Life is Like a Tennis Match

Today's post is dedicated to my tennis team, a small group of warriors with a large dream...to capture a national championship.  Memories of the journey to our destiny will be forever etched in my heart.

My two greatest passions in life are writing and playing tennis.  Even if you've never been on a tennis court, today's message is for you.  Your life is like playing in a tennis match.  The way you prepare yourself determines how far you will go.

Your life started with love, just like tennis.  Two people joined together to bring you into this world.  On the court of life, you learned the value of positioning yourself properly to make winning plays.  Your coaches helped you identify your strengths and weaknesses both in yourself and in your opponents.  You learned to become a team player and help your team-mates develop winning strategies.

At times, you found yourself in slumps and faulted often.  Once in a while, your serve hit the net but still landed in the correct target area.  You got a second chance... a mulligan.   A mulligan is a golf concept but it also applies to tennis.  In tennis, sometimes you have to go outside the court to adapt when you're having trouble with all those drop shots or those lobs that get lost in the sun.

Every opponent and situation you face is different, just like life.  It's the hours of preparation and your ability to master the basics that allow you to adjust when your opponent attacks with a nasty spin serve.  Even the best players telegraph what they are going to do next.  By studying your opponent, you can learn to predict what's coming.

To win the match you only need to do one thing... win the last point.  No matter how far out of the match you think you are, there's hope for a comeback.  In life, as you advance, you will encounter better opponents.  Don't be discouraged if you lose a match.  Learn from the experience and keep playing.  In the end, when the final match point of your life is played, you will get to look back at all the points you played and you will discover that the joy of your life was not measured by your wins and losses, but by the number of times you got back up each time your opponent knocked you down.

Today, you are on center court and the world is watching you.  Give them a performance they will talk about long after the stadium lights are turned off.