Wimbledon and Endings and Beginnings

In the early 70s, Sue's sister and boyfriend introduced us to tennis. The 4 of us had fun, and Sue and I kept playing together when that couple was no longer available. After awhile, Sue didn't play too much, but I found a neighbour and a fellow teacher to play with. 

In my 40s, I played a lot with yet another neighbour, who was initially much better than I was, but our matches became very competitive after I was able to come up to his level. Near the end of our last summer playing together, I was winning somewhat more than he. Unfortunately, after a few years of playing with Mike, I had a major issue with my back and never played again.

But going back to the beginning in the early 70s, Jimmy Connors was a big name and large personality who showed up on tv, and we began to enjoy watching him, particularly at Wimbledon. He was so prominent that I usually cheered against him. Later, Bjorn Borg donned the mantle of tennis supremacy. He was followed by John McEnroe and so on and so forth. Recently, Novak Djokovic is the top player and is favoured to win Wimbledon once again.

Later in the summer I would watch the Canadian Open, which unfortunately tends to always take the sponsor's name. I think it is the National Bank Open this year. Come September, I would glue my eyes to the US Open.

However, Wimbledon became a special tournament for me because it coincided with the end of the school year and the beginning of the summer holidays. It was quite wonderful to decompress after school was out and watch glorious tennis on grass. Coincidentally, the US Open marked the end of holidays and the beginning of school and autumn. Although I loved the event, the connotations were not quite as poignant

So, that is what we are doing a lot of during this fortnight that will come to an end on this coming Sunday. Two days ago, on Monday, we spent the best part of 7 hours watching our two young Canadian men, Dennis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime. They both won their matches and will play in the quarter finals today. Thankfully, they are mot playing against each other.

Dennis Shapovalov

Felix Auger-Aliassime

It rare for Canadians to advance this far and unheard of for two to accomplish the feat in the same year.

Now you know a bit of history of my relation with tennis and Wimbledon and have a little update on what we have been doing lately and will be doing for many hours later today.