Maia Laaning Ch. 23

In the morning as Anett and Maia awakened they ordered a hearty breakfast from room service before they showered. Their breakfast tray arrived at their suite just after each had finished their shower. Naturally as they partook their morning meal, the conversation centered on recounting the details of their private night of passion.

Anett did not seem to have had a particularly exciting time of it. Sebastian Carstairs seemed to have been in a hurry. It was he who urged they get to the bedroom after only a perfunctory foreplay of kissing and not much time had transpired before they were in Anett's designated bedroom. He only removed his trousers and shoes while keeping on his briefs and socks. Once Anett had removed her dress he insisted on getting it on while she was still wearing her bra and panties. He compelled her to pull the gusset of her panties aside to allow him to penetrate her vagina.

He fucked her à la missionary position and was ejaculating at just about the time she was starting to get wet in her vagina after having endured some rather painful initial thrusts from his iron hard cock. After he was finished, he could not get dressed fast enough as he excited the suite seemingly just under the speed of light.

Anett summed it up, "I got the impression that Sebastian could not stay too long as he had texted his wife, he would be late. So, I imagined he must have gotten a text reply possibly setting a deadline when he was expected home. His sexual technique was of the, 'Wham, bam'* variety, but I did not even get a 'thank you Ma'am!'* from him. I had to resort to masturbating to enjoy a decent orgasm. At least you seemed to have had a decent time with Herbert." (* air quotes)

Maia replied, "Oh yes, it was good, and I didn't need to masturbate to get sexual satisfaction. However, Herbert likewise was seemingly impatient ready to leave as soon as we were finished our sex play. I would have invited him for a final drink, but he was gone before I could have even suggested it."

After having finished their breakfast, it was off to the tournament site for the two of them. The main draw to establish the first round match ups and the pattern of competition for the ensuing rounds was scheduled to be revealed that afternoon. Since the qualifying matches had been completed the day before, the field of the 128 players had been fully identified. So, now it was a simple matter of determining who plays against whom.

A draw in tennis is an impartial way of randomizing who plays at a tournament with the caveat that the top players are separated on different sides of the draw. Nowadays a computer is programmed to produce a random draw based on the rankings. In the past, the order would have been drawn from a hat. This also explains the use of the word "draw."

Wimbledon seeds thirty-two players usually determined by official rankings but does reserve the right to make an exception or two, although they rarely exercise that right. These seeded players are considered the strongest entrants in the field of 128 players. With seeding these top players avoid one another until later in the tournament. It is apparent that for the No 1 ranked player to play against the No 2 ranked player in the very first round would prove to be somewhat anti climatic for the balance of the tournament. In essence the expectation would be that if they were to play against each other it ought to be in the final round for the title.

As stated, a computer randomly selects the draw at Wimbledon. A close circuit huge video monitor is set up to show one by one the computer selections for the ninety-six non-seeded players for their first round matches. Then the remaining thirty-two seeded players are strategically added, so that the top four players are in opposing quarters of the tournament and would not face one another until the semi finals round. Then, the next four seeded players go into opposing quarters, and so on, until the 32 seeded players complete the 64 matches line-up.

As it so happened, Maia's first round opponent turned out to be Gertrude Stockmann, who was a player from Germany and was seeded No 3 for the tournament. In addition, Ms Stockmann was the defending champion having won this tournament the previous year. For Maia this was a good news/bad news situation. The bad news was that Ms Stockmann was obviously a most formidable opponent, and against whom Maia was unlikely to prevail and advance into the second round of the tournament. Her realistic hope was that she would not be humiliatingly trounced.

The good news was that since Ms Stockmann was in fact the defending champion, the Wimbledon tradition dictated that the women's defending champion's first round match tennis match would be the first match of the second day (Tuesday) to be played on the centre court. The centre court is the main show court at Wimbledon, where the deemed most compelling matches including the Men's and Women's title matches would be scheduled. None of the qualifying matches were played on this court in order to preserve the integrity of this grass court for the most appealing matches. Even when she won the Junior Girls Singles title, two years previously, Maia did not play any of her matches on this court.

