Reflective Essay: A Career As A Tennis Player

Before starting out my writing process, I had to brainstorm memories that would reveal who I am as a person. However, memories of school, family vacations, and other social events are a blur to me. The only recollections I clearly remember are related to tennis. During my writing process, I reveal the experience of my first national tennis tournament, my tennis role model Li Na, my decision to end my career as a tennis player, and the various emotions I feel about tennis.
In my first response paper, I started my paper by showing how scared I was during the competition to demonstrate how the reality of competing in a high-level tennis tournament contrasted and ruined my expectations. I also expanded my feeling of fear to jealousy, resentment, and anger. The various emotions were to serve as a personal reflection of …show more content…
Initially, all of the titles were in present tense,“I Have,” but, then, I changed my last title into past tense, “I Had.” At first, my last title was called “Thank You And Goodbye” because I wanted to portray my gratitude for learning how to play tennis. However, I re-titled it into “Or So I Had Tennis” because I thought the title uncovers my current relationship with tennis, which is my retirement as a competitive tennis player. I decided to end my essay by storing away my tennis racquets and leaving them behind as I drive off to a new beginning to show that I am more than an athlete. In my essay, I wanted to clearly show the ups and downs I had as a tennis player. To portray my inconsistent attitude towards tennis, I utilized repetition in my titles and in my sentences. Not only did I use repetition but also made some of my sentences short and simple. Although I could have used a wider range of vocabulary and created lengthy, compound sentences, I believed that incorporating repetitive, short sentences created a better depiction of my relationship with