Hello everyone :) Happy 2016 to you all. I hope the year is kind to you all, and that you in turn pay that kindness forward.

I think I was being a tad bit optimistic when I said I'd try to have an update up by the end of the year. I'd clearly forgotten how the end of year holidays really turn into one long day for my family and I. And then, somehow, its already the 11th of January! Really, I have no idea how that happened!

I won't keep you from the update much longer, so allow me to quickly thank everyone that has followed or favourited myself or the story. A Perfect Match seems to have been favourited a lot more of late, which means I must be doing something right with it! I also got more reviews then ever for the last chapter, and have replied to everyone I could. That said, I'd like to use this space to thank everyone that logged in as a guest to write me a review. I assure you, they were read and your comments were duly noted.

On a personal note, thank you to everyone that sympathised and empathised with the loss of my dog. I appreciate your support more than you know.

And now, on to Chapter 34...

Rachel stared at the screen before her, absentmindedly taking in the route. The flight was cruising somewhere high above Ukraine, and the only sound reaching the brunette's ears came courtesy her own breathing thanks to the noise-canceling headphones that were resting atop her head. Lost in her own thoughts, the brunette jumped in her seat when someone rested a hand on her left forearm.

Turning, she met Shelby's apologetic gaze. "Sorry," the coach smiled wryly when Rachel had pulled her headphones off, "I didn't mean to scare you. I saw you weren't watching anything and thought we could use the time to go over your last match?"

Rachel nodded. She normally looked forward to what she secretly referred to as the 'match debrief' in her head because there was always something to learn from it. Shelby had made it a practice to examine her charge's on-court performances from the very beginning, irrespective of whether the teenager had won or lost. If Rachel won the match then she and Shelby would assess her winning performance before she met her next opponent; if she lost, Shelby would wait for an appropriate moment to discuss her play. Like right now, in the first-class cabin of a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 flight from Moscow to Istanbul. The assessment usually only took about a quarter of an hour. Rachel would be lying if she said she wasn't dreading this one.

Shelby opened a notebook that Rachel was very familiar with. The leather bound journal had traveled the world with the coach and her protégé, a fact that was further highlighted when Shelby stopped sifting through the pages quite close to the end. Rachel found herself wondering if the former player would begin a new one for the 2013 season.

"Right," Shelby said, clicking the pen before looking up at Rachel. The teenager was expecting the first question, "First things first, how were you feeling on court, physically?"

"Good," Rachel replied. "My Achilles didn't bother me, which was a relief." The brunette had strained the tendon when doing sprints from the baseline to the net in training before her second round match at the Kremlin Cup, which had compromised her movement in that encounter. It was therefore ironic that it hadn't bothered her one bit in the match that she ended up losing.

"Not even any tenderness?," Shelby pressed, earning a shake of the head from the younger brunette. "Ok, good. Remember, we're going to revisit the possibility of bringing on a fulltime physiotherapist at the end of this season," she added, jotting something down on the piece of paper. "Right, so no strains, no issues with fatigue or breathing? No headache?" Once again, Rachel shook her head.

The two women stopped when an airhostess came by with their drinks. Rachel thanked the woman, reaching for the sparkling water as soon as it was placed before her. The airhostess once again confirmed that no, they would not like any meals, before leaving them alone. Rachel didn't see the point in eating on the flight that was scheduled to take just over two hours when she'd already had a rather hearty breakfast before leaving the hotel four hours ago. From the looks of it, Shelby was thinking along the same lines.

"Ok. From where I was looking your movement seemed a little bit sluggish during certain parts of the match. I mean, there were times when I thought you weren't reacting as quickly as you normally do, and as you know, those split seconds can make a world of a difference at the level you're playing at," Shelby said, her eyes on her notes before her. She looked up at the end of her last sentence, "So I thought it had to be one of two things; either you were having some sort of problem, physically, which you have already said was not the case. Or the problem was mental. Which we will get back to in a bit."

Rachel nodded, an uneasy feeling swirling around in the pit of her stomach. To make matters worse, the sparkling water wasn't helping with her suddenly dry throat.

"Now to your shot making," Shelby said, referring to the checklist they always went through during these debriefs. "Your serves looked good in their execution. You were hitting them well, but I think you could have mixed them up better. Again, that goes down to your psychology on the day, and how well you were reading the match. You're usually very good at being able to tell which serves get the better of your opponents, so I was surprised to see you persist with sending the kick serve out wide to the ad court when Quinn was seeing that particular serve so well. You won 57% of your points on your first serve, and 43% on your second serve. That's one of the worst days you've had in a while."

