jigisha singh

I first went to the US Open when I was ten years old. Watching the players move on the court, with thousands of people cheering for them, as the yellow ball moved across the court. Since then, that yellow ball became a prominent part of my daily life. I remember my first tennis class after that, I was bouncing the ball on my racquet. I stared at it as I tried to get a rhythm with the bounces of the ball. Since then, I have played tennis for most of my life, and for a long time, it was probably the activity that took up the largest part of my schedule outside of school, and it slowly started to dictate the rhythm of my life.

I started lessons when I moved from New York to Atlanta, where I started in the beginners' group as an orange ball student. From the first day, coaches noted how I had a natural swing and judgement of the ball, and I very quickly advanced to the higher stages. Soon, I was in the yellow ball group and began competing in tournaments. I remember my first tournament was a UTR tournament, and I went in there with a smile on my face, ready to compete. Tennis at that time was a fun activity for me. It didn’t matter if I won or lost. I ended up winning that tournament, and my confidence at the end of it was soaring as I smiled for the picture with my first-ever trophy in my hands. However, that confidence was very short-lived.

My next tournament was an official USTA tournament. I walked in there overwhelmed by the number of people of different ages and sizes that walked the court. I had never been in an environment like this before, and it was frightening. As I played my first match, I remember every serve I hit going flying out across the court. I felt my heart pounding and sweat dripping off my body as my nerves flared up, and I ended up losing that match, my first ever loss. At the end of that match, I had experienced something that I had yet to experience before: failure. I hated that feeling. I remember reaching the car and sobbing as my mom tried to comfort me with a Chick-fil-A milkshake. I hated the idea of losing. The idea that someone out there was better than me haunted me. I wanted to quit the sport immediately, but thankfully I didn’t. Throughout middle school and most of high school, I spent a lot of weekends on tennis courts, waiting around for matches, warming up, playing for hours, and then sometimes doing the same thing again the next day. I definitely did not love every second of it, especially after a tough loss, but I kept playing. As time went on, I learned how to improve from those failures and not bow my head. Instead of playing to avoid losing, tennis taught me the importance of playing to win.

When I got to high school, tennis became a very different experience. Instead of playing completely for myself, I was suddenly part of a team. I played varsity tennis and eventually became team captain. Our team won two state championships, and during both championship runs, I alternated between the first and second singles lines. In both years, I ended up in situations where my match was the deciding one, which is about as stressful as tennis can get when your entire school bench is filled with people watching from outside the fence.

Those matches probably taught me more about pressure than anything else in my life, and it gave me the courage to deal with it gracefully. So, although I hated those moments when I was losing and felt like giving in to the pressure, it was those moments that taught me how to deal with the real struggles in life. I wouldn’t trade those moments for anything.

Eventually, I also started teaching tennis as a junior coach at a country club. Coaching younger kids was an entirely different side of the sport. Things that had become automatic to me, like how to hold a racket or position your feet, suddenly had to be explained in a way that made sense to someone who had never done them before. Some kids picked things up immediately, while others needed a lot more patience, repetition, and encouragement. It was funny to go from being the kid who got frustrated during lessons to being the one telling another kid not to get frustrated. To teach them how to learn from their failures and keep their head up high.

Tennis probably will not have much to do with what I eventually study or do professionally, but it has still shaped a large part of who I am. I have spent years competing, losing, winning, coaching, traveling to tournaments, and standing on courts when I really wished someone else could play the next point for me. Unfortunately, tennis does not work that way. You have to serve the ball eventually.