The centre court had the most seating capacity over the other courts used for the tournament. The capacity for the centre court numbered around 15,000 spectators, and every ticket was invariably sold. In addition, the streaming online coverage supplied by the Wimbledon broadcasting services for viewers world-wide would number in the millions of viewers.

The prestige of actually playing on the centre court before such a huge audience was not lost on Maia. As she recounted to Anett, she had once seen an interview with a celebrated well regarded female British author on the BBC, who when asked acknowledged that earlier in her life she had been a professional tennis player, who had played on the WTA tour. She went on to say that her greatest thrill and highlight of her short lived tennis career was that at one time she had competed in the main draw at Wimbledon. Maia quipped, "I would wager that her one appearance in the main draw of Wimbledon occurred on one of the outside courts with a sparse crowd on hand to witness her efforts. Win or lose, I can safely say at least my tennis career has already surpassed hers."

Naturally, every Estonian who was reasonably able to watch this match, would be watching, whether or not they were fans of the sport. The fact that Maia was playing and being the Prime Minister's stepdaughter, viewing her match was almost seen as a compulsory requirement, even a duty in the minds of every Estonian. The fact that Anett Kontaveit was coaching Maia made it a no brainer of what to do on the afternoon of June 30. In fact since the match was scheduled to start at 03:30 PM per Estonian time zone, a majority of businesses in the country suspended operations at that time to allow their employees to watch the match live.

Curiously enough, the one Estonian who was unable to watch Maia's match live was Raimond Kruuse, who was the Prime Minister of Estonia, but more pertinently, the stepfather of Maia. It so happened that months previously, the US Secretary of State and the US Secretary of Defense together scheduled a rare bi cabinet tour of certain selected NATO countries, Estonia being one of them. The main purpose of this trip was to discuss mutual plans to counteract the apparent aggressive threat of Russia's seemingly desire to restore the territory once held by the Soviet Union and for that matter also held by Tsarist Russia. The meetings at the Stenbock Maja would invariably include discussions as to what new further US military aid the United States was prepared to offer Estonia. Naturally there was no way Raimond could avoid such an important meeting, so that he had to be content with watching the recorded view of the match after its outcome was known.

The one Estonian who was able to watch Maia play live, and actually in person at the stadium was Vivian Laaning, Maia's mother. The first two weeks in July was usually the time allotted by Vivian for her and Maia to visit their American relatives in Chicago and also those living at the family farm in Wisconsin. Naturally, on this occasion she postponed the commencement of the visit to witness Maia's matches at Wimbledon. Vivian was too committed with her business and political interests in Estonia that she couldn't attend Maia's matches for the qualifying rounds.

However, since Maia did in fact qualify to compete in the main draw of the Wimbledon tournament, Vivian was determined to attend Maia's further matches in a spectacular fashion. For that first match against Gertrude Stockmann, Maia had been allotted several tickets to fill out her friends' box which for most players consisted of the player's coaching staff plus very close family members such as parents, siblings, perhaps even a spouse, a boyfriend or very close friends. Naturally, Anett was automatically designated a seat in Maia's friend's box section. The remainder of Maia's friends allowed in her friends' box section consisted of an entourage assembled by Vivian.

That entourage included Maia's aunt, Erica Koeninger née Laaning, Maia's BFF Riina Mölder, a quartet of significant male employees of Baxter and Sons (European division) and finally Jed Baxter himself. Vivian at her own expense convinced her sister to come from Chicago to witness this one match. The incentive was predicated on the fact that Maia was committed to attending the University of Tartu in the coming month of September. Therefore, this match probably represented a once in a lifetime opportunity to witness Maia play at this renowned grand slam tennis tournament, and at its premier court, no less.

Considering that she was Maia's BFF, Riina was geeked to be given the opportunity of seeing Maia in actual competition at the famed Wimbledon tournament. For the tournament, Riina had enough warning that she had time to have a removable replica tattoo of the Estonian blue, black and white horizontal striped flag adhered to her left cheek.