Rachel's heart had leapt at Quinn's name, and to be honest, she'd missed most of what Shelby said after that. Hearing the silence, she looked up to meet her coach's expectant gaze and deduced that this must be where she was meant to say something. Trying to appear as calm as possible, Rachel said, "Yeah, in hindsight I realized I should have used the flat serve to her backhand more in the deuce court, and probably should have sent down more topspin serves too. I did try to mix it up more in the second half of the second set, but she was already up a break of serve by then."

"And you weren't able to break her. Which is, you know, understandable since she actually had a great night serving. I mean, an 87% of first serves landed is phenomenal. But," Shelby said, looking her dead in the eye, "I was concerned that you only managed to get one breakpoint opportunity in the whole match. I know I say this over and over again, but you must always find a way to at least go deep into your opponent's service games. That's how you plant those tiny seeds of doubt that can play such a crucial part in tiebreakers."

Rachel didn't see what she could add to that, so she chose to remain silent. Shelby gave her a strange look, and then did something completely unexpected. She shut the book, clicked the pen and gave Rachel her undivided attention. "It's the same drill with everything else; your forehands were hit well, but to bad spots. You were hitting balls down the line when you should have been going crosscourt. You chose to slice the ball when your backhand could have opened up the court and set up a winner on the next shot. It's all textbook stuff, Rach. And I don't think I need to reiterate the same things over and over again over the next ten minutes. Especially not to the current US Open champion. So, let's get into the psychology of the match. Were you just not there, or was it a lack of focus?"

Rachel felt distinctly like a deer in headlights. She made to reach for her drink again, if only to give herself a few extra seconds to think, but was stopped in her tracks by Shelby's voice. "The drink can wait Rachel. I'll even ask them to bring you another one when you're done leveling with me." God, how did Shelby know her so well?

Rachel allowed all of her eighteen years of age to show when she let out a slight huff before sitting back in her seat. She took a deep breath before meeting Shelby's patient expression. "I was distracted, and couldn't focus."

"Well, that's a better answer than 'I temporarily forgot how to play tennis'," Shelby joked, obviously attempting to put the youngster at ease. "Distraction and a lack of focus I can work with. What were you distracted by?"

The younger brunette bit the inside of her cheek. The thought of telling her coach that she was distracted by romantic feelings, for her opponent no less, was pretty embarrassing. At the same time, she owed it to the woman that put so much time and effort into her game to be honest.

Her hesitancy must have shown on her features, because Shelby broke the silence again. "Look, I know you've had a big week, what with the media adding it's own spin to your pre-tournament statements. And I know you're close to Brittany and Santana, so the whole paparazzi-circus that's shadowed their every move this week would have been hard to completely ignore. Was your lack of focus maybe related to those things?"

"In part," Rachel conceded, before deciding to just go for it. "I've been distracted by some off-court stuff this week, but it wasn't all media related. I mean, the press did have a hand to play it in, but a lot of it has been my doing."

Shelby blinked. "Uh, do I look as confused as I feel? Because I have no idea what you're saying."

The teenager puffed out her cheeks, then let out the air in a whoosh before biting the bullet, "The media asking me about my dating life made me think about my dating life, and I realized that I do have feelings for someone. And now I'm distracted by the thought of them." Rachel wasn't quite ready to be gender-specific with her coach. Or share how it was even harder to concentrate when the object of your desire was on the other side of the court from you.

"Ah," Shelby said, seeming to be genuinely surprised by the declaration and, for once, out of her depth. "Well, that's a problem I haven't encountered in my coaching career so far," she said.

Rachel felt panic bubbling up in her chest. What was she going to do if Shelby couldn't help her? How was she ever going to win another top-level match while she worked past this, this crush?

"But," Shelby added, letting in a ray of hope, "this is where I turn to my own playing past." The coach laughed out loud at the look of astonishment on her young charge's face. "What? You didn't think I played almost two decades of tennis without someone catching my eye, did you?! God, I even got engaged to Dustin Goolsby two weeks after we both won the Australian Open in '86!"

Now that she mentioned it Rachel did recall reading about her coach's brief engagement to tennis' infamous playboy, who only recently had gotten married for the fifth time. The New Yorker felt her mood lighten at her coach's admission, and she said, "Mmm, yeah, I do know about that. Of course, I'm not 100% certain about the details since that was six years before I was born..."

