Love-Fifteen Million Years: A Prehistoric Tennis Tale

In the sweltering heat of the late Cretaceous period, on a primitive court etched into the dusty earth by the dragging tails of passing Stegosaurus, two Tyrannosaurus Rex faced off for the championship match of the first-ever Mesozoic Open.

Rex, the reigning king of the Cretaceous, stomped onto the court, his tiny arms swinging with determined uselessness at his sides. Across the net (which was really just a row of tall ferns) stood his arch-nemesis, Regina, her sharp teeth gleaming in the prehistoric sun.

"You're going down, Regina!" Rex roared, his massive head bobbing as he tried to intimidate his opponent.

Regina snorted, sending a small Pterodactyl fluttering away in fright. "In your dreams, fossil breath! I've been practicing my serve!"

The Compsognathus line judge, perched precariously on a rock, chirped to signal the start of the match. Rex waddled over to the service line, a regulation tennis ball looking comically small next to his enormous feet.

Now came the first challenge: picking up the ball. Rex bent his huge body forward, jaws opening wide. With a delicate precision that belied his fearsome reputation, he closed his teeth ever-so-gently around the fuzzy green sphere.

"Hmmpf! Hmmpf!" Rex grunted, his words muffled by the ball in his mouth. The small gathering of Triceratops spectators tilted their frilled heads in confusion.

Rex waddled back to his starting position, then with a mighty swing of his head, released the ball into the air. In the same motion, he attempted to swing his comically small arm, hoping to connect with the ball.

Unsurprisingly, he missed. By several feet.

The ball bounced sadly on the ground beside him. The Triceratops audience let out a collective "Oooh" of disappointment, their horns drooping slightly.

"Ha!" Regina barked from across the court. "You call that a serve? Watch this!"

Regina approached her ball with all the grace of a rampaging Ankylosaurus. She too struggled to pick it up, her jaws snapping at the air several times before finally securing the elusive sphere. With a wild thrash of her head, she launched the ball skyward.

What followed could only be described as a full-body spasm as Regina attempted to hit the ball with her diminutive arm. The resulting motion sent her off-balance, and the mighty T-Rex toppled over, landing with an earth-shaking THUD that sent ripples through the nearby tar pits.

Rex let out a roar of laughter, then promptly inhaled the tennis ball he'd been holding in his mouth. A series of hacking coughs ensued, each one sounding like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

The Compsognathus line judge, unsure of how to call this particular violation, began racing back and forth along the fern net, letting out a series of confused chirps.

As Regina struggled to right herself, her tail whipping about and taking out half the Triceratops audience, Rex continued his battle with the tennis ball lodged in his throat. With a mighty cough that stripped several trees bare, he finally dislodged the ball. It shot out of his mouth like a furry green comet, flying over the fern net, bouncing off Regina's head just as she managed to stand up, and landing perfectly in the far corner of her court.

The Compsognathus line judge froze, then let out a triumphant chirp. "Fifteen-Love!" it seemed to say.

Rex blinked in surprise, then raised his tiny arms in victory. "Yes! I am the champion! I am the greatest tennis player to ever live!"

Regina, rubbing her head with her shoulder (the closest she could get with her short arms), glared at Rex. "Oh yeah? Best two out of three!"

As the two T-Rexes continued their ridiculous attempt at tennis, a small, furry creature watched from the underbrush, shaking its head. "Give me a few million years of evolution," the primitive mammal muttered to itself, "and I'll show them how it's done."

And so the great Mesozoic Tennis Tournament continued, with more balls swallowed than hit, more accidental points scored than intentional ones, and more dinosaurs toppled than a perfectly placed asteroid. In the end, while neither Rex nor Regina improved their tennis skills, they did unknowingly contribute to the fossil record - by creating a layer of compressed tennis balls that would confuse paleontologists for centuries to come.