Tennis anyone?

Yesterday was the Regional Tennis Tournament at the Larry Heflin tennis complex in Lone Oak. My younger son Josh is finishing up his third year playing tennis. He had played very little tennis up until high school (in gym class). I remember him coming home to say he was joining the team. I was a bit surprised but we played a lot together over the past few years to help him practice. I used to be able to beat him no problem, then we got to where we played close matches. This year, it's a different story. He beats me easily now. Last Sunday afternoon, he beat me 8-0. I didn't play that bad, he's just gotten better.

He's had to play the one seed this year, so he's had to play a lot of good players and he didn't win as many matches as when he was the three seed last year. He's also running track (the long distance events) so he has to run back and forth between practices and matches/meets.

Anyway, he wanted to win one match at the Regional as his goal. He drew a player from Heath. Both of their matches were rained out this year (as were several others) so he knew nothing about who he was playing. Watching them warm up and play they looked pretty evenly matched. He lost the first set 6-2 and was down 3-1 in the second but came rallying back to win 6-3 and then won the decisive set 6-2. He was thrilled. His reward was to play the 2nd seed from St. Mary who was very good. Josh did manage to win a couple of games, but lost 6-0, 6-2.

I'll miss watching him play and especially our games together once he goes off to school. We talk and have quite an enjoyable time when we go to play.

As a bit of trivia, Larry Heflin was my 10th grade Geometry teacher at Lone Oak. Probably neither of us would like to admit that this was 32 years ago... Also, Josh's tennis coach was his geometry teacher as well.