Out of all the girls who turned up to the 2009 Southwestern Buckeye League tournament of Ohio’s best high-school female tennis players, I was matched against the only one who was more than 6ft tall. She stood inches above a sea of young girls crowded into a park in early October, ready to compete to be the best in the region. I, by comparison, was 5ft 5in with bad posture, wearing an ill-fitting jacket and too much eyeliner. I didn’t know what she thought of me when I walked on to the court, but I could have guessed.
No teenager can claim real self-awareness, but at 15, I could sense how I looked to my opponents: slow movement, straight sets, and an easy ride into the next round. That autumn morning was no different. By every metric, this girl – rightly – thought she was better than me. But after an hour of play, I had beaten her 6-4, 6-3. No matter what any of these players thought they were seeing, I knew they were looking at a Trojan horse.
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