Holy wow! I got 24 reviews for one chapter! I am definitely continuing this little piece. I just wanted to say THANK YOU. I hope you enjoy!

***If you like strong Sakura stories, then please check out Escape:My other work in progress that I really should be working on. Haha. Oh well, I'm in love with my sport right now.

**********And to all you reviewers that continually say Wilson is better….

BLASPHEMY!

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Tennis is a whole spectrum of things, but one thing it's not is a contact sport. You know, like those rough and tough burly linemen in football that kill each other for a living?

Yeah, she wasn't into the whole running into someone for the heck of it.

So, you can imagine the surprise Sakura had when she stepped foot into her new school for the first time. It was humongous compared to her old, quaint school.

'They must be rolling in the dough', though Sakura, because everything looked spotless. Even the garbage cans, and it's common knowledge that school trash receptacles is in the top ten of 'The World's Deadliest Places.'

Keeping an eye out for the trio she met last night, she winced as nearly everyone in a three foot radius ended up bumping into her. It was almost as if they were doing this on purpose.

Really, that person three hits ago could have totally dodged her.

Getting her shoulder slammed for the umpteenth time, she vaguely wondered if this is what living your life as a tennis ball felt like. Let's just say she was not amused.

Walking down the third hallway she found, she suddenly was relieved to see a door on the right with 'OFFICE' plastered above it.

To Sakura, it clearly read Heaven.

Rushing into the opening before she could contract any more bruises(She was going to have to explain to Kenji when she got home that no, she didn't get beat up her first day for her lunch money.) she suddenly found herself face to face with someone remotely familiar.

"Haruno."

"Hyuga." She answered with just the same amount of concern and attentiveness that the boy had dished to her.

"Come to get your schedule."

She didn't even bother to answer, because apparently it wasn't a question anyway. Out of respect, and admittedly fear because she didn't know the position and authority he held on the team yet, she nodded before making her way towards the huge wall of desk that three secretary sat behind. It reminded her of a bank, with all the little bank tellers lined up in a row. Her old school had only one secretary that doubled as the principal's assistant.

Walking up to the only open woman, she introduced herself. Finally, after proving to the lady that she was indeed Haruno Sakura, she obtained her schedule and admissions packet she had to return the next day. Turning to leave, she asked the woman how many people went to school here.

Said woman looked up from the stack of paper work she was sifting through. "Oh, we have about three hundred people in each grade. All in all, around eleven hundred Miss Haruno."

Holy Fricken Cow. Yes, caps were necessary.

In her old school, they were lucky to get six hundred in the whole high school.

And let's face it.

Out of eleven hundred, only eight make it to Varsity for the tennis team.

Suddenly, things seemed to get a lot more..tense.

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It wasn't until fourth out of the eight periods that someone even bothered to talk to her. Actually, it was the other way around. Everyone was forced to stand up at their desks, introduce themselves and tell their grade. Now, even though she was good at tennis…Okay, awesome at tennis… that was only the half of it. In fact, Sakura was really smart.

Like genius smart if she did say so herself.

That's why when she found out that she was going to a huge school, she was not about to let all of these Advance Placement courses slip through her fingers. So you can imagine the surprise when she introduced herself in a senior Advanced Calculus class as a junior. Everyone in the room craned their necks to gape at her. She could only feel the love. Sitting down quickly, she decided that it was best to lay low in this class. In fact, she had decided to lay low the whole first day. It wasn't that she was scared or nervous; well she was, but nervous for an entirely different reason.

Tryouts.

Yep, making friends would definitely come tomorrow….NOT today.

Every spare moment was spent in deep concentration on form and strategies. Even if she couldn't beat these people physically, she was going to be able and ready to do it mentally. Maybe that would explain the reason she had no idea that as the boy seated directly beside her stood up, he would announce himself as 'Sasuke Uchiha, Junior.'

Just sayin'.

She snapped up her head at him as the teacher chided to the seniors that they were going to have to step it up.

He didn't even look at her.

No even an eye cut.

(Ignoration: the process of being ignored. Ex. Sakura could not believe Sasuke had the audacity to put her through ignoration.)

She scowled at him only to have it seemingly be ignored. So this was the start of a long and beautiful friendship it seemed. Sakura looked back to her math notebook in front of her.

Fine.

If that's how he wanted to be, then so be it.

Hmph.

When the bell rang fifteen minutes later, she grabbed her things only to be taken by the wrist. She looked up at six foot frame that had just touched her. Can we say falcon punch?

"Four, don't be late."

She looked at Uchiha, yanked her wrist away, and continued on her way.

What? She was still grumpy that he didn't even acknowledge her!

Okay, maybe it wasn't the best of choices.

