Game. Set. Match. by Jennifer Iacopelli

Author:Jennifer Iacopelli [Iacopelli, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781937804237
Amazon: B00CLG0TES
Goodreads: 16082871
Publisher: Coliloquy, LLC
Published: 2013-04-29T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

May 21st

Jasmine rolled over and buried her face into her pillow. She wasn’t ready to face the day. Groaning, she pulled the covers over her head. It didn’t help; she could still hear it in her mind, like a song on infinite repeat for two days. The chair umpire’s voice amplified by the microphone as the crowd roared, “Game, set and match, Gaffney.”

Sleep was impossible. She tossed and turned late into the night, body exhausted, but replaying the match over and over again. Then the expression on her father’s face when he saw her after the match would swim behind her eyes, part disappointment and part disbelief. She’d let him down and that hurt even more than the loss itself.

“Jasmine!” Her mother’s voice carried up the stairs, followed by the pounding of footsteps. “Jasmine, wake up!” Her mom, bracelets jangling, burst through her door and grabbed her duvet cover, yanking it away.

“Mom,” she grumbled. “Go away.”

“You have to get up, mija. You gave yourself a day to wallow. You lost. It happens from time to time, but today you must go back to training. The OBX Classic is over and the French Open begins. Simple as cake.”

“Pie. Simple as pie.” Even after nearly twenty years in the States, her mom tended to mix up her idioms.

“Cake, pie, I love both. Now, get up.” She felt a soft tap against her backside and then her curtains and windows were thrown wide open, the morning air blowing in and sunlight blinding her.

Jasmine rolled over, sitting up and her stomach lurched. She couldn’t go in to OBX and face everyone, not after that loss and not after what the Athlete Weekly article wrote about her.

Dom probably went nuts on Hodges for focusing his article on Penny and Alex’s off-the-court relationship in what was supposed to be a serious sports publication, but it wasn’t the tabloid crap that worried Jasmine. It was a separate section entirely, one that focused on the results of the Classic.

Mental toughness is a necessary quality in any champion. Both John and Lisa Randazzo had it in spades, along with far superior athleticism and instinct, but the same can’t be said for their daughter, who folded under the pressure in the tournament’s final after coasting through a relatively weak field…

There, in black and white was an analysis of what happened during the final match that hit far too close to home. Athleticism, instinct, mental toughness, things necessary to succeed as a top athlete in any sport, qualities Harold Hodges, a tennis expert, didn’t think she possessed.

That’s why the loss was eating away at her. She’d lost big matches before and they were always disappointing, but this one was different. It was a match she should’ve been able to win but didn’t. The competition at the OBX Classic was good, but at the end of the day, it was still a junior tournament and a great junior player didn’t necessarily become a great tour player. Indiana was very good, but she had a week of elite-level coaching under her belt and managed to beat her.

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