"Yeah yeah, I was once eighteen too, Berry. And if you're lucky, you will one day get to forty-six," Shelby smiled. Rachel conceded the point with a bob of her head. "Back to the matter at hand, yes, normal day-to-day things can be a distraction on court sometimes. Especially feelings. Let's use my whirlwind romance with Dustin as an example. We only met a few weeks before the Slam, at the party of a sponsor we both represented at the time. Three weeks later we were both champions of Australia, and embarked on a pretty passionate affair the night of the end-of-tournament party. I'll spare you the details," she threw in cheekily when Rachel made a face. "He proposed two weeks later, and naïve little me was convinced we were meant to be together. Three months in, I realized he was cheating on me while he was away playing on the ATP tour, and thankfully even back then I had enough self-respect to call it off."

Now it was Shelby who took a sip of her wine, the faraway look in her eyes telling Rachel she was lost in a time long ago. The younger woman waited a few seconds, before gently prodding, "Did the relationship affect your game?"

Shelby took another sip of the red drink, then placed her glass back down. She nodded her head, "Yes, but more so the end of the relationship than the actual relationship. You see, I was actually in a very happy place while we were together. And somehow that led to distraction free tennis when I was on the court competing. I honestly played some of the best tennis of my life in those first few months of '86." She paused, as if to collect her thoughts, then went on, "I found out he was cheating through the press. And if there's one thing that hasn't changed in the last two decades it's how bloodthirsty the media is. They brought Dustin up in every press conference I had for the next two months, which made his betrayal even harder to get over. And again, my state of mind showed in my results. I began losing to opponents ranked outside of the top hundred, and squandered away big leads to lose matches I was mere points away from winning. There was a point where I was seriously worried I was never going to find my best tennis again."

Her final words hit very close to home to Rachel's current fears. She swallowed, then asked, "So what did you do?"

A ghost of a smile played on Shelby's lips, "I took my coach's advice." This drew a roll of the eyes from Rachel, which led to Shelby barking out another laugh. "I kid you not! My coach Carmen Tibideaux, yes, the Carmen Tibideaux, sat me down one day and gave me a talking to."

"Wait," Rachel said, lifting a hand. "How did I not know you'd been coached by the Carmen Tibideaux?"

"You never asked," Shelby shrugged. "Now, would you rather I not tell you how to get your focus back and tell you about Carmen instead?"

Sufficiently chastised, Rachel shook her head. "No, I'd really appreciate your guidance. But, maybe you could tell me about La Tibideaux later?"

"Deal," Shelby agreed with a smile. "So, where was I? Ah yes, Carmen cancelled the practice hit we had scheduled for the day, and instead sat down across me, cross-legged on the Grandstand Court at Flushing Meadows. You know, that was always one of my favourite courts to play on, and looking back I think the old crone picked it on purpose." Shelby had a fond look on her features as she reminisced.

"Anyway, I digress. So there we were, Carmen and I, alone in the middle of this massive stadium. And she told me she understood what I was going through. Which, of course, I didn't believe. I mean, no one understands your pain, right?," she said, her tone self-deprecating. "Carman was patient with me though, and heard me out. I probably went on for a bit, and I'll admit, there were even a few tears. When I was done she said she could help me get my game back, but only if I was willing to do exactly as she directed." Here Shelby paused.

Without realizing it Rachel had moved closer to her coaches seat, and was hanging on her every word. "What did she want you to do?"

"Go back to the basics," Shelby whispered, as if it was a secret.

Rachel sat back a little and regarded her coach with skepticism. Really? That's what La Tibideaux said? Again, Shelby read her like an open book. "It's true. She told me the only way I would be able to tune out the rest of the world and play my best tennis again was by following the rules we're taught when we're just starting out."

"Play each ball the way it wants to be played," Rachel said, repeating the words Shelby kept reiterating in practice.

"Exactly," Shelby said, her expression and tone victorious. "Forget everything else except that little yellowish-green ball coming at you. Forget who's watching you and who isn't, and what is happening outside of the rectangle you're playing on. Look at the ball, and only think about the most effective way to send it back to the other side of the court. And repeat. Carmen said I needed to play the match one point at a time."

Rachel sat there, quietly thinking about what the other woman was saying. In theory, it made perfect sense. Finally, she spoke, "Did it work for you?"