Looking back, that probably was the worst choice she could have made, considering he was her captain and all.

Fudge.

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At three thirty, Sakura stood in front of the mirror in the tennis court bathrooms. She didn't consider herself girly girl in the least, even though she did love to wear summer dresses.

Okay, maybe she dressed girly. But that was her limit.

As for the nasal 'Eh Meh Gawd' voice, obsession over if gel or acrylic nails were better, and not getting sweaty…..well, she didn't see eye to eye with those zombies.

She wondered what people thought of her if they judged her based solely on her appearance. In tennis, she dressed in her beloved Prince outfits. It would be safe to assume that she was a snob that only lobbed it over the net to serve.

Negative on that comment on her though, for serious.

But, even she could admit that she looked cute. In her slender and petite 5'6 frame, she knew these dresses looked good on her. But was this a good first impression to give to her new teammates? She wanted to be known for what she was, a power player.

Not some doll.

She looked at herself again. The stripes that ran down the length of the green dress only emphasized a leaner look, and the skirt portion was pleated with a slit on the right side.

Oh, she was so going to get underestimated in this dress. She could just feel the underestimation.

Hey, hold the phone.

If she went out there and acted like a clueless chit that held a racquet, she could possibly have the element of surprise going for her.

The possibilities were endless.

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At 4:02, she stepped onto the courts. Immediately, she caught everyone's attention, and she knew exactly why.

She looked at the Naruto boy who was running towards her.
"Naruto, where's all the girls?"

He looked around and then faced her again.

"Haruno, the girls don't play tennis. You're like, the first one I've heard of around here."

Sakura couldn't believe her ears. Naruto kept going.

"You see, there is no separate 'boy-girl' teams around here. That means that if you are number four on varsity and a girl, you would play number four on the other team no matter the gender. I guess the girls got tired of losing."

She shot a death glare in his direction.

"No! I didn't mean…You know you're a beast!"

Sakura could admit she felt a little better after that comment.

So, if this is how it was, she would make due.

Just then, her favorite person in the whole world spoke.

"It seems that all who are going to take place in this year's tryout have arrived. There are eight courts in total, and about sixty four of you here. We are going to have about eight people per court and effectively eight mini tournaments. The winners of those will then play against each other to determine the top eight ranks inside varsity. Understand?"

One: Sakura was completely dumbfounded on Sasuke's ability to speak.

Two: Sakura knew that she would have to win her bracket completely to even get a chance at varsity.

Three: Sakura really didn't want to be in the same bracket as Sasuke, Neji, or Naruto.

Sasuke went around each court and tacked a piece of paper to the fence: The bracket. She saw other people wondering from fence to fence finding their name and followed suit.

On court number three, she found her neatly scrawled name. Thankfully, neither of her trio was in her tournament. She looked around her saw the people that were in it with her. She saw mostly young boys, and only a few older ones. She knew that those were going to be her biggest problem. One of them caught her looking at him and decided to make his way on over.

"So, you're Sakura huh."

He was about average height and had brown hair. He was cute, but had that arrogant swagger thing going on. She could already tell someone had an egotistical complex disorder going for him.

"Yeah, and you?"

"Kyo. I'm the guy you're up against. It looks like we go first."

She looked back at the sheet finding his words correct.

"I see, do you want to get started?"

"Sure princess."

Now, as she stated earlier, for some reason her appearance just seems to give off that child innocence feel. She decided to let the comment go and just let him think of her a weak little girl. She walked up to the bench beside her designated court and started to take out her racket. Looking up, she saw Captain making his way towards her.

"Here." She took the can of balls wordlessly as they met each other's eyes.

"Thanks," was all she said before heading to her side of the net. She started to rally with Kyo. After about three minutes, she could tell that he had an amazing forward hand, but only mediocre back hand. And for some reason he loved to use the backhand slice to make it drop just over the net. This annoyed her, but she could live. Sakura was just barely hitting the balls back, not showing off or giving him any sort of idea how she played. She could see his smirk start to form.

He called out from across the net.
"Hey princess, you ready to serve? I promise I'll go easy on you. I won't hit you."

Sakura just smiled sweetly and started her practice serves. As usual, they were obnoxiously slow.

As Kyo served them back, she couldn't help but notice that he was serving way too fast for warm ups.

She realized after a couple of seconds that he was trying to show off.

Well, he'll find out what he is up against soon enough.

Sasuke, who was walking up and down the courts, yelled at them.

"Court three, get started."

Sakura turned and nodded. Walking up to the net, Kyo was already waiting.

"I must say that you're cute Princess." Again, she smiled sweetly. After he spun, Sakura was overjoyed when he lost and she got to serve first.

