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Better Late Than Never: Manny Singleton’s Tennis Journey

Manny Singleton is a rising tennis player at Penn High School, but he started with a predictament. Singleton has rarely, if ever, played tennis at the level that he was going to be pushed to playing at in the sport. Singleton is a sophomore student at Penn high school who’s very new to tennis. He’s currently at JV level, but he will be  attempting to make varsity next year.

Tennis isn’t an easy sport to get accustomed to, especially for people playing against others who have enormous amounts of experience. 

Singleton is a new player who just started playing going into his sophomore year, but still decided to join the tennis team with people who, according to him, have “started playing anywhere from a few years ago to their whole life”. 

Sophmore Aaron Yoon, who has been playing tennis since he was young.

“Tennis players just starting have a lot of trouble learning the basics,” Yoon said. 

Regardless of all his odds, Singleton has continued to keep playing and persevere through the tough starting phase. His motivation and drive to get better at the sport have been a huge factor in his improvement over the last few months he has been playing. 

Singleton said, “Failure is a great motivation and I knew I was going to fail, but I used that as motivation to improve”. 

He strives every day to improve, going to tennis lessons, playing tennis with his friends at every opportunity he could, and playing in general at any opportunity he could grasp just to attempt to close the gap between him and the other players. 

Throughout his journey, he has gone through the hardships of a new player and lost many many times in the process, but regardless of that, he continues to push through and use his losses as a motivation for him to continue forwards and to get better until he can eventually catch up with his peers. 

He doesn’t use starting late as an excuse for losing, nor does he decide to quit just because he thinks he can’t do it.

His dedication and motivation aren’t the only things keeping him pushing through though, he is heavily inspired by the former tennis player John McEnroe after seeing a documentary of his tennis journey. He hopes to follow in McEnroe’s footsteps and continue to improve in his tennis career.

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