The day had come; it was the Tennis Championship Finals. All I could remember at that time was all the hard work I had possessed in order reach this point, a point where all the high schools in New York City want to be. And most of my fear at this point was whether I could win the championship or lose it all.

It wasn’t just me playing for that championship trophy, it was the entire team, so the pressure was on all of us and I could feel it, as my nerves were moving in all directions giving me goosebumps.

My teammates and I had thirty minutes free time before the game, so we got together with our coach, loosened up, took pride in ourselves and looked at the past and what we had accomplished, and set our minds to the championship game and put all of our focus in to it.

The thirty minutes drifted away without us even realizing it, but our minds never drifted away. We were still in focus to meet our opponents and were completely ready to take the trophy back to our school.

We called ourselves the Beavers and stepped into the courts as warriors and put ourselves in the battlefield. The game started and I was playing the game at my best with a fierce spirit to win, and so did all my teammates.

But unfortunately for me, my opponent seemed to be more skilled and tenacious. With my nervousness pulling me back, I was only able to win one set out of the three sets that were played. The game came to an abrupt end and my adversary had won the game by two sets and defeated me. And what were my feelings? I felt like killing myself. I cursed, yelled even let some tears run out of my eyes, but in the end it was no hope, and I realized that my adversary was just too good for me. My teammates cheered me up and said “it’s ok, you did your best” but that didn’t soothe me at all. I knew I could have done better.

In the end, we didn’t win the championship but still were able to retrieve the runner up trophy. As a team, we realized it’s not about winning the championship that matters the most, what matters was the hard work, experience, and the fun we had in preparing for this one moment since the season begun.

I might not have won the match, but I was not ashamed of it. Instead, I was proud of my accomplishments and was also proud to be part of the Jamaica Tennis Team. As elders say, There are many things that need to be learned in life and my lesson is that as an athlete either you win or lose but don’t ever regret anything that you did, always feel good about yourself and take the lesson of losing and turn it into winning. It doesn’t matter whether I lost the championship last season. But this time, it’s a new season, new game, different tactics but one same goal.