Vivian had a prior understanding for a couple of dates with Jed lined up in Chicago during her normal July visit. That being the case, he was happy to alter his plans, and arranged to come to London just for this match. For the occasion they were booked into a similar suite adjacent to Maia's and Anett's suite. Raimond Kruuse might have groused that Vivian had her lover present at the game, but he was comforted with the belief that both Vivian and Maia, especially the latter, would have preferred that he could have been present instead.

The two suites happened to have a connecting door and in that case, Vivian envisioned having an impromptu party after the match, win or lose. For the party to even out the sexes, Vivian recruited four male employees of Baxter & Sons from the London office. Each of these males were highly recommended by the manager of the London office who would fit right in to satisfy Vivian's purpose for them.

For the match, Vivian had brought with her a large sized Estonian flag. The flag was rolled up but would easily unravel whenever Vivian stood up to display it. With the help of Jed, the two of them planned to hold up and wave the Estonian flag in jubilation throughout the match at any auspicious occasion when Maia happened to win a spectacular point or win a concluding point of a game and especially should she win a set.

In addition, Vivian had Riina, Erica, Jed and herself each wear a white t-shirt featuring a heart (♥) symbol filled in with three horizontal stripes, colored blue, black and white; obviously a replica depicting the colors of the Estonian flag and deliberately intending to represent the word "LOVE". Above the (♥) symbol emblazoned in black was the word "WE" and below the (♥) symbol also emblazoned in black was "MAIA". This was the exact same t-shirts design worn by those Estonian spectators who had attended the last two matches Anett played at Wimbledon before she officially retired. The obvious difference in those t-shirts would be that it displayed "ANETT" instead of "MAIA".

To complete the flamboyant display of supporters for Maia seated in her section reserved for her coach and friends, was the presence of the four male employees of the London office for Baxter & Sons. Vivian compelled them to be dressed in spiffy tuxedos. The Wimbledon broadcasting services with the assistance of the BBC television crew, as a matter of course, throughout the match would be inclined to occasionally highlight Anett along with Maia's other supporters for the television and online viewers. However, given the intriguing presence of her supporters, the BBC crew showed Maia's entourage more frequently than they had originally intended.

The ensuing match between Gertrude and Maia proved to be a gripping super entertaining display of women's tennis at its finest. In reality, the crowd initially had expected this match to be simply a filler for the more anticipated men's match to follow, featuring a promising British player, Tim Haversham, who was ranked No 36 in the world, pitted against the No 3 seeded player. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, rarely has a British player, male or female won the title. The last time a British female player won the Women's title was Virginia Wade in 1977. The last time a British male won the Men's title was Andy Murray in 2016 and he had also won the title in 2013. You actually have to go back to 1901 before you find another British male player, Arthur Gore, to have successfully won the men's title. At least on the women's side there have been fifteen occasions when a British woman has won the Women's Championship since 1900.

So, the British crowd was full of anticipation that Haversham just might surprise but knowing that the match would be a challenge for the Brit. For fans of women's tennis, this match between Gertrude and Maia proved to be unexpectedly extremely exciting and full of drama. It was a happy surprise for the spectators. Quite frankly they had anticipated that Gertrude Stockmann would easily dispose of Maia in less than an hour to give way quickly to the match that almost everyone in the stands were most interested in witnessing.

The first set was a conundrum for knowledgeable women's tennis fans. Gertrude displayed her prowess and showed why she was the heavy favorite to win this match easily. She hit some truly spectacular winners. Ms Stockmann made very few unforced errors and made some great gets on some of Maia's shots that would have been winners for Maia against most other players. Yet despite Gertrude's superior play she could not put Maia away.

