Against All Odds

by MASON MCCLOUD Head Tennis Coach at Arkansas High School

Ryan Wardlaw is currently a junior on the Arkansas High tennis team. He has played for me his three years of high school and also off and on throughout middle school. He made varsity his freshman year. His sophomore season, he went 10-4 on the year as the #1 ranked boy on the team and was a top four season conference player in singles. Ryan was awarded team MVP for the 20212022 season, but amazingly enough, tennis is his second sport. He is a great baseball player as well, but at the end of last season during a baseball workout, he felt an issue with his right elbow. After diagnosis, he learned that he would have to have Tommy John surgery, which is a major surgery that heavily affects baseball pitchers. The recovery time for this injury is 8-12 months, which meant he couldn’t use his right arm for athletics during that time period. His surgery was performed on June 20, 2022, and Ryan found out that he wouldn’t be able to play tennis this season.

The week after his surgery, I received a text from him asking if he could still try to play tennis. Tennis season goes from July to October, which was four months after his surgery. Even though he was wearing a brace, he still wasn’t able to throw a ball let alone swing a racquet, so the answer had to be “no.” His response was, “What if I play left-handed?” I read the text and laughed. I replied, “If you can get a doctor to sign off on that, then sure.” I hated to give any kind of hope to him in a situation like that. Not only was he unlikely to get cleared for that, but play left-handed? I just didn’t think that was achievable.

I have a very solid tennis team full of quality players. If Ryan was cleared, he would have to quickly learn how to play left-handed, which is obviously his underused, nondominant side. I even told him that if he got cleared to play as a lefty, I wasn’t going to work with him at all this season on his form. It just seemed like a waste of my time since he will play right-handed again his senior year. Furthermore, the rest of my team is solid. Not only would he have to learn to play as a lefty, but he would have to get good enough to actually beat people currently on the team in order to take their place. I still thought it wasn’t achievable, but if he wanted to give it a try then by all means, I wanted him to go for it.

To my surprise, the note came in from his doctor that he could play left-handed. Day one of summer practice, Ryan worked. He got frustrated. Drill after drill, he struggled to find rhythm. Over the first few weeks of summer practice, he struggled with the form, but his athleticism was still at its peak, and his determination grew. He stayed focused and told me his main goal was to make varsity. “I am a competitor and not making varsity meant less playing time, and I needed to be able to compete with the best to get better,” Ryan explains.

The week of tryouts, Ryan somehow won three of his five matches to qualify for varsity as the number four player. What impressed me the most though was that his two losses, both of which were against two of my strongest varsity boys, were very competitive. My thoughts were, “Has he actually started to figure out this lefty swing? Can he actually compete with top players again?”

During the season, week after week, Ryan got better. He never missed practice and slowly developed himself as an actual left-handed player, equipped with a lefthanded serve, a left-handed forehand, and a nasty backhand slice that actually became his primary weapon throughout the season. Coach after coach and team after team would watch him, seeing the brace on his right arm and ask if he was hurt. When they heard his story, they watched with awe. The fact that someone could play ambidextrous at a high level isn’t something most players have seen at the high school level. “I wanted to compete, so I was motivated to be the best I could be,” Ryan says. “I practiced every day and had some of my friends and exteammates that had already graduated come work with me.”

Ryan started the season an undefeated 5-0 in singles play, with three of those wins being dominate 8-0 victories. Against Benton, players and parents lined up under the awning at Tyndall Park making comments like, “How does he do that?” and “Is he going to even need his right hand when he gets healthy?” Ryan was the only boy victory in the match against Arkadelphia, and Ryan was twice voted as RTV MVP of the Day. “I was grateful being voted MVP,” Ryan admits. “I was not expecting it. My job was to win, and I just did my job.”

Against Lakeside’s JV, Ryan defeated the #1 boys singles player 6-2, a boy that our team couldn’t beat last year. Ryan was the lone victor in boys singles in our team match against Pleasant Grove. He earned victories in singles against six of the eight conference teams and finished the season with a 11-4 record in singles, beating his record from the previous season as a righty. Ryan received a top seven seed at the conference tournament and made it to the conference quarterfinals after winning his first round match. Ryan avers, “Not playing was not an option for me. I wanted to play and compete, and I wanted to play the best to see what I could do.” Accomplishing what Ryan has this season is nothing short of amazing and impressive.

Ryan’s athleticism is incredible. He has a natural feel for sports and knowing where to be and what to do at the right time. Which arm he was using to play with ultimately just became a facilitator to his movement and hustle. His grit during matches and determination back during summer just to be able to compete during matches is commendable. Most importantly, his mentality has been rock solid. No spells of anger, no damaging frustration, and no signs of weakness at any point would hinder his ability to win the next point ahead of him. “I never went out there with the mentality that I was better than anyone,” Ryan recalls. “I knew I had a disadvantage due to not having my right arm, and I knew it was possible for me to lose, so I just played one point at a time.”

To put myself in his shoes and try to learn a sport from the bottom up, a sport that I know I already am good at with an arm that I can’t use, would frustrate me to a boiling point. Never once did Ryan respond in this way. It’s one thing to joke around as a lefty at practice, but to actually compete brings difficulty to the whole equation. He grew mentally and physically, and I am proud of the way he played this season in overcoming his unfortunate circumstance.

Ryan had the support of many, including myself, parents, and other players and coaches, but I witnessed none more impactful than that of his teammates. The top six varsity team is composed of six juniors, but to Ryan they are his closest friends, most of whom have all been playing tennis together since early middle school. Their friendships with each other can date back even into elementary school. These deep friendships helped to motivate and propel Ryan this season. Their encouragement, especially in those early summer moments of frustration, really kept Ryan believing. At one point, Ryan asked me how high he needed to be in the ranks to travel? As important as tennis is, I know he also doesn’t want to miss out on these memories with friends.

On October 25, Ryan was cleared for minimal athletic participation on his right arm so his rehab can begin, but he won’t potentially be cleared for further use until January or later. Although he lost his right arm for this season, he made the most of his season with his left hand. What is neat is that a common tennis tactic for learning to hit right-handed backhands is to hit a non-dominant hand forehand (which Ryan did all season). What this means is that Ryan’s weakness from years past should be his strength going forward into his senior year, where we will expect big things from him as the Arkansas High School Razorbacks set sights on a potential conference championship in 2023.