Port Washington: the kick serve built by four summers of dawn repetition
Hal’s game involves attrition. He’ll probe, pecking, until some angle opens up. [...] Three different opponents this past summer had to go to oxygen during breaks. [...] His serve, now, suddenly, after four summers of thousand-a-day serves to no one at dawn, is suddenly supposed to be one of the best left-handed kick serves the junior circuit has ever seen.
Context
The weapon's provenance is pure regimen: the best left-handed kick serve on the junior circuit was manufactured by "four summers of thousand-a-day serves to no one at dawn." This is the body-as-machine doctrine paying off — repetition wiring the stroke so deep it becomes a reflex, the empty pre-dawn labor now suddenly a serve that "yanks across at people as if on a hidden diagonal string." And the attritional game it serves runs opponents to oxygen: Hal's tennis is a grinding-down of other bodies, powered by the grinding-down of his own in drills.