One of the places where it’s difficult to be going deaf is the tennis court.

I’ve loved tennis ever since I learned to play as a sixth-grader in Tucson, Arizona, around the same time that I was fitted with my first hearing aid. Today, tennis is one of my primary social activities. I’m a solid club player with a strong serve who wears powerful hearing aids in both ears.

I recently joined a tennis club with soft courts, coming back to the game with relish after 20 years of sabbatical that corresponded to the birth and raising of my children. I marvel at how the concentration required to chase down that yellow, felted ball with its many qualities of bounce wipes out all other thoughts from my mind. My everyday worries cower far away, beyond the court’s fencing.

All worries, that is, except for my deteriorating hearing.

After visiting my audiologist in November, I learned that I’m only a few steps away from crossing the line into deafness. Those terrible, jagged lines of my audiogram—noticeably lower on the chart than before, the white empty space above like a silent field—signify the sounds I can no longer hear. Ever since, I have been fretting on the court that I am going deaf.

I’m unable to detect the sound of the ball against my opponent’s racquet, the crack, brush, or ping telegraphing information on how and where the ball is headed. At women’s doubles, the players warm up midcourt, hitting lazy, soft shots, an opportunity for relaxed chatting. But I can only survive in conversations by lipreading, a crucial supplement to my hearing aids, impossible while also watching the ball. While laughter and exclamations float past me, I am stuck in a bubble of awkward aloneness.

My tennis friends know that I have a hearing loss. I try to make up for my silence during the warmup by asking them questions when we change sides every two games. Still, I feel removed in some way, as though I started the match late and am trying to catch up on the conversation. I worry that I will ask about a topic already discussed, coming off as spacey and ridiculous.

I struggle too to hear the score. My club’s amenities do not include a Wimbledon ump sitting in an elevated chair barking the score in a British accent (I wish!), so the responsibility falls on the server before each point. Even though most club players try to project their voice when calling out the score, I can only hear a wispy version of the vowels; the consonants are completely inaudible. At fifteen-thirty, for example, I catch a long ee sound from fifteen, followed by an errr in thirty: ee-pause-err.

My hearing loss also compromises communicating with my doubles partner during play. Turning to read her lips is a surefire way to lose track of the ball. I’m most vulnerable when I’m at the net and my partner is behind me on the baseline. If she fudges a shot, the ball droopily lofting towards the other side, I’m often unable to hear her yell “short,” the signal to back up. I’m not aware that my tigerish opponent is about to pounce until I see her eyes light up as though I’m a zebra on the Serengeti plain. She smashes the ball right at my feet.

Even though I’ve always had a hearing loss—I was born with it—as a sixth-grader in Tucson my hearing was far better, good enough to hear my partner on the court, to deduce the score, to hear the thwack of the ball against a racquet.

Now I find myself on edge on the court, almost vigilant, swiveling to scan everyone’s lips, checking that I’m not missing any conversation. Playing tennis has become a lot like going to the audiologist. That wide expanse of court—almost 80 feet between the two baselines—makes the measure of how much my hearing has changed.

Yet several times a week, I arrive at the club, alight from my car, grab my racquet from the trunk, and sprint with anticipation to the court, waving hello to my double’s teammates. I savor the olive-green clay courts adorned with chairs, water coolers, and umbrellas, the ritual of the sprinkler system watering the clay at noon. I’ve never encountered a clay court in Arizona; keeping it watered in the searing heat would be next to impossible.

My tennis friends recently instituted a new practice, suggested by my friend Shannon, in which we communicate the score with hand signals. Deep down I know that my friends genuinely enjoy playing with me. They have supported me, accommodated my deafness.

Back on the court after twenty years away, I can’t help but measure what I’ve lost. Those chattering, shivering, and brooding voices inside me, fixated on my going deaf, get louder. I fear losing my ability to communicate with others during tennis games. That seems to be the greatest part of the loss in my hearing loss, the loss of social connection.

Yet I also see what I’ve gained by returning to the courts—new friends with the same passion for the game, an engaging way to exercise. I hit topspin forehands with a loose arc, the ball zooming forward. When I whack a winner down the line, the ball hits the tape, releasing a little cloud of clay dust in celebration.