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Thirty minutes passed quickly as she waited while reading a book. Hearing a buzz of excitement, she looked up to see both players entering the court side by side.
After setting his bag down on the players' bench and picking up his racket, Hunter cast a brief glance toward the bleachers. When his eyes met Jiyu's, he gave a subtle nod of acknowledgment. Then, spotting the book spread open on her lap, he knit his brows.
He raised two fingers—his index and middle fingers—pointing first at Jiyu and then at himself. He was telling her not to be distracted during the match and to keep her eyes only on him.
‘The match hasn't even started yet, and he's already telling me to stare...’
But a promise was a promise. Jiyu gave a prim nod, closed her book, and tucked it into her bag. Only then did Hunter step onto the court.
During the brief warm-up period before the match, Jake approached and sat in the seat she had reserved.
Jiyu closely observed the opposing player warming up. He looked to be at least 6 feet 2 inches tall, and his face looked old enough that she would have believed he was twenty-seven rather than seventeen. With deep Slavic hair, a sturdy build, and a fierce expression, he looked imposing.
In the Under-16 tournament, Hunter had been one of the larger players, and his opponents had felt like adolescents still in the middle of a growth spurt. However, the players in the Under-18 tournament—only two years older—possessed a physique and presence that rivaled adults.
Noticing Jiyu's appalled expression as she watched the opponent, Jake gave her a brief summary of his profile.
[Dmitri Petrov. He's a tennis prodigy from Russia. He was selected as a scholarship student for a famous tennis academy in Tampa, Florida, at age eleven, and his whole family moved to the U.S. He mainly plays in U18 L1s and the ITF Junior Circuit tour, but he hasn't been able to enter tournaments for three or four months due to an injury. That's why he entered this L2 to bring back his dropped ranking.]
[Then, is he a much stronger opponent than Hunter?]
Jake shrugged.
[He doesn't go to a regular school; he boards right at the tennis academy, and physically, he's almost an adult who's finished growing. So, it's certain that in terms of experience, ranking, and skill, he's a step above Hunter.]
[Then... it'll be hard to win?]
When Jiyu asked cautiously, Jake smiled broadly and added reassuringly.
[Not necessarily. Hunter is also a blue-chip player, ranked in the top three nationally for his age group. That guy is relatively weak in backhands and strategic play, so if Hunter digs into those areas, he has a chance. However, he's famous for having dirty match manners. If Hunter gets caught up in that fiery temper... then it might get a bit difficult.]
Just then, the chair umpire walked to the center of the court to signal the end of the five-minute warm-up. Hunter and Dmitri also approached the umpire, rackets in hand.
It was a long-standing tradition to determine the serving order via a coin toss or a racket spin before a match. While coin tosses were primarily used in professional tournaments, most junior tournaments used the racket spin.
The umpire gave the younger Hunter the chance to spin the racket and gave Dmitri the choice of 'up' or 'down.' In such cases, most players chose 'up.'
[Down!]
With a sneering expression and a smirk, Dmitri abruptly flicked his thumb downward. It was a low-class provocation and a clear psychological battle, rare for a sport known as the gentleman's game.
Startled, Jiyu gasped. Pressing down her racing heart, she turned her gaze to Hunter. It was hard to predict how he would react, as he had never been looked down upon by anyone until now.
‘He shouldn't get caught up in it before the match even starts.’
Sure enough, his blue eyes flashed like lightning striking a pitch-black midnight sky. His jaw clenched, the muscles twitching visibly.
[Please hold it back, Hunter...]
Jiyu murmured unconsciously. At that moment, her eyes met Hunter's as he turned his head to the side and took a deep breath. She gave a small shake of her head.
Hunter then turned his gaze forward, puffed out his cheeks, and let out a loud exhale. He lightly loosened his neck muscles as if stretching.
[Hamilton, up. Petrov, down. Please spin the racket.]
At the umpire's words, he relaxed his shoulders and placed the rounded head of the racket on the court floor. In that moment, Jiyu placed her palm on her chest and breathed a sigh of relief. It was a scene she had witnessed countless times since childhood.
After learning that the serving order in tennis matches was decided by a racket spin, Hunter had practiced so much that the racket head wore down, ensuring the side he wanted would come up every time he spun.
As a result, whenever he was given the chance to spin, he achieved the desired result 99 percent of the time. Therefore, there was even less reason to react to such a low-level provocation.
Hunter lightly spun the handle. The racket head whirled like a top before falling to the floor. He leaned over to check the direction of the logo on the end of the handle and slowly stood up.
Then, with an arrogant expression and his chin slightly tilted, he curled one corner of his mouth up and flicked his thumb from bottom to top.
[Up. Serve first.]
Dmitri's face contorted. Beside her, Jake shook his head and chuckled.
[Hunter Hamilton. Honestly... he's something else.]
Hunter chose his side of the court and stood at the baseline of the deuce side to serve.
Jiyu held her breath and waited for the first serve. The match hadn't even begun, but her palms were already sweating. To have one's skills evaluated, a victory or defeat decided, and even the moments where mental fortitude crumbles exposed in front of so many people.
Jiyu felt suffocated just imagining herself standing in Hunter's place. Though he seemed perfectly fine standing there.
Hunter bounced the neon yellow ball on the court floor three times with consistent force. Then, without hesitation, he tossed it high vertically.
Thwack!
The sound of the tight strings striking the ball echoed through the white, rounded ceiling of the air dome. As Hunter landed lightly from his jump, the ball, carrying the full weight of his body, slammed right inside the diagonal baseline.
[Whew.]
Jake let out a light whistle.
A flat serve with almost no spin is powerful and fast, but typically lacks accuracy. Thus, choosing it for the first serve was a bold move.
It was typical of Hunter to start the attack with a direct approach, flaunting power and speed without being intimidated by an opponent who was more skilled, larger, and older.
Dmitri, who hadn't expected such a fast serve, used his seasoned athletic reflexes to quickly return it, but he couldn't put enough power into the shot.
The ball became a high moonball and landed outside the sideline. Applause erupted from the stands.
It was a clean serve ace.
[Fifteen-love. (15-0.)]
Jiyu whispered the score softly.
She liked that in tennis scoring, '0' was called 'love' instead of zero. While 'zero' felt like a miserable score, 'love' somehow made the blow of not scoring feel a bit less severe.
Hunter rotated the racket handle in his palm and moved to the left side of the court. The ad side was a playground for him as a left-hander.
The corners of his mouth curved elegantly upward, revealing his neat teeth.
When they were children, he had smiled like that when he first succeeded in crossing the monkey bars to the end while Jiyu watched. Back then, she had feared him more than a midnight ghost, but she had thought his smile looked like an angel's.
Because she had watched him for so long, she knew.
Hunter was genuinely enjoying this match.
He swung the racket diagonally as if slicing through the air, sending a ball loaded with spin into the opponent's left court. As the ball bounced at a wide angle after hitting the ground once, Dmitri struggled to return it with a backhand.
The rally began, and the yellow ball crossed the net countless times. Jiyu's heart thundered in sync with the sound of Hunter's racket striking the ball.
The things she had never related to—when the Aster School kids chatted and analyzed his charm in nano-detail as if Hunter were a member of a boy band—suddenly began to make sense.
Standing on the court, Hunter was radiant.
That was why she couldn't take her eyes off him.
[This is crazy...]
Jiyu murmured in a voice of desperation.
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