Craton's serve proves dangerous to family jewels

When I left my room in the illustrious 1940 Hall on a recent afternoon and headed down to Lenz Tennis Center, I did so armed only with my dignity and a Wilson HyperHammer 4.3 tennis racket. Little did I know that I was about to lose one of those items — and it wasn't the racket.

I was on my way to hit a ball around with junior Darius Craton, one of the top singles players on Princeton's men's tennis team. When I got down to Lenz a few minutes later, I found Craton finishing up a set with teammate and fellow junior Hans Plukas. Like any smart player, I decided to do a little bit of scouting before facing my opponent.

Craton was down, 5-6, and serving. His first serve exploded off the racket so quickly that I didn't even see it go over the net. Plukas managed to get his racket on the ball, but that was it.

"Nice serve," he said, apparently not surprised.

Though Plukas may have been nonplussed by the rocket off Craton's racket, I certainly wasn't. I can't remember exactly what I thought when I saw that serve, but it was along the lines of "I'm screwed!" I think I might have also muttered a few choice words not suitable for publication in a family newspaper.

Nonetheless, as Craton finished up the set, I tried to pretend I wasn't about to receive the worst beating in my life and did a few stretches I had seen Andre Agassi do on TV. Unfortunately, as I was about to find out, all the stretching in the world couldn't have prepared me for my set against Craton.

As we walked over to the court to start hitting, he asked me, "So why exactly are you doing this?"

I told him that my editors at the 'Prince' wanted to see if I could compete at all with him. He laughed, and we continued walking toward our respective sides.

As we started warming up, I noticed that his choice of arms was a Wilson HyperHammer 5.3, not all that different from my own. He also had a secret weapon, however, that I was soon to discover I didn't possess at all. It's called skill.

Just before we started the set, I yelled to him not to hold anything back. He just smiled, as if to say, "Any last words?"

"Here we go," I told myself as I wound up for my first serve. The ball flew over the service line. Fault. I prayed that I wouldn't embarrass myself immediately as I wound up for my second serve. By some freak accident, the serve fell in, and Craton's return forehand sailed over the baseline. I drew first blood and that was good enough for me. I should have cherished that moment for a little longer — or perhaps just called it a day right then — because it was one of the only leads I was to have all day. I somehow managed to get another point, but Craton took the game.

Now it was his serve. He tossed the ball, stretched and slammed it over the net, directly at me. Had I not quickly moved my racket to block that neon-yellow artillery shell, the family jewels may have been lost forever. After that near-disaster, though, I stormed back on the next point. Well, actually, he double-faulted, but whatever. On the following point, I really did take control. No, he double-faulted again. I was surprised to find myself up, 15-30, but the dream was about to end. He crushed me on the next three points and took the 2-0 advantage.

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To tell the truth, the next three games were kind of a blur. I have vague memories of losing four consecutive points in game three and getting blown out in game four. Halfway through the fourth game, he served up his only ace and froze me in my tracks. Down 4-0, I was beginning to see my hopes of beating him decline.

I asked him where he got the power on his serve, hoping to maybe incorporate his advice for a last-second comeback. He said that the power comes from quick torso rotation and arm speed, along with a strong snap of the wrist. I probably should have asked for these tips earlier on, but as it turns out, they didn't help me much anyway. I managed to salvage one point from the fifth game, but Craton took the rest.

The end was near, but I wasn't about to go down without a fight. For the sixth game, I introduced the "Equalizer." The "Equalizer" is my roommate Tyson's wooden tennis racket that his grandfather gave him. It's over three decades old, and I had Craton play the last game with it. The racket head was about the size of grapefruit and I was sure that it would level the playing field.

I was dead wrong. The "Equalizer" did manage to take the juice out of Craton's punishing serve — he double-faulted once — but that wasn't enough. The other four points were like hitting against a brick wall. It was only a matter of time before the curtain fell on my short-lived hopes for glory, and soon enough, Craton and I shook hands and parted ways.

At the end of the day, six seemed to be the magic number. We had played six games; I had won six points. Add those up and technically I won a game and a half, but who's counting?

It's not every day, I realized, that you get the chance to play with an athlete at the top of his game. Yes, I'd lost any pride I might have had as a tennis player. But at least I still had my racket.