So, I have spent much of the past five years desperately defending my favourite sport, tennis. It has been regularly castigated by soccer fans, boring people, unimaginative souls and those with a distinct lack of hand-eye coordination.
However, besides some of the most charismatic and alluring sporting personalities (the bulging Rafael Nadal, the meticulous Roger Federer, the intimidating Williams sisters, the shrieking Maria Sharapova) and the visual beauty of a winning forehand, a backhand slice volley or a slide on clay, tennis offers much in the form of point and laugh entertainment.
Like Saturday, for example. My club (Plumstead Tennis Club) played league matches against Edgemead’s Tennis Club. After completing my first match (and winning convincingly, I might add), I watched these two girls play one another.
The Edgemead girl, although an okay player, served double faults so vast in size that I was forced to gasp and laugh on a few occasions. Some of her serves almost flew into adjacent courts – such a display one will never get to witness on the pro tennis circuit.
However, I am not without my “moments” on the court. During my doubles match, I decided in advance on one point that I was going to hit the hardest, most stunning forehand winner I could muster once my opponent had served. My plan went awry, however, as the ball stunningly careened into the fence surrounding the court - without it even bouncing. The muffled giggles from the three other guys on the court only added to my embarrassment.
However, besides some of the most charismatic and alluring sporting personalities (the bulging Rafael Nadal, the meticulous Roger Federer, the intimidating Williams sisters, the shrieking Maria Sharapova) and the visual beauty of a winning forehand, a backhand slice volley or a slide on clay, tennis offers much in the form of point and laugh entertainment.
Like Saturday, for example. My club (Plumstead Tennis Club) played league matches against Edgemead’s Tennis Club. After completing my first match (and winning convincingly, I might add), I watched these two girls play one another.
The Edgemead girl, although an okay player, served double faults so vast in size that I was forced to gasp and laugh on a few occasions. Some of her serves almost flew into adjacent courts – such a display one will never get to witness on the pro tennis circuit.
However, I am not without my “moments” on the court. During my doubles match, I decided in advance on one point that I was going to hit the hardest, most stunning forehand winner I could muster once my opponent had served. My plan went awry, however, as the ball stunningly careened into the fence surrounding the court - without it even bouncing. The muffled giggles from the three other guys on the court only added to my embarrassment.
Minutes later, I screamed “shit” more loudly than ever before after I played a long rally, hitting about five perfect shots, before the sixth shot hit the ozone layer. Tennis is a quiet sport, and the few screams elicited from players are doubly amplified and heard by everyone in the surrounded kilometre – all you can do after involuntarily extending your vocal chords is to hang your head in shame, and possibly apologise to your opponent depending on the ugliness of your expletive (talking about expletives, most memorable amongst the pros was Serena Williams' rant against a small Asian linesperson in 2009: "I swear to God I'm going to take this f*cking ball and shove it down your f*cking throat")... Perhaps that's taking things a tad too far.
Other tennis funnies include 60+ grandmas who admirably refuse to stop playing the game, but look like they’re playing in extreme slow-mo; one of their rallies takes an eternity. The contrast between these grannies and the beasts (basically any guy under 35) is made clear in-between matches; whereas the grannies sip on tea and discuss how the breeze today is hastier than it was last week, the beasts wolf down Energades and begin eyeing their next opponents, strategising upon how they will expose their weaknesses.
At the end of the league day, club members huddle around to check out one another’s results. At least one shockingly lopsided loss usually occurs on any given day and it all turns into a mini counselling session rather quickly: “what happened to you?!” “You didn’t win a set?!” “You were leading by HOW MUCH?!” “My game is just not where it was…”
So there you have it – club tennis certainly has loads to keep one entertained. The same goes for the pro circuit, be it watching Sharapova screaming, the fan who shouted “you can do it Williams!” during a Serena vs Venus match, or the players sliding across the clay at the French Open.
And if you still think the game of tennis is one big bore with all the entertainment value of watching a rock age, then please do refer to the second sentence of this blog post.
"If you believe that [Anna Kournikova's claim that she is a virgin], I've never questioned a call in my life.” - John McEnroe
The primary conception of tennis is to get the ball over the net and at the same time to keep it within the bounds of the court; failing this, within the borders of the neighborhood. Elliot Chaze
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