Marko at the Net, Chapter 7

Marko and his partner Yeshua WON their match.

Oh, it was a comeback. They lost their first set 6-dismal. Marko felt the weight of loss. He had lost his two matches last season.

L.

L.

Now it was Looking Like another L.

But wait a second! Is the other team having a hard time with Marko’s slice? Oh, yeah they are. And wait! Aren’t a lot of Marko’s teammates, who aren’t even playing today, showing up and cheering Marko and Yeshua on? Oh heck yeah they are!

These were two key factors in Marko and Y pulling out the win in a decisive tie-breaker. “I’m going to unleash the beast,” Marko said to his old pal E who had come along to cheer for them. He meant, he was going to stop trying not to slice and instead go for it with gusto.

This brought back the loosey-goosiness that makes him good. So even though not all shots went their way, Marko did not get long in the face about it. Uh-uh. He just kept on keeping on. He hit some real doozies and so did Y. Good job Y!

Perservering! That’s the stuff.

A secret weapon for Marko was the advice his friend Yuma shared with him at dinner, which was to take himself back to the fence and give himself a talking-to whenever he hit a shallow lob. He gave himself a couple such talking-to’s, all the while imagining Yuma’s encouragement. He credits her good vibe with powering back-to-back aces when they really needed it.

So now Marko has a W to his credit, against a good team. All but one of the matches was decided by tie-breaker, so give it up for the guys they were playing yesterday: good job!

Marko loves his W and now he is going to work on getting that sliced lob deeper.

PS The photo for this post shows the plum tree outside the bathroom window. It’s looks like this year, we’re going to have plums!