Jez took a leap, pumped his fist, and, to the bemusement of everyone else on court including his partner, Stuart, he pulled his T-shirt over his head and danced a jig around the baseline. The score was 2-1 in the first set of the first rubber in a mens doubles league match and Jez had held serve. For the first time. Ever!

Phil had made no further appearances at the club since that Fireworks Night two years before. The sense of destiny Jez had felt when he first took up tennis had all but evaporated. Not that it had been a disaster exactly. He had improved to start with - improved quite a lot really. The previous year, he'd made it into the mens third team. He had considered this to be quite a milestone - until the match came around and they lost. Actually, they didn't just lose - they lost spectacularly! And then another match and another match. Eventually the damage became less significant, but so did the progress. Jez's tennis was going nowhere. He was like a sail in the harbour, searching for a wind.

"I'm getting disillusioned," he had confided to Mike Reynolds before the match. "I always thought I'd be playing Wimbledon by now. You know - travelling round the world on the ATP Tour and everything."

Mike Reynolds had placed a sympathetic hand on Jez's shoulder and told him "You know, your trouble is you're aiming too high. What you need is some realistic short-term goals."

"You think so?" said Jez. "Like what?"

"Well, try getting to the baseline without tripping over your shoelaces!"

Mike was known for his motivational qualities!

Jez was known for losing all his service games, so his celebrations on this occasion were quite understandable. However, the match started to slip out of Jez and Stuart's grasp, and their patience was eroding as their opponents embarked on a series of dubious calls.

"Are you quite sure that was out?" Jez asked.

"It's my call and I've called it out," replied a thin surly man with a moustache. "Why are you querying it? Haven't you read the Code of Conduct?"

"No, I'm waiting till they make the film," said Jez.

"And you shouldn't keep throwing your racket!"

"Why not?" replied Jez. "I model my game on Isinovelic . . . Inivisilic . . . that Croatian guy!"

"Model your game on him? You can't even pronounce his name!"

"Well, I tried to model my game on other players, but all the best names were taken."

At that moment, a wind got up and there was a crackle in the air. Jez became conscious of a small figure leaning against a tree in the adjoining field. He thought it may have been Phil, and it lifted his spirits. Although the match ended in defeat for Jez and his long-suffering partner, things improved considerably and respectability was salvaged.

Stuart ambled off to the clubhouse with the opposition, while Jez stayed behind to practise. He tried this kind of serve and that, trying every possible permutation until his anatomy seemed to constrain him no longer. Players from both teams jostled at the clubhouse window to observe the apparently tormented young man, contorting and jerking and twisting through a sequence of the most ungainly serves they'd ever witnessed. By the time Mike Reynolds walked over from the clubhouse to rescue him, Jez was bent at the waist, bottom sticking out, flailing at a ball with the wrong side of the racket.

"What on earth are you doing?" asked Mike.

"I was just wondering if it would be easier to serve if your knees bent the other way!"

"Good grief! Come on - tea's ready," Mike announced, "Turn your cap round the right way so you don't confuse your knees, and let's go!"

Half an hour later, tea had been consumed, the visitors had departed and the post-mortem had been hijacked in the usual way by a debate about football. The team captain, Neil Radley, collected the match fees.

"Ok, we'd better get this lot washed up," he said. "Jez, you wash, we'll dry."

"I can't possibly wash up!" Jez replied, a look of utter horror on his face, "What about my hands? They're the greatest asset we've got! Why, these hands will one day win Wimbledon! These hands will one day shake the hands of the Duke and Duchess of Kent! These hands will one day lift the Davis Cup and the whole country will celebrate! These hands . . ."

"Ugh!" Neil exclaimed, "They've got chocolate spread on them!"