Maia Laaning Ch. 22

The Wimbledon tournament, designated as "THE CHAMPIONSHIPS" by the British tennis enthusiasts and by the tournament officials themselves, is one of the four grand slam tennis tournaments, in the year. It is held in London, UK, and starts on the last Monday in June unless the first day of July is a Monday. For the women's event, 128 players compete in a knockout elimination rounds format. If you win your match you advance to the next round. If you lose you are eliminated from the tournament. Thus, after the sixth round there are only two players left in the tournament to compete in the final match to capture the championship title.

To make up the 128 players field of competition, the highest 100 ranked players on the WTA tour receive automatic entry into the main draw. The player ranked 101st would only gain entry if a player ranked higher withdraws because of injury or for any other reason does not intend to compete. That process applies then down the line to as many of the actual Top 100 players who do not play.

The Wimbledon tournament officials award what's known as wildcards to twelve players, which under their sole discretion, they deem worthy to have direct entry to the main draw despite not being ranked in the Top 100. Usually, four British players are invariably selected for those twelve spots. Incidentally, the other grand slam tournaments act in the same manner. For example, the USO tournament will invariably select four American players not ranked in the Top 100; ditto for the French Open selecting French players and the Australian Open selecting Australian players. The other wildcard recipients are made up of players considered worthy but for one reason or another, usually because of prolonged injuries or illnesses missed achieving the Top 100 ranking to gain direct entry automatically.

The remaining sixteen spots for the competition, are filled by players who compete in the qualifying rounds conducted during the preceding week prior of the start of the tournament. There are 128 players entered in the qualifying rounds which also is determined by a knockout elimination format. Accordingly, after three rounds of matches played, there emerge only sixteen players who would have won their three consecutive matches, and thus are entitled to play in the main draw.

Technically speaking, players ranked from 101 to 228 ought to be the ones most entitled to compete in the qualifying rounds, but there are other factors in consideration. For one thing there are two WTA tournaments scheduled during that week which offer more ranking points and higher prize money than the results of the qualifying rounds. Some players who are allowed to play in those tournaments will opt to play there instead of competing to see if they could qualify to play at Wimbledon.

That said, it allows the Wimbledon tournament officials greater latitude in selecting the players to compete in the qualifying rounds. Hence, Maia who was ranked as low as No 318, based on her performances at the Tallinn Open the past September and at the American tournaments in March was selected even though she couldn't have competed in those other two lesser tournaments of that week. As we had previously noted the fact that she had won the Wimbledon's Junior Girls title two years previously bolstered her appeal to be invited to play at Wimbledon.

The three qualifying round matches for the women's event are held on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of the last full week in June. On Friday the tournament conducts the draw to set up the matchups for the championship competition to commence on the ensuing Monday, which in that current year happened to have fallen on the penultimate day of June.

After returning from the March tournaments and the impromptu visits to her relatives in the United States, Maia did not do anything in tennis that week. On the next week after returning from the orgy in Prague, she started daily two hour practice sessions on the tennis courts provided for her by the Estonian Tennis Association. After she was finished with her high school classes, Maia upped her practice schedule to two, two hour workouts daily in the morning and in the afternoon. Her former coach, Toomas Tamala, was instrumental in persuading the retired greatest Estonian tennis star, Anett Kontaveit, to take over on a temporary basis to coach Maia including her appearance at Wimbledon.

Anett was a very beautiful woman standing at a height of 175 cm (5'9") with a winsome female body. Her pulchritude was highlighted when she shared a photo of herself on social media wearing a really cool outfit, made of a light blue linen suit, consisting of shorts and a blazer. And under the jacket, she wore nothing at all; as a tantalizing glimpse of her bare cleavage was visible!

Anett was forced to retire from professional tennis and the WTA tour, at a premature age of twenty-seven years. She suffered from a lumbar disc degeneration in her back. That chronic painful back condition did not allow for full-scale training or continued competition. Therefore, it was impossible for her to continue at the top level in such a highly competitive field.

