Skip to main content

My Way Back Into Tennis

1974, Paris, I wonder through cobble stone streets trying to make sense of the place. I am 9 years old, we just got there due to my parents new work assignment. No French, I am looking with blank eyes to people that are trying to talk to me, in my own way I am telling them I have no clue why I am there, and I don't want to be there, I want to be back home with my friends. That ain't happening of course.

Quite reserved I am, scared and mute. I hate the place, and I do mean hate. After few months of unapproachable attitude, while my parents do their best to help me acclimate into the environment by trying to entertain me with various activities, they take me to a tennis complex. The place is full of red dirt, crowded, I have some silly hard and uncomfortable shoes on that hurt my feet with each step. People are playing tennis, which I don't quite understand the attractiveness, but I admit to myself that they are pretty cool looking people; white shirts, white short shorts, nice looking white and reddish sneakers and those rackets. Oh boy... those rackets are really something, varying colors, letters on the strings, long leather wrapped brown handles... they must be expensive I thought to myself.

We stand next to one of those courts and watch one of the matches. I don't get it... "why is it 15 to zero, he only won once?" My mother does not know either, she's never been to a match before. We keep watching, but its gets boring and ask my mom if we can go back to the other courts where they were not counting the points, "it was more fun mom." I keep watching those players again, and they are having a lot more fun for sure and it is more enjoyable to watch those players. They are sliding from one end of the court to another, dust flies off and with the fast swing of the rackets there comes this amazing sound that has been imprinted into my brain since, plock! Here comes another one... the swoosh of the racket, plock! and the flying ball across the net, just amazing, I cannot take my eyes and ears off the spectacle.

There was this young boy that I particularly could not take my eyes off. Majority of the crowd was behind his position watching him practice. He had long blonde hair with a headband on, broadest shoulders I have seen, and he looks just so smooth hitting those fuzzy white balls; it seems easy enough. Strangely more of the girls seems ready jump off the roof for him than any other player. Girls! that must be the icing on the cake.

Several years later I learn that the courts we visited that day was Roland Garros and I apparently had the chance to watch Nastasse, Stan Smith, Jimmy Connors and Arthur Ashe. But the only image left in my mind from that day at Roland Garros as the long blonde guy... Bjorn Borg.



By this time I still hadn't figured the French language quite well, but enough to get by, introverted not talking to many. The next day at school everyone were talking about the blonde guy, amazingly more so than Nastasse, a hero of mine at the time and many others. I got into the conversation explaining how I saw him in person and mesmerized I was suddenly part of the in-crowd that day. From that day forward my French became my first language.

My mother must have observed my interest, she signed me up for tennis classes at a local club, although I always consider Roland Garros as the place I started with tennis. At the club they gave a racket that looked nothing like the rackets of the players at Roland Garros. The sound was still in my mind, plock! I was going to hit the ball and generate that sound now... My turn came, instructor threw the ball at me and I swung... missed. Another one... missed again. Third one... yes contact, I did hit the ball and I got a pluk, a messily pluk. I spent the next nine years chasing the perfect and repeatable plock!

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Singles Win!!! Finally I won my first singles match, and the best part was coming back from behind. I signed up for my club's ladder and issued my first challenge to a player that is about my level, knowing from the clinics we both attend.  However, the match was much tougher than I thought it would be.  This is ladder played based on Super 10 Pro Sets. We started with my serve as I knew I would serve better with the initial energy I have, and when my energy drops my first serves suffer quite a bit. As expected I was serving well, but my opponent wasn't phased by my flat or kick serves, and lost on my serve. Then I broke his serve, then he broke mine again and that's how it continued until 2-2. After that he kept breaking on my serves, but held his, shortly thereafter it was 2-5. Part of the problem was even when my first serves were good, I stayed passive at the baseline and not take advantage of the weak return of my opponent. This is partly due to tr...
Post a Comment
Read more
Practice, Practice, Practice! There is no substitute for it, you know it. There needs to be a driver behind it though and an objective. The weakest attribute in game has been my serve since I started. As I explained in my previous postings, I have three different types of serves, but regardless of which I use, I had many double faults that resulted in too many games, sets and matches lost. Has to be fixed. I have been practicing off-matches, throwing 75-100 serves each time I get the chance; however, most of my practices have been during the round robin doubles matches. Believe me I had my share of nasty looks from my partners in abundance and I cannot blame them. At the same time I refused to back off from figuring it out, dropping my pace, or just putting my second serves in with a loopy. I keep trying and trying, hoping something will click. I think something did click this month. I cannot tell exactly what it is, I cannot pin point to a single mechanics, but I think few thing...
Post a Comment
Read more
The Highs and Lows It has been an amazing four weeks since my last post. I have had many highs and few really lows. The ups and downs bring up new questions for me, and the main one is what is it that I am looking to achieve while enjoy tennis as a fun hobby. It is a competitive sport at the end, and without movement forward, staying stagnant is not for me. Although I keep my competitiveness in check for the most extent - otherwise it get impractical and unhealthy - I still want to be competitive on court both in singles and doubles, and continue to improve. Let me get back to this later on. For the highs: I was invited into my club's 4.0+ singles group to play regularly for practice matches, my serves have gotten very good with nearly excellent placement and pace, my volleys are improving, my movement on court has also improved noticeably specifically in singles matches, I am cutting down on my unforced errors and playing matches more intelligently with strategy. All of this m...
Post a Comment
Read more