The Heart in Full Set
Jiyu returned to her seat and pressed her palm firmly against her chest. Her heart was galloping at full speed. The three minutes before the start of the third set felt both like three seconds and like three hours.
The third set was a tense, back-and-forth battle.
Following her promise, Jiyu never took her eyes off Hunter.
After claiming the second set and returning to the court with overwhelming momentum, Dmitry had taken the lead by winning the first two games of the set. But Hunter ground his teeth, fought back, and equalized at 2-2.
Whenever Dmitry pulled ahead, Hunter would catch up. This cycle repeated until the match clock passed two hours.
Dmitry’s dirty tactics and Hunter’s icy stares from his eyes, crawling up on him in an annoying way.
The third set ended in a 6-6 tie, and the match went to a tiebreaker.
A thrilling game rarely seen at the junior level.
Jake, watching with his legs shaking, shook his head vigorously. Between his sparse beard, his white teeth flashed as he laughed loudly.
The underdog of this match—Hunter—had put on such a fierce show. As his dedicated coach, it was a deeply satisfying and rewarding moment.
“First 18-under National Tournament, reaching tiebreaker. Hunter Hamilton’s fighting spirit, I have to acknowledge it. He stayed focused despite the low blow in the set. With that fiery temper, he basically won it anyway.”
Hunter exhaled a tense breath, unable to hide his excitement.
Jiyu’s heart pounded so hard her whole body trembled.
Playing a full set in the junior tournament was uncommon.
Due to the fervent desire to prepare the varsity team, Jiyu had gone to tournaments at the tennis academy twice a quarter. At the level she played, after two sets, it was a short super tiebreaker that replaced the third set.
Even so, when she reached the late stages of the tournament, her hands gripping the racket grew numb from exhaustion. Her muscles were overworked, and the next day walking was painful.
“You must be exhausted, right? You played the semifinals in the morning and the full set in the finals, plus the tiebreaker…”
Worried about Hunter’s physical limits before the final showdown, Jiyu’s voice trailed off.
“Who… Hunter?”
Jake tilted his head back and laughed, as if he’d heard a funny joke.
“Olivia, don’t underestimate teenage boys. To tire them out, you have to go all five sets, then drag it out to twenty points in the tiebreaker. Look at him, he’s still full of energy.”
At that moment, Hunter was stretching his footwork, loosening his body, then jumping high.
But Jiyu couldn’t smile.
Hunter was human too; he couldn’t last forever.
After the second set, the headband and wristband he’d worn were soaked dark with sweat. His chest rose and fell rapidly with every breath. When the sweat stung his eyes, he squinted and wiped the corners with his wristband.
Jiyu deliberately kept her gaze away from Dmitry. She disliked seeing him play dirty, but the fact that he had won the set after she had ignored Hunter’s request earlier felt strangely unsettling.
She had once thought athletes’ superstitions were silly, but now she couldn’t completely ignore them.
‘Am I really Hunter’s winning jinx…?’
Superstitions were truly strange. She knew they were baseless beliefs, yet she couldn’t shake off the nagging feeling.
“If it’s a full-set tiebreaker, Hunter has to win by getting seven points first, right?”
Jiyu pondered the complex tennis rules in her head and asked Jake for confirmation again.
“That’s right. You know a match point requires at least two points difference, don’t you? If Hunter has seven and Dmitry has five, Hunter wins. But if Dmitry gets to six, Hunter needs eight. He has to lead by two points.”
She nodded, confirming she understood. As she did so, the match resumed and Hunter served an ace for one point. Jiyu, shoulders hunched in tension, watched him and clapped enthusiastically along with the crowd.
Both players showed no mercy in the tiebreaker. Dmitry won a point on serve with an ace, then followed with a difficult drop shot that was hard to predict.
‘Please… please, Hunter…’
Jiyu pondered why she was cheering so desperately for him.
Sometimes he twisted her insides annoyingly, and sometimes he was unbearable to look at, but they had grown up together like family that wasn’t blood. She had watched every drop of sweat he had shed to reach this place, every honest effort over that long time.
Jiyu smiled bitterly.
She knew exactly how Hunter thought of her. When he treated her well, it was only because he needed her for the tennis tournament’s winning jinx.
She had denied it for a long time, but now she had to admit it. Even while receiving such treatment, she had always thought of him as a friend in her heart.
Her heart clenched tightly.
Jiyu sincerely hoped Hunter, her friend, would win.
“Four to five!”
Dmitry was one point ahead of Hunter. Jiyu couldn’t help shouting Hunter’s name in support.
“Fight on, Hunter!”
She didn’t know where the courage came from. As Hunter took the ball from his pocket to serve, he glanced at her.
Jake clapped and cheered for Hunter too. Dmitry’s parents, unable to accept defeat, shouted a strong encouragement in Russian to their son. The spectators watching all clapped together.
Hunter, breathing deeply while looking at the ground, bounced the ball three times, then tossed it up without hesitation. The racket in his left hand sliced through the air, perfectly grazing the side of the ball.
The kick serve bounced near the corner of the court and shot off in an unpredictable direction. Dmitry quickly retreated and stretched his arm long, but it was too late. It was a serve ace.
Jiyu shot to her feet and clapped, then sat back down just as quickly.
Now it was 5-5, tied. The player who scored two points first would become the tournament champion.
Dmitry, a heavy 6-foot frame, jumped high and unleashed a serve packed with the full weight of his body. It was a flat serve clearly intended to crush with raw power and speed.
Hunter, body slightly bent and feet moving quickly to read the ball’s direction, returned it with a forehand in desperation.
Dmitry jumped like a volleyball smash to slam the high-lobbing ball into the court. Hunter, fast on his feet, barely returned the speed-boiling ball with a backhand.
But Dmitry immediately relaxed his racket after a strong downswing motion. The ball dropped gently near the net as a drop shot.
Thinking it was the far-bouncing ball from the fake, Hunter dashed to the baseline and slid to a halt, then changed direction and sprinted hard. He stretched his legs and slid across the net, barely hitting the bouncing ball upward.
Dmitry seized the chance and drove a forehand with all his might as soon as the ball touched the ground. Hunter was already deep inside the court, but the ball flew far to the baseline.
“Ah…”
Jiyu sighed softly. She had blocked the merciless attacks without taking a breath, but catching this ball was nearly impossible.
Yet she saw Hunter sprinting madly past the baseline. But there was no time to set up a proper swing or find space.
The moment the ball bounced, Hunter glanced back, spread his legs, and jumped high. He flicked the ball upward with the racket just as it came back.
Cheers and applause erupted from the stands at once. Hundreds of heads followed the ball’s trajectory.
Dmitry, caught off guard by the fact that Hunter had hit the ball while turned, stood frozen before scrambling. But the ball, flying over the net, clipped his racket by a paper-thin margin, clipped the white line of the sideline, and bounced back.
It was a beautiful point that combined sheer tenacity, amazing speed, and luck all at once. The loud applause from the stands filled the entire tennis court.