Being a Professional

First I want to apologize to M.David because I haven’t been posting my blogs so I’m just going to post 1 now and 2 tomorrow. So in this blog I’ll be talking about Serena becoming a professional tennis player.

Retell:

Serena tells us how at first playing tennis was about being a family, and having fun. But she then realized that it was about pushing herself, to the best she can be. She knew it was thanks to her dad that she had that determination. Thanks to her dad Serena was capable of playing non-professional tournaments. The only thing was that they had to follow the WTA (woman tennis association) rules. But the thing was that they were always changing. One of the biggest change of all was the age-eligibility rule. The rule used to be that you could play in tournaments when you were fourteen, but starting in 1996 it was going to change to 16. The way it worked was, if you turned 14 in 1995 before the new rule took affect and played in a tournament that same year, the old restriction would apply to you and not the new one. Serena absolutely wanted to play in a professional tournament, and she did in Quebec City, November 1995.Sadly she lost to a girl name Anne Miller who beat her 6-1, 6-1. The moment was a little too big for her 14 year old head. I t messed with her head to be playing in front of a great, big crowd , underneath these great big expectation. Even though she lost Serena vowed to learn from it and get better. It was in Oklahoma City that Venus & Serena won their 1st doubles game tournament. It was a big thing because they then new that they actually had a chance in this career. They had also won a big giant check that they still have up to this day. It is also in 1999 a year after that tournament that her parents got a divorce. But they never talked much about it because they knew that it wasn’t really going to affect them as much, because they were older then 18 so understood and knew it wasn’t going to change the fact that their parents loved them very much.

Relate:
I can relate to her in a way because I do know how it feels to compete and sometimes lose. Example: Just 2 days ago I was a York university for a track meet for regional. But to qualify there you had to qualify at the meet before which I won 3rd place which I was proud of. But for regional you had to qualify in the top 4 which I didn’t. So sadly I lost but I can learn from it and do better in another competition. But I can’t relate to her with the divorce situation because my parents are together.

Reflect:

I learned that you can’t always beat yourself down when you don’t win. You can always do better next time around. You should always have a goal go for it. But before doing something you should really make sure that it’s what you want and that you’re really ready for it. And it’s always good to have someone believe in you just like Serena had her Dad believing on her dreams.

Match book entry:

Tell me “NO” and I’ll show you I can! Tell me “NO” because I can! Tell me “NO”! Go ahead, tell me. Just tell me I can’t win. Just tell me it’s out of reach. Come on, I’ll prove U wrong! Just tell me “NO” and watch what happens.