Althegal reads our blogs regularly, but she seldom comments: never on the blog and very rarely in any other way. It's just the way it is. But she happened to be emailing Cuppa the other day after my tennis blog, and she expressed great surprise that I missed the most important aspect of the whole tennis thing: The Super Big Gulp! Her exacrt words: "And, tell Dad that I can't believe he got through an entire post about tennis with Mike and didn't once mention Big Gulps! They were so integral to the game ritual."
So here's the scoop.
After our matches Mike and I would almost always stop at 7/11 for one of those humongous drinks. They went down so well after a few hours of straining and sweating. In fact, we probably could have probably consumed two each.
He usually drove, and when he pulled into my driveway to let me off, he'd start a countdown: 10 - 9 -8 ... And wouldn't Aldee come flying out the door before he reached zero and grab the remainder of my drink from me.
She was a darn cute kid. Still is. Here's to you, kid.
Showing posts with label tennis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tennis. Show all posts
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Game, Set, Match
Since I blogged about Wimbledon yesterday, I may as well record for posterity my personal experience with playing the game.
Cuppa's sister and boyfriend got into tennis around the mid-seventies, and Cuppa and I decided to try it as well. We bought a couple of cheap rackets — Chemold was the brand name — and used them when we could. There were courts nearby, and we'd sometimes even hit the ball around sans nets and lines on our quiet street. Thesha was still a toddler, but she was a model child in many ways. We could take her to the courts, and she'd amuse herself for as long as necessary, so we were able to play quite a lot.
We didn't play anyone but each other most of the time, but when we got together with Cuppa's sister and her boyfriend, Paul, we'd have a game of doubles. The results were more or less even as I recall. Then, I would play singles against Paul, and, much to his disgust, I usually managed to win. He was certainly more impressive on the court with harder shots and more foot speed, but I seemed to manage to keep the ball inside the lines longer. If I hit it back to him a few times, he would plunk the ball into the net or send it long or wide, and I would win the point and then the game, set and match.
Then came the Althegal years and our withdrawal from the game. Althegal was not the type to amuse herself quietly for long, so we couldn't set her in a corner and hit the ball for an hour.
A few years later, however, I learned that a neighbour of ours, Mike, played, and we got together for a trial game. Fortunately, he proved to be better than I was. I say fortunately because he gave me the opportunity to improve. He wasn't so much better that he couldn't enjoy playing against me, and he never allowed himself to take it easy on poor AC as I continued to lose. We played frequently, sometimes for many days in a row, but it took me quite a while before I even won one set. Once I did win the first one, I was able to be competitive with him on a fairly consistent basis.
We continued to play most days during the next summer as well. We kept a record of our matches, and it was very close over the season, but Mike maintained a slight edge. However, when the third season arrived, I began to win more than lose. He was a more consistent player, so he'd still win if I was not playing up to form, but if I played well, it seemed that I would emerge victorious. We played a lot that spring, and then summer arrived. By summer, I mean that school ended, and I was on the long summer break that teachers enjoy.
However, on the very first day of our long summer vacation, a very unfortunate thing happened in the evening after Mike and I had played a great match in the afternoon. On a very routine movement while warming up with Althegal and her softball team, I badly sprained my ankle. Very badly. So badly that I was forced to spend almost the whole summer sitting in my recliner with my foot up. In fact I was just beginning to be mobile when school started up again in September. (Oddly enough, the ankle that I sprained way back then has come back to bother me these twenty or so years later.)
Mike was forced to find other people to play with that summer, and we never engaged in our private competition very much after that. We'd both still play, mostly doubles with a group of guys who showed up at the club at one o'clock every day, but it was never the same for me. I missed the intensity of our singles matches. Then, after a few years, back, ankles, wrists and elbows began to act up, and I decided to hang up the racket. It was really a very bad back attack — bulging discs — that brought me to a full stop. I missed almost two months of work in late winter and it wise to never try to play tennis again.
I have learned through that experience, however. As much as you enjoy something, you can move on and get involved with other things. As the old saw goes: when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade. There is really no alternative, not a viable one anyway, but my tennis days were over: game, set and match.
