Once upon a time, dewy-eyed Tashi swung half-baked whacks across the green grid. A chapter of when she was tenderfoot, frail, and idolizing. Hit after hit hankered she for the flawless standard—the undefeated streaks.

To, one day, yank the prestigious titles you wholly embodied. What better way to outgrow moments of weakness than learning from the masters themself? After all, impotency is merely a phase for the great.

So, your matchups, with fellow big-times conquered her watchlist. Rallies that were dated and, at the time, recent, she could care less, were reprised.

Needle-like heed inscribed your footwork's unreal fluidity, grace, and spring, even when beneath the sun's bone-weary heat, dousing your sinewy build and unmistakably drenched. Precise stances were noted—the seamless transitions shot after shot. Then, those backhand returns executed with finesse?

Fuck. She. Was. Obsessed.

Hence, unearthing the fact her contender at the Grand Slam, pricked-up beyond the net's stretched centrum, would be you, oh, she was poised. Adrenaline-tautening grip around her racket type of poised—where beads of forehead sweat, sheened by the overhead rays, went untended.

Mid-game thoughts revolved around the game, the ball, the ensuing move. Her aftermath victory, though, left her to ponder post-game of: What the fuck happened to you?

Surpassing the top dog, the enigmatic American fave, should have surged something. A satisfied leap on air. A jubilant scream. But she's left with trickling pespire, sapped limbs, and a bereft... thrill.

"What the hell was that?" boomed a question at your oblique, lustrous black bridging your side-eye glance. Can't even make the effort to swivel your neck fully?

"Were you going easy on me, was that it?" Just the thought of it roundabouts a white-knuckled grip on her racket—seething beneath a stoic armor. For fuck's sake, she had to prove herself to the world. To you. Why give shitty pity pass?

"Or are your knees growing grey hairs, too, at, what, the age of thirty?"