Southern Closed SC

A guest post by Mark (apparently he forgot how to capitalize and punctuate) with a quick recap of the event at the end:

here is mark.

 

here is mark and mama

   here is mama and Brother Giles.

here is mark, not knowing why two women have suddenly grabbed him.

  

     here is mark, deciding his destiny by looking into the distance.

here is mark joining his people in the march of the penguins.

here is Mark serving a 2000 mph serve

here is mark with his fellow comrades teaching us how to float.

here is mark pacing because of his awkwardness.

here is mark, not knowing where to put his arms.

The pinnacle of our tennis season (if there is such a thing as tennis is year round really...) is a big tournament called Southern. It was held in Caycee, SC, close to Columbia in June. Players from NC, SC and GA participated, so it was a big tournament. Mark and I stayed at a hotel but went to visit our great friends, the Giles a few times. The Giles are one of my favorite senior missionaries whom I taught and who went to Lviv on a mission (and were great friends with my parents). We also got to walk around the Columbia Temple on one of the evenings and go to church with the Giles on Sunday.

A great thing about this big tournament is that there are a lot of opportunities to play since there are so many kids and it's a compass draw (you just seem to keep going even if you lose a couple of times). Mark had a fantastic run! He played really well! I'd say he played one of his best matches against a boy from Georgia. They were still in the main draw, and Mark won the first set, was up 1:0 in the second set when they had to stop the match because of the rain. They had to continue the following morning which actually didn't play to Mark's advantage. It was still a very-very tight match, but Mark lost after a third set tie breaker.

Speaking of rain--we had so many rain delays...it was frustrating and unpredictable but such is the nature of outside tennis. The sad part is that all doubles play was cancelled as they were trying to fit all the hundreds of matches into the three days, thus singles taking priority. Mark did great overall! After two rain interruptions in his final match for the 5th place, he lost in a third set tie breaker. It was tough as his shoulder started to hurt by then and he was playing his intended doubles partner. In any case, it was a great accomplishment--6th place! And this was Mark's last tournament playing 10 and under.

Lyana.