I'd been feeling so good about my game this summer. I had a bumpy start to the season, but I joined a singles league in addition to league, and was playing at least weekly. It felt like my game and confidence was starting to settle into another level.
The last match I played before league started was in mid-July in Florida and it was at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Yes, this was a very bad idea. I was in full control of the first set and about to win the second when the heat began to weaken me. Observation: It's kind of bizarre to be so heat-affected that you can watch your mind leave you. Like, you understand that you're not thinking straight and there's nothing you can do about it. I came back and won, and felt good about that, and then didn't play until my first league match of the season - some ten weeks later. I don't know why I thought it would go well.
It went so badly that I signed up for a one-day tournament to get in some matches. I met a bunch of cool tennis women (one of whom almost definitely rope-a-doped me in our match) and managed to knock off a good amount of rust. So when it was time for my next league match, I felt like I wasn't back to summer form, but I was close.
When I got there, my captain told me I was playing first singles. Let me say how grateful I am for my team and their short memories. Bless them so much.
My opponent had a similar game to mine, I realized. The only advantage I had was that I was a bit faster and able to run down her angled shots and flat forehands down the line. And nearly two hours later, when I stood at the baseline to serve out the match, I noticed that everyone from both teams were watching -- we were the last ones on the court. Usually, when everyone's watching like that, the match is hinging on your result.
So no big deal. Still, and unrelated I'm sure, I was down 0-30 quickly, and the nerve wave came. It's just a league match, I tried to tell myself. You're doing fine. Just keep going. Your daughter's fine. (My kids tagged along and were waiting to leave as soon as we got there.) But none of those fake-outs worked. My heart was still pounding, my hands were still shaking, I still had the urge to drop everything and leave.
And then I figured out why I do meditation in the first place. Seriously. Right there at the baseline.
I do some general sports writing on the side sometimes and wrote about how to incorporate mindfulness into your tennis game, and in my research learned a bit about meditation. And with some other upheaval in my life, I thought: Why not? I use Great Meditation on YouTube right now, and there's one common device many of these routines use. It's identifying the hard feelings and letting them wash over you for a minute or two before using breathing to manage them. And I swear, standing at the baseline, I realized that I wasn't supposed to talk myself out of feeling this way. I was supposed to manage it. So I stood there, everything jangling in me, and let it be. Then I took a deep breath, and kept going. It almost felt like using the nerves as fuel towards the end. It was there, but I was able to think about how I was going to win this game and get those kids home already. It's hard to explain. I was still jittery, but also clear about what I wanted to do and was able to execute. And I won that game.
So I'm going to go ahead and endorse meditation as a good habit, tennis or no. The thing is, you can't control the result -- of your match, of your situation -- but you can control your response to it.
That feels like a good place to close.
