Racket Woes

Cameron called me on his way home from practice with sad news.  His beloved tennis racket had cracked at practice when he went for a low ball.  Although the crack was small, it had bent the frame making the tennis racket unusable.  Others on the team had offered theirs for him to use, but at the moment he was just too bummed to accept any help.

I shouldn't have been surprised that the racket had met its end because of its age, but I was.  I could also empathize with him.  That racket had severed our family well in its seven season of high school tennis starting with Cal's sophomore year.   Cameron had just been telling his coach about his pose for the senior banner picture.  He was proud that he was able to replicate Cal's picture complete with intense facial expression, orange racket in hand.  

Once Cameron got home we started brainstorming on what to do for a racket in the immediate future and long term.  Thankfully, Matthew Dyck was able to loan Cameron his from last year.  He picked that up on Tuesday afternoon at Goshen College.  We then looked online at buying a new racket, but Cameron didn't see anything he liked.  That's when I pulled the beloved racket out of the bag, copied the name into an Ebay search engine and like magic Cameron/Cal's racket appeared.  We looked it over and quickly decided to make an offer.  Thankfully, the seller accepted and shipped the racket today.  It won't be here for the Bremen tournament this weekend, but it should fit Cameron's needs for the rest of the season.

Cameron and I were both glad to have found a solution to his racket woes.  He was very appreciative of being able to use Matthew's racket, but serving with it at the Fremont match tonight just wasn't the same.  He did figure out how to use it by the second set, helping his doubles team win that set, but it just wasn't enough for the overall W as he and Tristan lost in the third.  That made for a long ride home from Fremont, especially since the team took the loss as well.  Hopefully, the weekend brings success or at least a lot of fun memories.