Fifteen - Love

Anyone who tells you that tennis is a gentle sport is lying through their teeth. At the grass roots level, it is populated by eager children with overbearing parents, and overbearing competitors with overbearing managers and trainers at the professional level. In my experience, the best time to be a tennis player is the bit in between, where you can shed the parents clutches, and before someone wants to be your ‘guardian’.

My parents were quite well off, and I was named Cassius Sugar Holbrook. You can guess that my father was a boxing fan and had the deciding vote at that time. Actually, my father made sure that he had the deciding vote all of the time. As I grew up, he must have realised very early that I wasn’t going to be a champion in the ring, unless it was in the ultra-mini-flyweight class. He still had me training as if I was going to take on the world. By the time I was in school, I could take on anybody, if I had to, and I was about seven when I hit a ten-year-old bully with a roundhouse swing that laid him out behind the bike sheds.

After that, nobody tried to pick on me. It was about the same time that I was introduced to tennis. I may be small, but my upper body strength gave me a very strong stroke, both forehand and backhand. With the nimbleness that my footwork training gave me, by the time I was ten, I could beat most of the other players at school.

My father had washed his hands of me, as being nothing like the champion he had ordered. My mother enrolled me in a junior tennis club, where I came up against players older than me. Some beat me, but it only made me try harder. I started getting entered in our little local competitions, where I did well enough to start a trophy cabinet.

I won’t say that I was competitive, I just didn’t like losing, and, on most days, I didn’t lose. With the skipping and the punching bags in our home gym, I was doing exercises that none of the other kids even thought of. When I went into senior school, I was still short and skinny, and you wouldn’t know about the muscles I had unless I took my shirt off. At fourteen, I went through a rebellious phase. Growing my hair out so that I needed to put it in a ponytail when I played.

At school, I was generally called Cassie. I had a good friend, Evie, and we hung around together, and played tennis doubles when she and I weren’t on the court hitting balls to each other. Actually, although we were very easy-going with each other, I hid the fact that she was the love of my life. I doubted that a girl like her would go for a guy like me.

One day, she said that her mother had told her about an amateur competition in the nearby city, and that there were vouchers as prizes. She asked me if I would join her when she went.

I asked my mother if I could go. There was a small entry fee, and she wrote the cheque out immediately. To her, the chance that I could play against others who I hadn’t met was an opportunity that couldn’t be missed. I gave the cheque to Evie to give to her mother, so we could play mixed doubles together. The meeting was two weeks away, so we spent a lot of our spare time on the court.

The event was to be held over the weekend, and we would be going there on the Friday afternoon, after school, and coming back Sunday evening, unless we were both knocked out of the competition earlier. Mother gave me some cash to cover my share of the hotel room and meals, and I took my tennis gear and an overnight bag to school, making sure it was safe in my locker.

When the last lesson finished, I went to the toilet and then collected my bags, catching up with Evie outside. Her mother was there in the car, with her bags and Evie’s already loaded. My things went in the back with the others, and I got in the back seat and buckled up.

We set off on the trip of about two hours, with us talking for a little while before her mother put the radio on to listen to the news. At the hotel, we checked in and went up to our room. It was very nice, with a big bed in the main room and with a single in a small side room. Evie and her mother would share the big bed while I got the single. That was all right by me. We had fish and chips down the road, sitting in a park. Evie’s mother reached into her bag and pulled out some paperwork.

“This is the schedule that they sent me. Have a look at it. It looks like your first singles matches are at ten in the morning. The doubles are in the afternoon, fairly late. It might be a late evening, it’s a good job we have daylight saving.”

Evie and I looked at the lists. That’s when I saw that the ten ‘o’clock singles were the girl’s first rounds. Among the papers was the acceptances for our entries. With mine, it listed me as Cassie Holbrook, and I was entered in the girl’s competitions, and we were both playing as females in the doubles. I asked how this happened.

“Evie asked me to enter you in the event, Cassie. Is anything wrong?”

“Only that I might be short and have long hair, but I’m a boy called Cassius.”

“You don’t look like a boy, dear. I always thought you were in some sort of tomboy phase.”

“I’ll have to pull out. I’m sorry you went through all this trouble.”

“If you pull out, my Evie won’t have a chance at the doubles. No! I brought you here, and you’re going to play. Evie, did you bring your spare outfits?”

“Yes Mum. I packed five sets; in case we made it into the final few.”

“Right! Tonight, you see how Cassie looks in them. If there’s some problems, I can shop for replacements while you’re playing. Cassie, did you bring whites?”

“Yes. Three shirts and three pairs of shorts.”

“If we see if Evie’s skirt will fit, you can wear that with one of your shirts. Tonight, you’ll need to try on one of her sports bras and we’ll shave your legs and arms. Nobody expects every teenage girl to be well endowed, so being flat chested isn’t a problem. Whatever you do, tomorrow, speak quietly and use the female toilets with Evie.”

Back at the hotel, I was told to shower, using smelly bodywash. And to wash my hair twice, using both the shampoo and conditioner they gave me. Then, while I was damp, Evie and her mother attacked my arms, legs, and armpits with safety razors, until I was smooth. They didn’t have to work on my body or face, as I was still smooth in those areas. Afterwards, they got me to spread moisturising cream all over before we went to bed. I did try the sports bra and it felt odd, and the skirt was a bit tight, but it did stretch.

In the morning, we had an early breakfast and then went to the tennis courts to sign in. I made my first step towards the future when I signed as Cassie Holbrook. Then, Evie and I went to warm up while her mother went off to get me a skirt which fitted better.

