on deuce court next serve. She hits it right on the 'T' and I'm obligated to return with a backhand that I decide to attack on anyways, which gives me the point. It's too late in that game to come back though, I lose it on an ace. 3-0. On my turn to serve I hit four aces, including one on a second serve. I need one more game in this set, but that's not all what I want. I clearly see Serena's challenge is to work my backhand to fail in the net or wide. It's her turn to serve again and she starts it with a double fault. On the second point of the game, I get in the court and return on my forehand right in the top left corner of the court. It's 0-30. She hits another ace on the next point and has a big encouraging reaction, yelling an enormous 'Come on'. It's my service and I serve very good again. Two aces and two winners, without even letting her a point. I still have my two games in every set, even if I generously gave her my service game in the beginning of the set. It's 4 games to 2 for Serena. It's her turn to serve now and she wins, even if I resisted well. On 5-2, I win my game without a point for her. She's now serving for the set at 5-3 and I absolutely can't do anything to neutralize her service's strength. I lose the second set 6-3. I go back to sit on my bench with my water and my towel. Let's recap. I won the first set 6-3 and she won 3-6. What did she do differently? She played on my backhand a lot, of course, but I think she comes up to volley more. It's like if she wanted to show me a sign of her presence. I have to find a way to make more winners by making passing shots on the extremities of the court. She'll be deborded and might not touch the ball. Which would make her get back on the baseline. I get up with a new strategy completely adapted to her adjustments in the second set. I'm ready to fight.