The First great match

As he looked outside his window, it was almost sunrise .He couldnt believe he hadnt slept all night .How is he suppose to play well without any sleep. How is suppose to defeat Aman ,the national level badminton champion from three years now ,some one even his elder brother( a far better player ) also never came close to defeating.Whole night he was day dreaming in his head how he will win this tournament and go to national's and then become an internation player,but now he had realised he was way ahead of himself.

After finaly getting up from his bed ,he wonders what to do .He still remembers from one year ago his brothers match with Aman .Those smashes ,those rallys ,He knows he cannot smash even close to as fast as is brother ,and lacks pace,strenght and height . He knows only one thing can win it for him , its his drops .


While eating breackfast he look at his elder brother ,looking for some sort of confidece booster.
" why do u look at me like that and why so quiet " his brother
"well i am thinking about the match"
"ohh its today, " brother
"aaaaaaaah how do you not know ?"
"dont worry you will win surely ,more over i will call all friends from college to come and cheer for u"

Dressed in the T-shirt he had never lost before , he had reached the ground .This was his same place where he always played from his childhood .Because it was a final match the school had sent lots of students ,and it made up for a large crowd,plus his brother had brought a complete pultan from his college .He knew almost every body.The only crowd support his opponent had was players from outside .



The court was a open court . It was time for the toss ,he wins or probably the refree cheated cause he knew him well
"what do you want?"
his brother signals him this court and he quickly takes it ,thinking both sunlight and wind will be a factor and who will know conditions better than his brother .

The match starts ,its very close both are at same score and its 5-all .he keeps wondering wether to mix in the short serve ,knowing that his opponent will push him back in the court and from there he had no chance ,more over if his lack of strenght is discovered it can become a big problem. He is still thinking about this when suddenly he finds himself 3 points behind ,its 10 - 7 now .How does he break the serve.He decides whatever this next serve be, he will fake it long and drop it there only, it almost worked as Aman had bought the fake but he overkilled the shuttle.

The score goes upto 12-7 ,the crowd cheering has not stopped but he knows this set looked over
suddenly in this point he stands his ground and goes for a big smash on the line ,it worked finally he broke the serve , he also wonders why he hadnt smash at all ,his smash isnt all that bad also.
He takes his form to serve ,delivers a short serve to backhand ,smashes the return close to the net as his opponent tried a drop but was carried over slightly longer because of wind. The crowd goes mad .This is where he wants to keep it ,He take his form again to serve .Thinking wether to serve short again,he decides its too risky. He goes for the long serve , before he even realised the shuttle had gone past him ,the fastest smash he had ever seen, faster than his brother also,or was it the wind that made i fast. Did he made a wrong judgement in picking the court giving a already powerful opponent some tail wind.
He doesnt last much longer in the set ,loses it 15-8.

Time for a one minute break there are around ten people advising him how to play.He is just listening to his brother , also thinking how could his brother make a wrong judgement of wind,does he want me to lose .

Times up, thinking its now or never he decides to run for everything & Hit it hard .Since the wind was on his side now ,he knows he can serve short .He takes an early advantage 4-love it is .
he is running and getting and everything ,no part of court is unreachable now ,more over deadly smash gets slowed in the wind. he has a lead of 10-4 ,he starts thinking how his brother had lost in straight sets to this guy,now he didnt look invincible .His opponent tries hard but he is too fast on the court and he wins the set 15 - 10.

1 minute breaks again this time every one is slapping him on the back ,he knows he can win.

last set ,he knows if he can keep a close enough score till they exchange side he will take it from there.boom a deadly smash by his opponent.he just needs to keep it close.he decides to play short fast net game ,this is championship he is almost there ,its four all .suddenly he couldnt reach a drop .what is it did he not pick it out of his hand,sure he did his opponent hardly ever faked ,suddenly he realises hes out of stamina.This cant be happening he played every day for four hours how could he get tired under 25 mins.
another long ralley he loses out just because of stamina in the end. He repeats to himself dont worry about stamina now u have to push ur self ,give it everything u got even if u have to collapse, u got to win .The crowd is getting behind him have to keep it close,score is 8-4.

getting adrenallin pumped up he wins a long ralley, this is it the most important serve.
he decides to keep it risk free and goes for a long serve .boom another smash .what a grave error he knew a long serve would be smashed .another long ralley and he ends up losing.

the court gets exchanged at 12-4.this is too much he thinks ,he knows the importance of not giving up,knowing he was tired he knows he got to take his time between serve .He starts again quickly getting into same rythm as in set 2. He gets 4 points quickly to get score at 12- 8.The crowd is expecting a upset ,they are going crazy chanting his name ,he is almost out of breath and adrenallin is shaking his hands and legs ,this is sumthing he never expericenced.

He serves too long ,he had been doing that for quite a time ,just his opponent was picking it ,now suddenly he decides to leave one.realising now that for a small return he was taking such a big risk.With his heart pumping so loudly that he could hear it over the crowds cheering ,he losses out another ralley.he now knows not only he needs to win the points but he needs to win them fast long ralleys is the only way his opponent can win.Another long ralley he losses yet another point .the score goes on to 14-8.

He is completely out of breath ,he unties one of his shoes and beggins to tie it again ,he wanted air in his lungs .He had imagined winning in his head so many times,never did he imagined losing .It was unbelievable and foolish considering the opponent was so much stronger ,but now the moment has come he had nothing left to run more ,not even one more step ,this is it,the game seemed over,he thinks next year will be his.

He gets up takes his form again ,clears his head another long rally,crowd chanting his name,through out and out of no where his opponent makes a mistake hitting a smash too long . Over confidence he thinks ,thinking of it as the last oppotunity to serve ,he keeps it simple
serves short and win another easy point.he has spark in his head ,over confidence no.His opponent has tired to .This is has been fast and long he thinks.His body beggins to shake as if revolting against playing any more ,but he knows this is it .
after scoring 5 points in a row finally he needs one more point to level it up.As planned he goes for the short serve,his opponent goes for a rare drop ,hardly droping after watching so many good drops picked,he had already picked it out of his hand,this should do it.
but his legs wont move.

he dives forward picks it inches above the ground and some how manages to return it back over the net,just before crashing he saw his opponent swiftly moving forward and easily returning it over his head to win the point.

all was not lost ,the score was now 14-13 game point .He just needs to break the serve,its all or nothing now.
a long ralley he knows he needs to win it fast now,he jumps high and goes for a smash.
it ends up wide .
Game over ,he had lost it.still finding it unbelievable he lost he walks forward to shake hands .
all day long he had tried to keep his head clear of any thoughts it was amazing how clear his head was no ,as if he is just about to wake up .

crowd cheers for the young man , his brother picks him up on his shoulders . He tells his brother appolgetically
"if only i had more stamina"
"u played brilliant " replied his brother
more than anything else he was amazed at the way aman had played he didnt falter at any point showed no fear,he even didnt show he was tired at all .Now when he thinks about it he wonders if he was tired at all or was it just his over confidence.He had to sleep now ,as he hadnt slept last night also ,more over there was no more dreaming to be done as he had lost at the state championship only ,may be he give this all up .

aman had won this tournament 3 times now.He knew this is very important.last time around he had met him .never expecting him to be his opponent in final .never in his life he had ever been scared more of losing than today.When he made five points in a row with crowd getting behind him,aman thought it was over.He had no more stamina left ,seeing him move so fast even when tired had amazed aman.But more than anything else he knew why this was a great champion in the making ,he never gave up till the very end.He knew this was just start,the first great match of his life.



to be continued