Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner

Apparently all of my worrying about Shane's lack of confidence in himself on the tennis court was for nothing.

He played in a doubles tournament this morning and he and his doubles partner won the tournament!



Honestly, the thing that worried us the most was his lack of being assertive on the court was the very thing that help them win today. He was in complete control of both himself and the court. And his partner's play was a great compliment to his. He knew the kid and felt comfortable with him, which was a big plus too!

A couple of the kids he was playing against were unsure of the rules of the game and were making mistakes. They weren't intentional errors but were things like serving from or to the wrong service box or taking too many swings during the serve (it is a serve if you swing and miss per the rules per Shane and backed up by the tourny director) or screwing up the score.

And Shane was right there correcting them on calls, scores and directing them to the correct spot. Every single time. And every single time he was correct.

I knew that if we gave him the rules of the game, he would follow them and that is what would give him confidence. And it did. No matter how big the kids were that he was playing. He played four matches in which the first to get to four games won the match. They won 4-1, 4-3, 4-3 and 4-0. One of those matches was against the kid who beat him in the singles tourny.

The kid in the court beside him in this video was in the final round against Shane and his partner. He and his partner (as well as Shane's partner) were all at least a foot taller than Shane. But he didn't let that discourage him at all.

Sorry for the craptastic video but it's all I could do. I was trying to keep up with the score. (This is from the first day.)



Although Owen didn't place in the tournament, he did win three matches over the course of two days. He had fun and he felt good about himself.

Note in the second video that Owen called the ball "out." And he was complaining that they weren't calling the score correctly (love, 15, 30, 40, deuce) because they were using 1, 2, 3, 4 with the smaller kids. Apparently Shane's not the only gamer in the family!





For some stupid reason, I only took my point and shoot camera and it wouldn't focus correctly (plus Shane always seemed to be playing on the far court.) One of the moms took some pics and emailed them to me. She also found my coffee cup from the previous day and brought it to me today. Yay for nice moms!!!!!





I'm so glad that I had Ken's Aunt Liz call him. I think it made all the difference in the world. She gave Shane a boost of confidence and some good advice, which he listened to.

I love to see him be confident in himself and what he's doing. And I totally underestimated him. I guess I learned a lesson. I'm sure that we'll have to deal with his nerves again but hopefully we've gotten over the intimidation hump and he's on his way. Yay Shane! And Owen! Yay!