Cuppa's sister and boyfriend got into tennis around the mid-seventies, and Cuppa and I decided to try it as well. We bought a couple of cheap rackets — Chemold was the brand name — and used them when we could. There were courts nearby, and we'd sometimes even hit the ball around sans nets and lines on our quiet street. Thesha was still a toddler, but she was a model child in many ways. We could take her to the courts, and she'd amuse herself for as long as necessary, so we were able to play quite a lot.
We didn't play anyone but each other most of the time, but when we got together with Cuppa's sister and her boyfriend, Paul, we'd have a game of doubles. The results were more or less even as I recall. Then, I would play singles against Paul, and, much to his disgust, I usually managed to win. He was certainly more impressive on the court with harder shots and more foot speed, but I seemed to manage to keep the ball inside the lines longer. If I hit it back to him a few times, he would plunk the ball into the net or send it long or wide, and I would win the point and then the game, set and match.
Then came the Althegal years and our withdrawal from the game. Althegal was not the type to amuse herself quietly for long, so we couldn't set her in a corner and hit the ball for an hour.
A few years later, however, I learned that a neighbour of ours, Mike, played, and we got together for a trial game. Fortunately, he proved to be better than I was. I say fortunately because he gave me the opportunity to improve. He wasn't so much better that he couldn't enjoy playing against me, and he never allowed himself to take it easy on poor AC as I continued to lose. We played frequently, sometimes for many days in a row, but it took me quite a while before I even won one set. Once I did win the first one, I was able to be competitive with him on a fairly consistent basis.
We continued to play most days during the next summer as well. We kept a record of our matches, and it was very close over the season, but Mike maintained a slight edge. However, when the third season arrived, I began to win more than lose. He was a more consistent player, so he'd still win if I was not playing up to form, but if I played well, it seemed that I would emerge victorious. We played a lot that spring, and then summer arrived. By summer, I mean that school ended, and I was on the long summer break that teachers enjoy.
However, on the very first day of our long summer vacation, a very unfortunate thing happened in the evening after Mike and I had played a great match in the afternoon. On a very routine movement while warming up with Althegal and her softball team, I badly sprained my ankle. Very badly. So badly that I was forced to spend almost the whole summer sitting in my recliner with my foot up. In fact I was just beginning to be mobile when school started up again in September. (Oddly enough, the ankle that I sprained way back then has come back to bother me these twenty or so years later.)
Mike was forced to find other people to play with that summer, and we never engaged in our private competition very much after that. We'd both still play, mostly doubles with a group of guys who showed up at the club at one o'clock every day, but it was never the same for me. I missed the intensity of our singles matches. Then, after a few years, back, ankles, wrists and elbows began to act up, and I decided to hang up the racket. It was really a very bad back attack — bulging discs — that brought me to a full stop. I missed almost two months of work in late winter and it wise to never try to play tennis again.
I have learned through that experience, however. As much as you enjoy something, you can move on and get involved with other things. As the old saw goes: when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade. There is really no alternative, not a viable one anyway, but my tennis days were over: game, set and match.
Monday, July 07, 2008
A Magnificent Wimbledon
Back around the mid-seventies, Cuppa and I started to play tennis or play around at tennis, I suppose I should say. And we began to be aware of the sport on TV. When kids came along, particularly the second, we more or less stopped playing for a time, but we never lost touch with the televised spectacle.
When school ended each June, Wimbledon would begin, and the watching of it became a marker of the beginning of summer ease. We began watching in the Jimmy Connors era, and I remember being chuffed when the seemingly arrogant so-and-so lost to Arthur Ashe. Then came the Borg dynasty, followed by the McEnroe years, then Lendl, Edberg, Becker, Sampras and Federer. Some of these players I cheered for; others not too much. I was a McEnroe fan and later a Becker fan, but my preference was to see the others lose. It's not that I disliked any of them as such, but one can grow tired of seeing the same people winning. Besides, it seems to be in my nature to cheer for the underdog unless I have become particularly attached to a certain player as one does to a particular team.
Perhaps that's why I became quite attached to McEnroe — because I endured with him in his titanic struggle to overcome Borg. After five years of seeing Borg hoist the Wimbledon trophy, I was rooting desperately for Mac. So, even after he took over the top spot on the tennis ladder, I was bonded to him in a sense and kept on cheering for him.