Anett and Maia in conjunction with Vivian worked out a mutually satisfactory financial arrangement for Anett's coaching assignment to assist Maia's preparation as well as accompanying her to the Wimbledon tournament. This agreement included a PR position with Vivian's craft beer company. Since Vivian's company was a subsidiary to Baxter & Sons, the international business conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Anett would act as a goodwill ambassador for Baxter & Sons in enhancing its corporate image.

Vivian and Jed Baxter were involved as periodical lovers in an ongoing sexual relationship for many years. As a result, under Jed's direction, Baxter & Sons incorporated Vivian's beer enterprise as a subsidiary company into its corporate holdings installing in the process Vivian as a vice president in the European division. Both Felicia Baxter, the wife of Jed, and Raimond Kruuse, common law husband to Vivian were aware of the affair but were in essence forced to tolerate it.

As far as Raimond was concerned he knew of the affair when he first became acquainted with Vivian, but viewed the situation as it being part and parcel of who Vivian Laaning was. As he put it, she was a woman with a healthy appetite for sex. In any case Raimond was quite confident of her love and true devotion to him. He was comforted with the absolute certainty that he was having more frequent sex with Vivian than Jed Baxter.

As for Felicia Baxter she had been frigid in sex and absolutely detested the act. Her aversion to sex stemmed from the fact that she had been continuously sexually abused by her own father for some seven years after the death of her mother. Her father justified his pedophilia by suggesting to Felicia it was her duty to replace her mother's role in the family. To add to her woes after her father had died and she was living with her aunt, she was raped by three classmates from her high school. She pressed charges of rape against them, but in the subsequent trial the jury believed the allegation that the sex was consensual and thus rendered a not guilty verdict.

Despite her aversion to sex, Felicia nevertheless did not ever refuse sex with Jed. In fact she was the mother of two as a result of their marital relations. Finally, she came to an agreement with Jed that she would ignore his acts of adultery as admittedly she was not providing the sexual satisfaction to Jed as she was duty bound by her marriage. However, having granted Jed carte blanche in essence to having affairs, so long as he was circumspect in dealing with his dalliances, she hired a detective to monitor his sexual activity. This was done so that she would be in a position to take action to thwart any danger that a prolonged affair might pose to her marriage.

This precaution proved to be invaluable as Vivian and Jed had embarked on a three year affair after Vivian had finished law school and became a lawyer. From the detective's reports, Felicia was privy to the fact that Vivian was not utilizing any birth control measures throughout their affair. Felicia surmised that Vivian was deliberately trying to get pregnant for whatever reason; perhaps an attempt to steal him away from her marriage. So, by summoning Vivian to a luncheon meeting, she was able to advise Vivian that Jed had undergone a vasectomy and that effectively induced Vivian to end the affair.

The very next serious affair Jed had indulged in was with the forensic accountant he had hired to uncover a sophisticated embezzlement scheme carried on by the CFO of Jed's company over a period of several years. This affair was into its ninth month seemingly without any let up. In Felicia's mind the only way to deal with this situation was to become truly sexual and woo Jed away from this slut. She underwent intensive therapy with a renowned sexologist specializing in sexual dysfunction. As her motivation was strong Felicia was able to overcome her aversion and enthusiastically participate in sex. That then ended his affair with the accountant as he seemingly was getting what he desired sexually from Felicia.

Alas the happiness and blissfulness of Felicia's new found sexual desires proved to be short lived. True in sex she seemed to be as enthusiastic in the enjoyment of sex as could be expected of any happily married woman. Certainly, she didn't act as uncomfortable and woodenly as she did at the beginning of their marriage. Still there seemed to be no real spark of excitement or true passion discernible in her comportment. Jed had the impression that Felicia's reaction to sex was akin to the similar feigned passion acted out by porn stars in their video scenes.

Consequently, they came to a new understanding. Naturally whenever she truly wanted sex, he would be happy to oblige. Otherwise, he would seek out other women and would also take part occasionally in an orgy pursuant to his membership with the Texas Love Ranch (TLR). Felicia realized that she was in accord with this new arrangement. She could indulge in enjoyable sex only when she was utterly and totally aroused, and such occasions became far and few between. At least Jed still loved her, and he did not appear to be inclined to truly want to end the marriage.

