Dawn-drill decline and tennis standing: drug-poor circulation, bad tooth, subtle Kodiak, microtennis mastery

texture · 9 Nov YDAU

• When: 9 Nov YDAU, dawn drills
• What: At alfresco dawn drills Hal is "sullen and chilled" — "His circulation is poor because of tobacco and/or marijuana" — and his one bad back tooth gives "little electric shivers with each inbreath" as cold air hits it; he "very subtly shoots in a small plug of Kodiak," concealing the habit even at drills. Against the physical decline the scene fixes his standing: "nobody comes close to Hal in microtennis"; he is to be "seeded in at least the top 4 at the WhataBurger Inv. in a couple weeks"; his Star-Drill times are "average both for him and for any seventeen-year-old with a resting pulse rate in the high 50s." An early "November slide" body-state beat set against his still-elite game.