Senior year of high school can be a year that anyone can look forward to and be excited for.  It is the last year of a high school career and everyone should want to make one last impact before they are gone.  That is exactly what I wanted to do for my senior year of tennis.  I wanted my last year to be something special.  I would say it was and I will never forget it.  I also have been looking back on my entire tennis career from freshman year to now.  I really did enjoy the last four years and it’s gonna be hard to have something compared to it.

First, I want to say that I wouldn’t be the person I am today without tennis and the teammates I had every year.  The game of tennis helped build me as a great player who would do anything it takes to win a match.  The never give up attitude showed so much on the court when I stepped foot on it.  I learned how to be respectful to my opponents as well.  Some of the calls that are made during the match may not match the eyes of your opponent.  Usually I never had a problem with the calls because I’ve learned it’s their call and there is nothing I can do but accept the call.  Tennis has taught me to be a strong player through thick and thin.  The frustration that comes along with the mistakes that are sometimes made must be overcome by the player.  If you don’t let the mistakes get to your head, then you can easily move past it and keep playing some great tennis.

Next, I am really going to miss the teammates that I had over the years.  Guys like Jack Salyers, Jensen Burrous, Noah Preston, Ethan Johnson, Jack Miller, David Woolever, and Blaine Rudd are incredible human beings and they were like brothers to me.  This last season was definitely my favorite team to play with.  Well for one thing, we had the best record of any year that I played tennis.  We went 13-2 on the season before losing in the first round of sectionals.  That wasn’t the ending that we wanted, but we gave it all we got.  After we lost the first round to Logansport, I definitely found out what I meant to my teammates.  The boys were in tears and saddened by the fact that we were done.  I will never forget that because some of my teammates said some of the nicest things ever to me and Jack because it was our last year with them.  Along with that, I will always cherish and reminisce the memories that were made through my high school years of tennis.  

Furthermore, the coaches also played into what I loved about the sport.  Coach Hurst is definitely my favorite coach that I’ve had out of any sport that I have played.  He has been such a great leader and role model to me and my teammates the last four years.  I love the connection I was able to build with him on and off the court.  I am very happy that he considered me as his “doubles partner” because he would always choose me to play with if we were doing doubles matches at practice that day.  He also sold me a brand new PS5 a couple of weeks ago so I’m happy about that.  Anyways, everything I learned from Hurst helped improve my game a lot since the first time I laid my hands on a tennis racket.  Another coach I want to acknowledge is Coach Skarda.  He also helped improve my game a lot.  Now I would say that I definitely practiced more with him than Hurst because Skarda is the singles coach.  Skarda taught me a bunch of stuff that I know like overheads, drop shots, volleys, in-and-out forehands, and shots that went down the line.  Every year my shots kept improving.  Coach Skarda also wanted me to keep improving my volleying skills at the net and I never really did until he pushed me super hard to do that my senior year.  I can say that I did a fairly decent job at it with his amazing coaching skills to help me out.  

In conclusion, I really loved the sport of tennis over the course of my high school career.  In no way am I going to stop playing though.  I am happy that this is a sport that anyone can play for a very long time.  The sport helped me become the person I am today.  I can’t thank the coaches and my teammates enough for making this an amazing last four years of my life.  I will never forget everything that came along with this.