Twenty-seven years ago no one had the reason to call me old. Even though I was fifty-three, there were a good number of people in my environment who were considered elderly. The great AELU Tennis family was for me the beginning of practicing a new sport. I had never held a racket in my life, much less used it. Dressing in shorts and all in white was for me a new fashion and a feeling of entering a world outside of my daily practice of many years ago. Soccer, cycling and then fishing were my first sports, especially today, in a warm family environment. I had to get used to counting the 15th, 30th and 40th. And there I was, forging a figure that in the coming years had to be on the active postcard, the longed-for and happy figure.
And as in good families, the multitude of children were the races throughout the Tennis area. Mothers holding their children as a sign of prompt discipline. Parents with a quiet attitude, forging the beginning of a new sport, and boys and girls with disturbing smiles, hiding the nervousness of their first day of school. There was everything. The calm, the slow and the mischievous runner. The quiet one, the happy one and the dreamer. Boys who shared their games and girls with the correct attitude. They say well that sport disciplines people. Today we see them as good professionals and good people.
Life is an extension of the years at the zenith of our path. Whether he wants it or not, the child will become an adult and the adult will begin to remember his childhood. Only then will it be understood that the best company is family and friends. Nothing suggests her fragile body like a stem rocking its leaves and the vigor of its sap at the age of thirteen. There, looking at the clay court at the final point, he sees the ball arrive at his favorite height, hides the blow behind a feint and to the other end. There, where no one imagines, the ball passes centimeters from the line. Match Point!
Once again Hiromi Hozumi Guima climbs to the champion's podium to receive the beautiful trophy, searching the crowd for the look of a proud mother. Mechita barely raises her hand and that is the sign of the sacrifice that Hiromi's youth forms for hours, days, months and years, the promise that she will be a daughter of pride for her parents. I saw her arrive at AELU Tennis four years ago and in just three years of practicing it she was already in sixth place in the national ranking in her category. At the very special request of Mr. Guillermo Arraya, of the academy that bears his name, Hiromi, three times a week, trains at their facilities, under the watchful eye of Pablo and Laura Arraya's Father, former national champions.
Twelve trophies in her short tennis career speak in themselves of Hiromi's qualities and virtues in the White Sport. And to those twelve trophies we should add one more. As special as she is, she also excels in singing, winning the title of champion at Chibikko last year and, as a reward for that performance, Hiromi will travel to Brazil in August representing AELU in this great competition. Friend from La Unión School, where she studies the first year of secondary school, to the volleyball courts, where she played for the Chinen team, in the Sub 9, that is where Chisano Shimabukuro, one of her best friends, follows her to tennis . Today they form a promising seedbed for the AELU. Fourteen girls and eight boys are following in the footsteps of Naomi Goya, Cristie Yamashiro, Angie Sano and Naty Kobashikawa. A poker of high-level players for this new hotbed, without a doubt, Professor Juan Campos shines with his own light in AELU Tennis.
Tennis is that force that is born at any age. It is a sport that intoxicates young and old and that explodes at a given moment, when the body in its perseverance comes to perfect the shot to win. Today, Hiromi gives us a wonderful and beautiful story. For her, all the happiness in the world and all the triumphs that life brings her in the future.
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The look on an eleven-year-old girl is sweet. There, in her eyes with the tone given by the brilliance of her limpid pupils, emerges, like a goddess, the radiant personality of an athlete on her way to consecrate herself and what she loves and desires most, to become a world tennis player. She has it all, from the patience with which she wins the sky to the strength when she is forced to lose a point or a game. Understand and see that it is not an easy path, because easy means nothing and there in that heart that knows how to handle each encounter, boredom and defeat have no place. He knows how to fight each point at the conceived moment in what the teaching of his childhood years dictates and, in that silence of waiting in which his mother Betty works, to have hours of patience on training days and matches on fields of different institutions From the capital. Life is a struggle and this is, sometimes, the gratitude to continue living. This Girl understands it and is not afraid of failure because she also knows that it is part of life. The innocence of her game and the humility of feeling when she is a winner prevails in her.
Kristy Takeshita comes from an athletic family. “Papito”, as his father is known, was several times champion in athletics in the community's undokai. Today, he has one of the best shots in AELU Tennis. Kenny, his older brother, already rubs shoulders with those of the First Category in Tennis, and a pleasant surprise is Betty, his mother, who, shortly after practicing tennis, has one of the best styles and shots. Money, race, blood or whatever you want to call privilege, it has somewhere to come from.
An admirer of Steffi Graf and Laura Arraya, as well as Pete Sampras, she has won ten trophies in her short career. Apart from tennis, which today is his great passion, he has played softball, table tennis, swimming and basketball. A world full of discipline and challenges when, from studying at his Abraham Lincoln school, he goes to training or matches scheduled by the Provincial League or the Peruvian Tennis Federation.
The interview with her and her big heart is fascinating. He always evokes his friend Melanie Arakaki from distant Japan. Together, they spent happy years and in the tone of her voice you can still sense that affection and friendship are two commandments in her life. The buzzer sounds again in tennis. Kristy grabs her racket and jumps onto court 1. She warms up beforehand, with balls in the background, and that's where the sport begins to experience it, that's where the temper accelerates and the ball picks up more speed in its path. “A star in the firmament has been born, and AELU Tennis is honored to have it.”
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Twenty years after these articles, the world has changed in all its ways. New girls' faces walk the walkways and clay courts, their fragile bodies hide their years and, upon stepping onto the clay, a new generation of tennis players enters the world of sports. Junacito Campos is still active in his usual schedule, perhaps the years prevent him from certain movements, but his mind and heart continue to keep up with the boys and girls in his tennis environment.
Further away, in the karaoke room, soft and nostalgic music lulls us into memories. Julio Iglesias, the idol of so many generations, invites us to listen to a romantic song. "From girl to woman". As the years have passed, we can only say.
*This article adapted for Discover Nikkei and originally published for the Peru Shimpo newspaper on June 23, 2020.
© 2020 Luis Iguchi Iguchi
