Again I woke up this morning and read your encouragement/advice to Marcus. We arrived early and Marcus warmed up with the parent of another boy who is only half a year older than Marcus. Id love for them to play doubles together at a later date as they get on so well too. After warming up Marcus signed in with Van.

Van quickly won the first four games and then started to relax a little. I noticed he was not hitting his first serve hard at all and he was also keeping the ball in play as opposed to trying to hit winners. The result was a number of good baseline rallies. It also meant Marcus won his first game, he then even broke Van, but Van won the next two games to win the set at 6-2. It was really neat, during the change overs Marcus and Van would talk. Marcus complained about his hand hurting and he thought his strings were going to break (excuses I think). Van would offer him encouragement and once I even heard him give Marcus a tip to move forward on his second serve. It was neat the way they played the match.

I think during the second set Van realized that he would be playing in the singles final at 12:30pm and so he again stepped up his game and won 6-0, but not before Marcus changed his tactics. Marcus, on Vans last service game, started to hit drop shots and even chipped and charged. It was amazing and worked to bring up deuce. Drop shots dont work well at altitude (we are just under a mile high) and Van adjusted well and started to pass Marcus with ease. It did make me smile though that Marcus realized that what he was doing was not working and so changed tactics. Marcus and Van came of the court to a really nice round of applause at the close of the match.

Afterwards Marcus asked if he could go back and watch Vans final. We caught the second set. Van went down 6-2, 7-5. The tennis in the second set was good and the set was so close. Afterwards, Van invited Marcus to go swimming and that is where they are now.

All in all a great experience, no tears. Marcus will go back to team tennis in the morning, playing kids closer to his age and about his ability, but he is already asking when the next tournament is coming to Bozeman. Thank you for your support guys! It means a lot.