They had rated the entrants based on club results. There were sixteen girls chosen for the singles, and the matches were just the best of two, with the advantage in case of a draw to minimise our time on court. I was in one group of eight, with Evie in the other. I breezed through my two matches in straight sets, and Evie got through hers by her second opponent putting the ball in the net during the advantage. That left us playing our other semi-finalists on Sunday morning.

We met up with her mother for lunch, as the first round of boys games were getting under way. She had a shopping bag, and after lunch we went back to the hotel, where Evie and I took turns in the shower. The new skirt fitted me well and, by this time, it didn’t feel unusual, just like shorts but without the bit in between. I also was now wearing new white panties she had brought.

We returned to the courts and watched the last few games of the boys. Then, it was the girl’s doubles, the boy’s doubles and the mixed doubles. There had been eight teams chosen in each section, so we had to play two games, as before, to go through to the finals on Sunday. We did just that, so were both playing first thing in the morning. The way we were going, it looked as if we would be playing each other for the singles final. We left as the boys were starting their second round and went to have something to eat. Evie’s mother was excited that we were both into the final day.

We were ready for action on Sunday morning, had breakfast and checked out of the hotel, with me putting my share of the room in. At the courts, the matches would be the girl’s semi-finals, followed by the boy’s semi-finals, then lunch. The afternoon started with the girl’s doubles final, then the boy’s doubles final and the mixed doubles final. Then it was the girl’s singles and the boy’s singles. Each final had the presentations after.

There was still a good crowd to watch, with just a few of the losers having left. As I expected, both Evie and I ended up as the finalists in the singles. After lunch, we went out and won the doubles in straight sets. We stood at our end and hugged. I whispered something in her ear that I had never thought I’d say.

“I love you, girlfriend.”

“I love you, too, Cassie. I have been waiting for you to say that for over a year.”

We were given our vouchers and there were photos taken. While we were watching the boy’s doubles, a lad came over to us, speaking to Evie’s mother.

“Excuse me, but I have a favour to ask. My doubles partner pulled her hammy in the warmup. We were in the mixed final. Could Cassie play with me in the next final. I’ve watched her game and I think that we might have a chance, together.”

“What do you think, Cassie. You’ll then be playing two matches, one after the other.”

“Evie and I play longer than we have in our sessions. I can do it.”

I stood and collected my things and followed him to his group, where he gave me some pointers on his game plans, and we got it ticked off by the organisers. When the presentations had finished, we went out on court, and the two teams hit balls at each other for five minutes. I had beaten the girl in the singles games, yesterday, and already knew her weaknesses.

Because we had the whole court to play with, I was able to play my fast serves without worrying about them going out. We took out both sets six-two. So had the photos and our vouchers. In deference to my being in the next match, the organisers had a fifteen-minute break ‘for afternoon tea’ so that I could catch my breath.

When we walked out for the girl’s final, there were some in the crowd calling ‘Cassie’. I think that the crowd was on the edge of their seats as Evie played the game of her life. She ended up taking the first on advantage. In the second game, it was a repeat of the first, with us going into advantage. She had the advantage, and it was my serve when I knew that winning wasn’t everything, today. I muttered ‘This one’s for you, my love’ when I hit the fastest serve that I had ever done, only for it to go long. I pretended to be angry at myself as I walked to the back of the court, looking as if I was psyching myself up. My second serve was almost too easy for her to hit it past me like a rocket. We hugged and she whispered ‘thank you’ in my ear.

We had the presentation and got our vouchers and our pictures taken. We went to the changing rooms, and I changed into the slacks and top that her mother had bought on Saturday. With our bags in the car, we left the event as the boy’s singles was finishing, heading for home.

When we stopped at my house, both Evie and her mother came in to tell my mother how we had got on, and why I had arrived home with girl’s clothes on. My mother had to sit down from laughing, before she could ask what I had won. I pulled out the envelopes that had been given me. The winning vouchers for the girl’s doubles were both for two hundred pounds with an on-line fashion site. My winning voucher for the mixed doubles was the same. Evie got a four hundred pounds voucher for her singles win, and I got a hundred pounds voucher in a salon chain for my runner-up in the singles.

I walked Evie out to the car, and we kissed, quickly, before she got in. I stood and watched the car all the way until it was out of sight. It had been a very interesting weekend. Back in the house, my mother was all smiles as she found skirt hangers for me and gave me a kiss once I was in bed. The next thing I knew was her telling me to get up, as it was a school day.

Our exploits had gone under the radar until the local paper came out on Thursday. In the sporting pages was a picture of us, taken at the doubles presentation, with the headline ‘Local girls win at the Junior Championships. That raised some questions at school, but winning brings its own protection, and the fact that I had played as Cassie only cemented the belief of many that I really was a tomboy. Evie and I were the darlings of the girls in our class for some time after. We were now seeing each other in a more romantic way in the evenings.

Three weeks after that event, there was a letter for me in our post-box. It was notification that Cassie Holbrook had been given a wild card in the junior section for Wimbledon. It looked as if I will be needing to use those vouchers after all, so that I looked my girly best at Wimbledon. I rang Evie, who told me that she had one as well. When I put the phone down, I sat and thought about it. There was one thing that I was certain of. If we end up playing each other, whether it was finals or not, there was no way I would throw the match to make her happy.

In tennis, when it comes to the big matches, everyone knows that love means nothing.

Marianne Gregory © 2024