Gertrude had no problem winning her service games. Only once during her first four service games did she yield two points in a game; and at that the score was 40-15 before she lost a second point in a game. In Gertrude's first four service games, except for the first game of the match, when Maia won the second point to bring the score to 15-15, the score was never even nor was Maia ever ahead in the score during any of Gertrude's first four service games. Needless to say, that meant Maia never saw a break point opportunity to break Gertrude's serve.

In contrast, it was a struggle for Maia to hold her serve in her first four service games. She faced break points in every one of those four games. In her second service game Maia was down by score of 0-40, and thus was facing three consecutive break points. However, she hung in there winning the next three points to bring the score to deuce and she eventually won that game even while surviving a further two break points. All in all, in those four service games Maia faced ten break points in total, but with steely nerves was able win them all and thwart Gertrude from winning any one of those four games. Consequently, Maia was compelled to serve more than double the number of serves that Gertrude needed to win her four service games.

(A point of interest for those unfamiliar with tennis scoring: To start a point the server must land her serve in the designated service area which in size is less than half the entire playing surface area. If she misses or strikes the ball into the net, it is known as a fault. She is given a second chance termed as her second serve, and if she misses again, it is termed a double fault, and she loses the point. There is no third chance on a service point.)

With the score tied 4-4, Gertrude was serving the ninth game of the set. The first two points were won by Gertrude easily. She hit an ace meaning the serve was good and Maia could not react in time to even swipe at the ball. The second point saw Gertrude strike an efficient serve that was too good for Maia to handle as her attempted return hit into the net. It looked like it was going to be another routine hold of serve for the German.

But then the tide turned. For the third point of the game, Gertrude made an uncharacteristic error as she hit Maia's return of serve into the net. The next point featured the longest rally in the entire match. After an exchange of sixteen shots, Gertrude on the seventeenth just missed landing her shot in the court to finally lose the point. That made the score 30-30 and it was only the second time the score was even during any one of Gertrude's service games.

On the fifth point Gertrude missed her first serve as it just landed outside the service line, and so she had served a fault. For her second serve Gertrude, struck the ball tentatively and she paid the price for her cautious serve. Maia smashed her return so swiftly and effectively, that Gertrude could not reach it to even attempt a return. Now Gertrude faced her very first break point in the match.

Once again on this sixth point Gertrude faulted on her first serve. No doubt in Gertrude's mind was the recollection of how forcefully Maia had returned her second serve on the previous point. Accordingly, she went all out this time to try and hit an effective second serve. She just missed hitting the ball within the service area. On a computer replay showed that she had missed her second serve by just ten millimeters (about four tenths of an inch). w

It was her only double fault which Gertrude suffered in the set, but it cost her dearly. The score was now 5-4 in favor of Maia who now needed only to hold serve to take the first set. Fans of Gertrude Stockmann were hoping probably realistically anticipating that the set could be tied up. Given the ten chances Gertrude had in winning any one of Maia's previous service games, surely Gertrude would finally break through in this the tenth game.

It was not to be. For the first time in the set Maia had an easy hold of her service game

yielding only one point. Thus, the set was hers and Maia's supporters were jubilant. Vivian with outstretched hands was holding up the Estonian flag, waving it frantically, while giddily jumping up and down on her feet. Anett, Erica, Riina and Jed were on their feet cheering lustily. The tuxedo clad male employees of Baxter & Sons were more subdued, but they did stand up and applauded politely.

The rest of the audience was stunned. It seemed like Gertrude Stockmann was clearly the superior player and was dominating the set. And yet she lost the set. In resting between sets, Gertrude appeared stone faced. She probably was furious with herself having so many chances to have taken advantage but failed to do so. Then to lose the set on really her only single slight lapse in play must have been maddening to her.

With determined steely resolve, Gertrude Stockmann asserted her tennis superiority in the second set. There were no break points nor double faults surrendered. Her four service games were just as easily won as she had won her first four service games in the first set. This time Gertrude converted the break points she saw. Ergo, she won two of Maia's three service games played. Maia won only one game as she held serve having not allowed a break point in that game. Thus, Gertrude took the second set by a commanding score of 6-1.