"Not immediately," Shelby admitted. "More so because I found myself thinking of other things every so often in the middle of a game, and every single time the drop in my level was instantaneous. But I got better at just focusing on the task at hand, and about a month later I had found my A-game again. In fact, I got so good at playing the match one point at a time that once I even began to move to the other side of the court to get into position to receive serve when I'd actually just won match point. I'd tuned the chair umpire out, and only realized what was happening when the crowd rose to their feet to applaud and I looked up to see my opponent waiting at the net!"

The two women shared a quiet laugh. "Hmm, well, it's worth a shot," Rachel conceded.

"It will work as long as you're able to focus on the tennis being played," Shelby assured her, lifting the leather journal from her lap and placing it in the bag at her feet. "In fact, if you do it right you won't even be distracted if the object of your affection is on the other side of the net from you. That's what Carmen told me."

Rachel almost got whiplash from the speed with which she turned her head to look at her coach, who's own head was bent as she zipped up her bag. Did Shelby know more than she was letting on?

The older brunette slid the bag under her seat and turned to look at the New Yorker. "I'm gonna run to the restroom. Want me to ask them to bring you another drink?" she asked, glancing at Rachel's almost empty glass.

"Yes, please," Rachel said.

She watched her coach rise and make her way to the front of the aisle before turning her gaze to the window beside her and pondering Shelby's advice. Could it really be that simple? At this point it seemed to be the only option Rachel had, and the brunette sure as hell was going to try it the next time she was on court.

To be fair, her lapses in concentration hadn't been too bad when she'd played Sunshine Corazon in the second round. Yes, there had been a few moments when her mind had wandered and her form had dipped, but she'd thwarted any comeback attempts by the Filipino before they really took root. On the other hand, her quarterfinal matchup against Quinn was a disaster from the start. Which probably had a lot to do with Rachel's newfound inability to be in the same room as the blonde without having a mild freak out.

In the three-and-a-half days since Rachel had realized she had feelings for her fellow American, the brunette had done her best to spend as little time as possible with Quinn. She had turned down the World No.2's invitation to come explore the gorgeous Saint Basil's Cathedral along with her and Brittany, pretending that she wanted to nurse a headache before her night match against Sunshine. Then she'd skipped the early breakfast in Santana's suite by conveniently booking the tournament masseuse for the earliest available massage appointment the next morning. For the sake of appearances, she'd popped into the suite to say hello before hightailing it out of there.

That meant that the only time she'd really spent with Quinn had been on the tennis court. And, from the brunette's point of view, her performance couldn't have been worse. Rachel found herself drinking in the sight of the blonde as she waited for her to serve, leading to delayed reactions to the actual serves. When it was Rachel's turn to start play, she often spent those seconds running her gaze over Quinn's form instead of looking at where to land her serves. Somehow she was able to pick out single beads of sweat on Quinn's body and was left parched at the thought of how salty the blonde's skin would have tasted at that moment. When they crossed one another at the net Rachel inhaled like a man who had been deprived of oxygen for too long. The scent of strawberries mixed with sweat lingered in her nostrils as she waited out the changeover. Tennis tactics truly were the last thing on her mind.

When Emma had rung her after the 6-1, 6-2 loss to ask if she was interested in proceeding to Istanbul ahead of the earlier planned schedule to train with Marley, who had been upset in the first round in Moscow, and Jake Jacob, she'd jumped at the chance to put some distance between herself and Quinn. After all, that was the best way to get past these feelings, right?

The brunette had felt guilty when she'd waited till later at night to inform Quinn, Santana and Brittany about her impending departure. She'd only told Brittany in person, popping her head into her old friend's room to give her the news when the Englishwoman was already tucked into bed. Rachel had been playing the avoidance game with her too, batting away questions about her press conference that, as expected, had gotten its fifteen seconds of fame in the press. The American hoped Brittany had believed her when she said she'd gotten caught up in the moment while defending her friends. And she knew she'd have to get better at repeating those words in a more convincing manner by the time Brittany came to New York for the exhibition match and auction next month.

Once again, Rachel found herself wondering if following Shelby's advice would pay off on court. Rachel might not have forgotten how to defeat other players, but she knew she would have to regularly battle her way past Quinn if she was to continue to be a top player herself. And despite Rachel's newly discovered crush on the blonde, her desire to be a tennis champion hadn't diminished one bit.

Hearing a sound beside her, Rachel turned to see Shelby retake her seat. The coach buckled herself in again then turned to her charge. "So, how about I tell you about how I came to be coached by La Tibideaux?" she smiled.