Her life was an all-too-familiar scene.
Claudia Meza had just moved here from Las Vegas. Her grades were well below average. She had few friends.
She wanted something to do after school. She tried softball. Track was out.
But when the Desert View junior made contact with that yellow ball and heard the "thwack," you could say that her whole life changed.
Over three years, she has worked her way into Desert View's No. 1 player position.
The D-average pupil blossomed into a B-average student, who qualified for honors classes.
"I never saw the point of school before I started playing tennis," Meza said. "I didn't really see the point of anything before tennis. Now I want to go to school. I want to get a scholarship. I want to go to college."
Almost by accident, tennis opened up a world that Meza never thought possible.
"Tennis was kind of a mistake," Meza said. "My friend and I went out for softball, but she got cut from the team, so I quit, too, because she was my ride home. I wanted to play a sport because I wanted to get out of the house, and she didn't like track, so she said tennis."
Her friend didn't make the tennis team either, but it was Meza's athleticism and determination that her coaches say kept her going.
"In her very first game, she lost all the balls," Desert View coach Stacy Haines said. "She hit them all over the fence."
It wasn't just an introduction to tennis for Meza, it was immersion. She made the #1 junior varsity position in her first week. By the end of the season, she was the No. 5 varsity player, and she and her doubles partner advanced to the 4A Kino Regional tournament.
"Making the regional tournament was the first time I ever felt that I succeeded in anything," Meza said.
It was at regionals that Pueblo boys coach John Davis recruited her for his Southside Tennis Academy --- a grass-roots program funded by the United States Tennis Association.
"She looked like a wonderful athlete with tremendous potential," Davis said. "She was a competitive player because of her athleticism, not because of her technical knowledge of the game. I could see all she needed was some instruction."
So through the USTA, Meza earned scholarships to attend Ron Smith's tennis academy at Randolph Tennis Center and at the Tucson Racquet and Fitness Club's summer tennis camp.
The practice hours were long. The hour bus ride to and from camp seemed even longer.
Meza said it would have been easy for her to give up. But she endured the embarrassment of matching up against 7- and 8-year-olds in her class.
That conviction led Meza to Ventana Canyon tennis pro Serena Quarelli, who gives her free lessons in her spare time.
Meza said Quarelli was responsible for changing her grip to get away from the chop to an actual topspin stroke and getting her comfortable with it by drilling her until she was ready to drop.
"It just feels natural now, I don't even have to think about it when I do it anymore," Meza said,
The work has paid off for Meza. The chop is gone and she is as comfortable with her backhand as she is with her forehand.
She is off to the best start of her season at 4-2.
Her serve and the power behind her stroke may have to do with her lofty height of 5 feet, 9 inches. This enables her to serve extremely high and get over the top of the ball for considerable power.
"I am really kind of discovering all of the little things about tennis right now myself," she said.
She may not be completely sure of all the technicalities of her game, but this year she has a secret weapon: Beethoven's "Ode to Joy."
"Ten minutes before a match, I find a quiet place and listen to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the Joy part," Meza said. "Then when the match gets going, and the ball is going back and forth, I hear the music in my head. And when it crescendos, I hit the ball really hard and put the point away."
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