A Tennis Match

Randomly, I texted my sister yesterday to ask if my niece had any tennis matches this week.  Imagine my delight to find out she'd be playing three miles from our house that very day!  TJ was able to leave work early and meet us there.  I even changed Reed's shirt so he'd be in maroon, one of her school colors.  :)  It had been a rainy, windy morning but the sun came out and made for a perfect afternoon watching tennis.

Her actual match was on the center court of three, so I didn't get any shots during that, but I took about a billion pictures of her warming up.  I'm pretty excited that some of them actually turned out!

I know I'm biased, but doesn't she just shine?

There were several times during her match when TJ and I would say "Yowzers" or "I would hate to receive that" or "What a hit!"  This girl is small but she is tough!  She's spent many, many hours practicing and it sure shows.

Because I'm her aunt I can boast that this girl is pretty darn amazing at tennis.  Last weekend she played singles against the top ranked girl in the state (who is ranked #20 in the nation) and she beat her.  Boy, was I excited to hear that!

Her school has a strong tennis program so she doesn't get to regularly play varsity (yet!), but she played second varsity singles for her match yesterday and took the first set 6-0 and the second set 6-1.  Loved watching her play, seeing her applaud great hits by her opponent, and hearing her be so kind.  I found out a few years ago (maybe the wrong way?) that you're not supposed to yell or cheer or clap at matches, so yesterday I kept doing our family whistle, which I figured was innocent enough not to bother anyone.  Every time she heard it she looked up with a big smile on her face.  She knew we were there.  I'm so glad we could go watch her. Sure adore this girl.