Tennis team in Hawaii: first match against BYU

March 21, 2008
tennis team member Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner:

Today was a pretty awesome day. We were all just giddy about being in Hawaii – I’m from here and yet I’d forgotten just how awesome Hawaii is – it’s beautiful, lush and green, and so far, I have yet to be cold. Before our match, we stopped at a beach along North Shore. It wasn’t really our planned destination – a pretty small beach and too much reef. But we all had a good time chillin’ on the sand.

The only part that kind of sucked was playing Brigham Young University, which is apparently number one in Division 2. They slaughtered us. It was horrible. In tennis, when playing singles, you have to play best out of three matches, and for each match you play best out of six games and in each game you must make five points to win. Confusing at first but eventually it all makes sense.

Anyways, out of my entire game, where I played against the number 2 singles for BYU (she was kind of intimidating – really tall and athletic) I won four points. Four. That’s it. Like, not four games, and definitely not four matches, but four points. In tennis, that’s called getting your balls handed to you.

The only thing that really carried us through was the fact that these girls were, again, number 1 in the nation in Division 2 - while we’re number something all the way at the bottom in Division 3. They were also all on athletic scholarships and had been playing for more than 10 years at the very least. Many of our teammates view tennis as a fun hobby, some just started this year, and the longest anyone on the team has ever played is maybe 5 years tops. So I didn’t feel too bad. I played as well as I could. Her serves were pretty tough and she was incredibly accurate – every shot was measured and calculated. All she needed to do was slam a shot all the way down at the other end of the court and that was it. What was also good was that most of the team was somewhat respectful.

After our game, we had a team meeting and some of my teammates were really upset about how they’d played. It’s tough, first of all, to play in Hawaii, where the humidity wraps itself around your throat like a fist, and then it’s even tougher to put up with an embarrassing beating. So a couple of the team was pretty upset. Marc said, though, that we should focus on the fact that we got the opportunity to play athletes with a lot more experience, and, as a tennis player, that’s a really good growing experience.

All in all, Beach : awesome. Game: unfortunate but also educational.