Felicia had the satisfaction of knowing that he did not renew his affair with the accountant, but she was aware that he had been having sex again with Vivian ever since the year Maia was five years old. At least Felicia had the comfort of knowing that Vivian lived so far away that the sexual encounters were less frequent than in the past. However, she was oblivious to the extent of how steadfast Jed's love for Vivian was. She would have been aghast at knowing he had offered lucrative employment for Anett simply based on his association with Vivian as the mother of Maia.

Anett's main contribution to mentoring Maia during the practice sessions was to instill confidence in Maia of her skills. Anett pointed out that Maia was conversant intellectually of the techniques required for success in tennis. Maia held the racquet properly for maximum effectiveness and had power enough to ensure striking effective serves, ground strokes and volleys.

As to the question of big boobs being a detriment in playing tennis efficiently, in Anett's opinion it is more of an excuse to explain failure as opposed to empirically proven to being a handicap. Anett herself was not flat chested. Although not physically as huge as Maia's boobs, still Anett's boobs were noticeably significant to punctuate her undeniable feminine sexual allure.

Anett believed that a tight fitting sports bra would eliminate the supposed disadvantage of possessing big boobs while playing tennis. By this line of reasoning, Maia commissioned a seamstress, who was recommended by Carmen Kass, the Estonian super model and personal friend of Vivian, to design and construct the ultimate sports bra that would personally fit Maia comfortably, but still retard breast movement while playing tennis. Receiving this product boosted Maia's self-confidence to the degree that she believed in herself and that she would win the three matches to earn entry into the main draw of the tournament.

With such a happy disposition and eager anticipation, Maia and Anett departed for the tournament in high spirits on the penultimate Sunday of June. Another perk that Maia enjoyed as a result of her mother's love affair with Jed Baxter was in securing luxury accommodation while in London. She booked a two bedroom suite at the hotel owned by Baxter & Sons that was located not too far distant from the tennis site. The beauty of this perk was that her stay was complimentary, and she was able to induce the hotel to stock the suite's mini bar with her favorite vodka as well as with Glenlivet, the whiskey favored by Anett. Her stay was naturally open ended depending on how long she would last in the tennis tournament.

In preparation for her first match, Maia practiced for a couple of hours on Monday at a nearby tennis court. When Maia was apprised of her opponent for the first qualifying match her confidence soared. Her adversary was a British player who was not deemed good enough by the tournament officials to receive a wildcard automatic entry to the main draw. It was even problematic that she should even have been selected as a wildcard entry to the qualifying rounds. Consequently, Maia easily won 6-0, 6-1 to advance to the second round of the qualifies and keep alive the hope for entry to the main draw.

Maia's second round opponent in the qualifying rounds was a Croatian player who she had defeated two years previously in the quarter finals of the Junior Girls event. That was the event which Maia had ultimately won. Since that event the Croatian player had won a couple of ITF tournaments but had indifferent results in the WTA tournaments and was nowhere close to getting into the Top 100 ranking. The match proved to be tight and close, but Maia prevailed, 7-5, 7-6 (3).

Although Maia had realistically expected to win these two matches, nevertheless she was ecstatic that she had now greater success than the two American tournaments in March. She only needed to win the next match in order to gain entry into the main draw and be guaranteed enough prize monies to cover her expenses in competing.

Her opponent was a relatively young American player who had up to this point an up and down career. Her highest career ranking she had achieved to date, was No 53 in the world, but her current ranking was No 137. Now in her mind, Maia confidently believed she could beat her, but by the same token, Maia knew she was a much more formidable opponent than the previous two players. Sure enough, the ensuing match was a very tough challenge for Maia.