Walking back up to the base line, Sakura noticed that everyone had their eyes on her court.

She really was the center of attention these days.

Announcing the start of the match, she bounced her ball three times and lofted it in the air.

It was safe to assume that when she aced the clueless boy, he had no idea what hit him.

Smirking, she walked over the left side of the court and went at it again. This time, if the other boys weren't watching before, they were watching now.

"15-0"

This time, Kyo managed to return it. Sakura moved her feet with small shuffles towards the ball, letting the racquet have full control as it swung in a beautiful forward hand. The satisfying 'tok' was heard as it slammed deep into the boy's backhand side. Barely managing to get his racquet on it, the ball sunk right into the net.

Sakura was already waiting.

"30-0"

This time, she decided to get it over with early. Slamming a spin serve onto his backhand side, he was too close and tried to bring it up, overcorrecting and effectively not getting it back into the court.

"40-0"

Now the boy thought he had her figured out. He quickly made two large steps to his left so when she would serve him a backhand, it was now his forward hand. Sakura just inwardly laughed. Now all she had to do was serve it hard and flat down the T zone and he would never make it back to the middle of the court in time. As Sakura slammed a ball with no spin at all down the middle of the court, Kyo couldn't help to curse under his breath as he tried in vain to run back. He never even touched the ball.

As she walked over to the other side of the net she threw him the ball.

"Better luck next time sweety."

He offered her a glare in return.

Waiting for him to make his way to his respective side, Sakura looked around. Everyone was gaping at her with the exemption of one. Sasuke Uchiha stood right outside her fence smirking at her.

Nodding in his direction to show that she saw him, she couldn't help but to smirk back at him.

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Sakura was sitting outside the courts gloating while taking a huge swig of water. After she had pummeled Kyo into the ground, all that was left was younger boys. She was ecstatic when she made the top eight. Sure, she had the easiest bracket in the world, but she didn't expect to just be number eight. She was going for top three, and she was dead set on making it. Looking down at her watch, she scowled that it was already 6:30.

This was going to take all blasted night.

"Haruno." Sakura looked up. When did he get there?

"Yes Captain?"

"We are stopping the matches because it's getting late. Be sure to go by room 332 tomorrow and get fitted for your Varsity uniform."

Sakura couldn't help but smile at his words.

"Tomorrow it won't be so easy." She looked at him.

"I know that."

He nodded to her and turned to leave. Stopping momentarily, he threw a comment over his shoulder.

"You didn't even use the kick serve today."

Sakura looked at him curiously. Was he saying that she would need it tomorrow?

Since she didn't know if he was throwing an insult at her or not, she decided that she would make her goal known.

"When I face off against you Uchiha, you'll see plenty of it."

Sasuke scoffed and continued to walk.

Figures.

JerkFACE.

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Today was the day that Sakura Haruno was to make friends. Sitting in her first period Physics class, she made a point to actually look up and see who was around her. Amazingly, she saw Uchiha up in front along with Neji.

She groaned.

Looking to her right, she saw a girl with blonde hair in a high pony tail.

Seeing as she had nothing to lose, Sakura went for it.

"Hi, I'm Sakura."

Swell, now you totally don't seem like a loser with no friends.

The girl looked at her before giving a small smile.

"Yo, I'm Ino."

Suddenly she looked taken by surprise.

"Oh my gah, you're that girl that tried out for tennis and made it to varsity!"

Sakura just nodded her head.

"You're, like, my hero!"

She gave a small laugh and shook her head.

"I just like to play tennis."

Ino turned to face her completely. "Do you understand that the captain cannot stand females on his team?"

Sakura was dumbfounded.

"Huh?"

"It was rumored that he would give them the hardest tryouts or something so they could never make it."

Sakura cocked her head to the side. He didn't do that for her, in fact, her tryouts were easy.

"You must be really,really good!" Ino clasped her hands together.

"Nah, I'm just in love with the game."

Ino leaned in close enough to make Sakura edge back.

"We, me and you of course, are going to be best of friends. I can already tell. I'm the captain of the volleyball team."

"That's cool, so you love sports too."

"Me and a couple of the girls are going to eat tonight around seven. Wanna come?"

Sakura gave Ino a toothy grin to confirm.

Friends?

Check.

Sakura faced up front just as the teacher walked in. Noticing movement from the right, she gave it a quick glance.

Neji Hyuga had totally been eavesdropping.

In fact, he was still looking at her. They made eye contact before he turned around as the teacher started talking.

Have we gone over the fact that boys in this school are, like, impossible to understand?

Yeah, thought so.

A small light turned on inside her head as she realized today was the day she would prove her worth on the tennis team.

She couldn't help but to giggle.

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PRINCE PWNS ALL.