July was filled with tennis tournaments. Alyssa is trying to get a USTA ranking and so she talked me into signing her up for multiple tournaments. This has also helped give her experience with match play. She used to get really nervous for matches and play poorly, but I think she has improved a lot over the summer. The first tournament she did was a Utah County Tennis Tournament. They have singles tournaments every other week and double tournaments in the off weeks. She was unranked the first time so ended up at the bottom of the bracket, playing some of the best girls there. It was double elimination and she lost both matches, broke a string, and went home really upset.
Less than a week later, she had the tournament and the end of her summer tennis camp. They started with a round robin and she had the most points in her bracket. So she got to play a single match to determine first place. The girls she played against did not look like much competition, but Alyssa's serve was off and she ended up losing. That was also disappointing for her.
A couple of days later, she had a tournament at Ivory Ridge(a tennis and swim club here in Lehi). She was still unranked for this one and when we got there, we realized that it was a tournament for all ages. Her first match was against a 10 year old girl. Alyssa played easy and still dominated.
She felt kind of bad beating all of these little kids, but it did give her confidence a little boost.
The following week, she had a 2 day tournament up in Salt Lake. The first day, she played 2 different girls. This time, it was all high school tennis players. She beat the first girl 8-5. The second girl was such an even match for Alyssa. They were neck and neck, with super long rallies and a lot of Ad/Deuce battles, all the way up to 8-8. Then they played a tie break and Alyssa came out on top 7-5. It was fun to watch and took a long time(like and hour and a half). She ended up in the top bracket (out of 3) after the first day. She was super sad to find out that she would be playing her first match against that same girl that she barely beat in a single elimination tournament. They were still evenly matched and fun to watch, but this time Alyssa was playing on fresh legs and won the match 8-5.
And finally, she went back to try the Utah County Tennis Tournament one more time. This time she went in with a ranking(2.9 something). She made it to the final this time, but the girl she played was from Timpview (the state champions), and she lost by a lot.
Now she is full swing into tennis season. Her head coach from last year resigned this year after 30 years of coaching to take a job at the Rafa Nadal tennis academy in Spain. His plan was to do that for a year and then hopefully come back to coach again next year. But I think that the high school administration had other plans. Alyssa now has 2 brand new female coaches, which she is really excited about. Both of them are mom's of girls on the team, but she is really excited about them. However, because they are new, they haven't been watching the girls play all summer so they were relying completely on the 3 days of tryouts to choose their team and to rank them for the line up. After tryouts, Alyssa ended up in the 6th position which puts her at the bottom of Varsity. This was a bit of a blow to her ego, because she sees herself as 3rd or 4th. And to make things worse, after the first match, against Timpview, the coach moved her down to position 9, putting her on JV. She was super upset. We tried to tell her that they are just trying new things and still figuring out the girl's abilities. Today, she has been moved back up to position #7, so she is much happier. And her doubles partner today is someone with a lot more experience playing doubles than the one she played with a couple of days ago.
Sorry for the long and boring post(for anyone not interested in tennis). This was more for our family records than anything. And now, I think I am finally caught up with all of our summer activities. School starts next week and they will all be attending in person, full day. Not sure what my plans are to fill the days, but I am looking forward to it.
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