In tennis the server has an initial undeniable advantage when serving each and every point. Thus, it is expected that each player should win the majority of points whenever the first serve is good in landing in the service area. If a player misses her first serve, i.e. the serve hits outside the target service area than the returner of serve has a better chance of winning the point on the second serve. In any case if the server wins the game she is deemed to hold serve. If the returner of serve wins the game, she is deemed to have broken serve. So in essence, to win a match one needs to hold one's serve at least one more time in total than her opponent.

In this match, with her opponent serving first to start the match, Maia lost every one of her first five service games before starting to serve for the sixth time in the match. Had her opponent held every one of her service games, Maia would have been facing a score line of 0-6, 0-5, seemingly an unsurmountable lead, and psychologically almost impossible to overcome. However, in the first set Maia did manage to win two of her opponent's service games, and so she lost the set by a closer competitive score of 2-6. Thus, when she came to serve for the second time in the second set the score was 2-6, 0-3. That was not so bad as she finally held serve to narrow her opponent's lead in the the set to, 1-3, and so Maia was down only one break of serve in the second set. Thereafter, Maia won every one of her service games, to eventually prevail with the final score of 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.

After Maia won the match point to win the match, Anett rushed from her seat in the stands and hugged Maia tightly in a congratulatory embrace. Ecstatically, she gushed, "Oh wow Maia! What a comeback! You're in the main draw now. You showed some real moxie! You didn't give up on your serve. You played like a champion! You did Estonia proud! You are a worthy successor to me!"

Maia accepted the hyperbolic praise from Anett with equanimity, recognizing the exaggeration was really over the top. Nevertheless, she was herself very excited by this outcome. Accordingly, Maia replied, "Yes this calls for a drink! No doubt about that."

Anett had become accustomed to Maia's penchant for heavy drinking, and so she pulled out from her purse a flask containing Maia's favorite Russian vodka. Maia took a long sip before she handed the flask back to Anett who took a sip as well.

Maia's match was the second scheduled match in one of the outside courts. The first match on that court was a men's qualifying match which went the distance. Men in grand slam tournaments play a best of five sets matches. In this case their match lasted a little more than four hours, so that Maia's match didn't get started until four o'clock in the late afternoon. Consequently, Maia's match did not end until it was a quarter past six.

After Maia had changed to a casual but smart looking outfit, they went to a pub that Anett had favored when she had played at Wimbledon. It was a traditional British pub serving restaurant quality food and contained a large beer garden outside adjacent to the pub. They were seated at a table in the beer garden. Fortunately for them, that day for London at this time of the year, was uncharacteristically sunny. Anett ordered a dish of shepherd's pie while Maia settled for fish and chips. During the meal they drank draft bitter ale. After their meal Maia switched to an expensive vodka on the rocks while Anett settled for a Glenlivet neat.

While they were having a delightful time, rehashing the match, a gentleman approached their table. He boldly, looked at Anett and unmindful that Maia and Anett had been conversing in Estonian, asked in English, "You're Anett Kontaveit, the Estonian tennis player, aren't you?"

Anett replied, "Why yes, indeed I am. I'm flattered that you recognize me, since it's been some few years since I last contested at Wimbledon."

The gentleman gallantly replied, "Of course I recognize you. I've even bought your book and read it with pleasure. One cannot easily forget a pretty face like you and especially considering you were once ranked No 2 in the world even though you hail from a very small country with virtually no representation in tennis."

Anett responded, "Since you've purchased my book, I take it you must be an avid fan of women's tennis. I had expected I would be able to roam around London unrecognized."

The gentleman replied, "Oh yes indeed I am definitely a fan of women's tennis. I've been faithfully coming to watch Wimbledon matches for the past twenty years or so. I sometimes even come to watch the qualifying matches as I love to speculate who will make it to the main draw."

At this point to Anett's surprise, Maia took the initiative and pipped up, "Why don't you join us kind sir. I'm sure Anett and I would be fascinated to hear your viewpoints as a fan of the WTA."

The gentleman was surprised by Maia's bold invitation, but was quick to take advantage, "I would be delighted, but could my friend whom I'm with and who is an equally rabid fan of women's tennis also be included?"