Free Break Point by Kate Jaimet Page A

after two sets with a stunned look on his face. I had barely broken a sweat.
    Maddy made moose meat of her opponent, too, so at noon we found ourselves shaking hands across the net for the semifinal match. I wished her good luck, even though my only goal now was to knock her out and advance to the final.
    I won the toss and took first serve. How to play it, I asked myself, as I dragged my heels to the baseline. My rule for playing against Maddy had always been not to cream her on the serve. But that was in practice. This was for real. And now my serve was more powerful than ever. It was a speeding, spinning missile designed to destroy my opponent on contact. I needed that weapon in my arsenal.
    The best thing to do was pretend I wasn’t playing against Maddy. I was playing a nameless, faceless opponent who needed to be eliminated in my ruthless drive to victory.
    First serve. The ball went sizzling off my racket, hit the ground with a vicious sidespin and notched the first point of the game. I hit two more serves with the same deadly force, and I was up 40-love before Maddy even got a racket on the ball. On the final serve, Maddy managed a return, but I won the game on a backhand down the line. On a hot streak, I took the second game and muscled my way to victory in the third. By the fourth game, I really had forgotten I was playing against Maddy. She was only a moving target, and my goal was to put the ball as far away from that target as possible. My world consisted only of my body, my racket and the ball, working together in perfect harmony. Forehands, backhands, overhands, serves. The ball went singing off my racket. The points racked up until a final, beautiful backhand finished the set and I stood there dripping with sweat and surging with energy. I had won the set, 6-1.
    I flopped into my chair at the sideline and squirted cold water down my throat and on my face. I toweled off the water and sweat. As I finished wiping my eyes, I glanced at the chair on the opposite side of the net. Maddy was sitting there, her jaw clenched.
    â€œWell, that was humiliating,” she muttered.
    The intensity in her voice hit me like a punch in the face. Suddenly, she was real again.
    â€œMaddy, I—”
    â€œForget about it,” she said. “Game on, Connor.”
    She turned away, took a slug of water, wiped the sweat off her face and stood up to signal she was ready to play. I watched as she walked toward the baseline. I watched the way her white tennis skirt swung with her hips and brushed against the dark skin of her thighs. I saw the anger in her hunched shoulders and it seeped into me, sucking away the joy of my first-set win. I wanted to patch it up with her. I wanted to feel her fling her arms around my neck the way she had done after my win against Mike Baron.
    Would it kill me to let her win a game or two?
    I hadn’t figured out the answer to that question when Maddy’s serve rocketed past me and she went up 15-love in the first game of the second set.
    Focus, Connor.
    Another serve came darting at me. I lobbed it back crosscourt at three-quarter speed. I was playing for time. I hadn’t made up my mind yet what to do. My body ached to get back into that place of perfect harmony with the ball and my racket. I knew I could slip into it again if I just let myself. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to, not against Maddy.
    Maddy pummeled the ball down the line. I reached it with a lunge that sent it airborne like a baseball pop fly. Maddy smashed an overhead. I spun around, but it was too late to do anything. The ball caromed away. A cheer erupted from the lawn behind me.
    I turned. Every girl in the club must have been there to watch Maddy fight for a spot in the finals.
    She served again. I sent a return low and fast down the line. She netted the ball. 30-15. It didn’t shake her. She was in good form on the next serve. Confidently, she arced her body back and whipped it forward, sending all her