Tips to succeed at tennis and other challenges.(THE LAST LAUGH)

In September of last year, I shared with you my version of Pat Conroy's My Losing Season played on a tennis court instead of a basketball court. In 2006 I played on five teams, two of them came in dead-last in their leagues at the end of the season, two of them middling. My only hope rested on the tired, bony shoulders of my super senior teammates, all of them over 60 and most in their 70s.

We were the June Taylor Dancers, and we had won the city title by continually beating the league's only other team, the Radio City Rockettes.

So we advanced to the state tournament, held in my home town of Waukesha. Three doubles teams played, so six of us arrived at the city park on a chilly, blustery October morning for an 8 a.m. match. Our opponent was a team from Milwaukee, about 90 miles away with about three times the population of Madison.

Somehow we managed to win that match. Our opponents told us later that they never played outside in Milwaukee, so no wonder our lobs were much better and their balls tended to fly outside the white lines.

Next stop was a road trip to the sectionals in Indy, where we six got eliminated. Health issues doomed us senior citizens; my partner had a 36-hour migraine while the team captain played with an inflamed hip. The rest of the team was snowbirds who had flown South.

My winning idea

Inspired by last fall's success, I took my own advice and joined a local tennis club that's just seven minutes from my door via my new red convertible. The membership fee included court time, so of course I overserved myself and played in leagues three times a week, plus a social league Friday evenings.