Thwock. Thump. Out. Again. Again. Again. This is what my father calls becoming a champion. I can see it in his eyes–the maniacal, excited glint when he thinks of my future championdom.

I get driven straight from school two hours to the Valley. In the Valley, I meet a former pro-turned-coach-for-children-who-can- one-day-hopefully-become-champions. He never made it to the Big Leagues but has unfortunately devoted the vast majority of his neuroplastic prime (ages 9 to 19) on honing the craft of repetitively hitting a ball back and forth and back and forth. As have I.

If you don’t win enough mid-tier regional and sub-regional tournaments for a wildcard entry into a various Open (or hell, Indian Wells), you end up in places like this—grunting out commands to ANTICIPATE THE BALL to a teenager who hits even better than the boys her age while her dad looks on in tense almost anticipatory approval. Devoting your life to hitting a damn ball back and forth results in similar oscillations in life and career circumstance—I’d imagine there’s only so long you can take it before you settle in the muck.

He’s done the odd commercial here and there for various racquet brands and as a result has definitely invested in a set of veneers. Once you’re primed for the big time, the ego never dies. He’s bracingly arrogant. For someone who’s supposed to be training me to be the next big thing, he sure takes his sweet time at it. Does he not understand my father needs me to be a champion? That I need to be a champion?

Believe me, I realize. Everytime I’m shuttled off to a USTA match I feel a dreadful lump developing right above my esophagus and my hands start trembling—suddenly, my opponent who I’m supposed to be defeating is inhumanly terrifying and quite frankly the scariest teenage girl I have ever faced. I can’t stop thinking about how when my dad first moved to this country and he was a delivery driver for a fast casual fish taco restaurant in Mid-City, that one day he took a nap in a park in between deliveries by a tennis court and a ball hit him on the head and that’s when he realized his daughter was meant to be a champion. And now here I am, stuck on this bus and having trouble taking breaths before I serve.

I figured early on that my dad’s dreams were outsized—I could hardly become the champion when my regional amateur peers struck such fear in my heart. So those afternoons with Mr. Veneers—as he tells me my form is perfect, my footwork impeccable, my serve is faster and stronger than even boys my age—take on a languid uselessness, out of sync with my father’s barely contained vicarious longing. But every day I hit with Mr. Veneers because he’s supposed to be the one who helps make a champion. My dad knows best.

Before Mr. Veneers, it was an old Greek National Pro. Before the old Greek National Pro, it was a bald guy who emphasized strength training and rubbed sunscreen on his lips. Before the bald guy, it was sleepaway tennis camps in Ojai and Tony during the school year. And before that it was my dad. My dad, who said you’re going to be a champion just like Serena Williams. You know her serve is faster than most professional men in the circuit? Just like you, your serve is faster than most of the boys your age. Thwock. Thump. Out. Again. Again. Again.