Everything’s relative. Pressure to win a summertime youth tennis tournament isn’t exactly up there with pressure to feed your family or create a vaccine to combat a deadly virus.
Still, within the narrow window of athletics, imagine you’re in the last match of the United States Tennis Association’s Georgia 18-and-under intermediate championship event, and if you and your mixed doubles partner lose more than two games – not sets, mind you, games – the other team wins the tournament.
Because that’s the scoring system the USTA uses in such events, a format that truly makes every game count, that was the scenario facing the Dalton Golf & Country Club mixed doubles duo of McLean Murray and Jace Sanford as they met an Atlanta entry for the team title.
To make the situation even more problematic, Murray and Sanford are callow 15-year-olds rather than the seasoned 17- and 18-year-olds you might hope to find in that spot.
Said Murray, her truthfulness refreshing: “I’ll be honest, I didn’t have much hope for us.”