By Scott Brinton
That was Sept. 30.
On Oct. 1, Jessie was set to play in the Nassau County Championship match, one of a handful of players representing the Bellmore-Kennedy High School girls' tennis team. That day, an MRI revealed that Jessie had shattered her hand in six places.
Suddenly, the fall tennis season seemed in jeopardy. You couldn't have blamed Jessie if she had thrown in the towel, but she didn't. Despite the physical pain she would endure playing with a busted hand, she refused to give up.
Jessie had one question for her East Meadow sportsmedicine doctor: How long would her hard cast take to dry?
Why? he wondered. Jessie had an hour or so before the county championship started, and she wanted to play. Her doctor looked startled, but gave her the go-ahead to take part in the tournament.
Jessie and her mother, Melanie, dashed to the match in Garden City. In the car, Jessie practiced holding and throwing a tennis ball with a cast. No easy feat, but she managed. She faced a greater challenge, though. She depended on her strong two-handed backhand, which the cast rendered impossible to even attempt. She quickly mastered the one-handed slice backhand, which lent more finesse to her game, but she lost a degree of power.
Jessie, who is nationally ranked in the Junior USTA, plays first doubles on the ultra-competitive Kennedy team. This year, she won her first match at counties, but lost her second. After that, she won six straight -- all the while playing with the broken hand.
She ended the 2005 season as an All-Division and All-Conference honoree, as well as a county qualifier. And, at the very end, Kennedy coach Brian DeGaetano had a surprise accolade for her. The Nassau County Girls' Tennis Coaches Association awarded Jessie the 2005 Sportsmanship Award, because she played with such drive throughout the season. Only one player from each team receives the honor, which is voted on by all of the county's girls' coaches.
Melanie and Eric Rubin gushed with pride over their daughter's accomplishment. "There wasn't even a question whether she would [play]," her father said. "She didn't even hesitate."
Melanie added, "Her heart gets her through."
To say that Jessie grew up in a tennis home would be an understatement. Her parents -- particularly her father -- are tennis fanatics. Eric, a banker, learned tennis from his father, and was ranked in the Junior USTA as a teenager in Bayside, Queens. He passed the game on to Jessie, whom he continues to coach. Melanie, an elementary special-education teacher in the Rockville Centre School District, runs the summer tennis camp at Sportime in Bethpage, where Jessie trains year-round.
Her parents gave her a tennis ball to hold while she was still in a bassinet. When she learned to walk, she started gripping a racquet and hitting a ball taped from the kitchen entrance to a long rubber band. Eric said, "It went from little taps to the ball hitting those doors" -- on the other side of the room.
Eric and Melanie say they taught Jessie to always try her best and to decide things for herself, no matter what others might say. They also insisted that she be kind to other people, and her giving nature shines through when she speaks of her 9-year-old brother, Noah, whom she describes as a "tennis prodigy." She is quick to heap praise on Noah, who attends Levy-Lakeside Elementary School, noting that he, too, is ranked nationally in the Junior USTA and was featured on NBC because of his early tennis prowess.
Jessie hopes to play singles for Kennedy next season, and to eventually help the team win a Division I championship. There's no doubt she's got the heart for it.
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