For the past five years, we have been treated to the dominance of Roger Federer. In the list of champions that I posted above, he's probably at the top although he might have to share the pinnacle with Borg. Although I have never disliked this classy gentleman, I have certainly got tired of witnessing the ease with which he was defeated almost everyone. Well he has defeated everyone for five years and came within one of making it six straight this year.
A few year after Federer began his awesome dominance, along came a Spaniard, Rafael Nadal, a talented and very likable fellow who seemed to be the only possible challenger to the great Federer. Although he had been able to defeat Roger on clay, Nadal had yet to turn the trick on the Wimbledon grass, and, let's face it, Wimbledon is the ultimate test. They faced each other in the finals for the past two years, and Federer was able to emerge victorious.
Yesterday, after a great start which enabled Nadal to take to two set lead, Federer was able to claw back, and so they went into a fifth set. I figured that Federer was going to do it again — find a way to win. He has the incredible forehand after all and can seem to serve an ace whenever he needs to, but somehow Nadal found a way to prevail almost five hours into the match. Even after all of that time, he was still scrambling around the court as if he were as fresh as a daisy.
I am the first to admit that tennis can ofen be a wee bit boring. When Wimbledon starts, there are 128 men and the same number of women in the draw, and since we don't know most of them, it's hard to get all wrapped up in it. On top of that, they do tend to show the top players with whom we are familiar. The trouble with that, however, is that the top players generally win the early rounds all too easily.
But when it gets to the end and you have two magnificent and arguably equal opponents, it's a different story. Most other sports are played within a defined period of time, but close tennis matches can go on and on. When I see two players slug it out for almost five hours as I did yesterday, I am both amazed and enthralled. I was so into it that I was probably more exhausted than either of the contestants at the end.
So that's Wimbledon for another year, the long-standing, true beginning of summer for Cuppa and I. We even celebrate the event with sttawberries and cream, just like they do over there in Jolly Olde England. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any crumpets yesterday.
Come September, we'll watch the US Open, and it will mark the beginning of autumn, and formerly also the beginning of another year of the teaching grind. In between, we'll watch the lower key Canadian Open, but that's pretty well our tennis diet for the year.
When school ended each June, Wimbledon would begin, and the watching of it became a marker of the beginning of summer ease. We began watching in the Jimmy Connors era, and I remember being chuffed when the seemingly arrogant so-and-so lost to Arthur Ashe. Then came the Borg dynasty, followed by the McEnroe years, then Lendl, Edberg, Becker, Sampras and Federer. Some of these players I cheered for; others not too much. I was a McEnroe fan and later a Becker fan, but my preference was to see the others lose. It's not that I disliked any of them as such, but one can grow tired of seeing the same people winning. Besides, it seems to be in my nature to cheer for the underdog unless I have become particularly attached to a certain player as one does to a particular team.
Perhaps that's why I became quite attached to McEnroe — because I endured with him in his titanic struggle to overcome Borg. After five years of seeing Borg hoist the Wimbledon trophy, I was rooting desperately for Mac. So, even after he took over the top spot on the tennis ladder, I was bonded to him in a sense and kept on cheering for him.
For the past five years, we have been treated to the dominance of Roger Federer. In the list of champions that I posted above, he's probably at the top although he might have to share the pinnacle with Borg. Although I have never disliked this classy gentleman, I have certainly got tired of witnessing the ease with which he was defeated almost everyone. Well he has defeated everyone for five years and came within one of making it six straight this year.
A few year after Federer began his awesome dominance, along came a Spaniard, Rafael Nadal, a talented and very likable fellow who seemed to be the only possible challenger to the great Federer. Although he had been able to defeat Roger on clay, Nadal had yet to turn the trick on the Wimbledon grass, and, let's face it, Wimbledon is the ultimate test. They faced each other in the finals for the past two years, and Federer was able to emerge victorious.
Yesterday, after a great start which enabled Nadal to take to two set lead, Federer was able to claw back, and so they went into a fifth set. I figured that Federer was going to do it again — find a way to win. He has the incredible forehand after all and can seem to serve an ace whenever he needs to, but somehow Nadal found a way to prevail almost five hours into the match. Even after all of that time, he was still scrambling around the court as if he were as fresh as a daisy.
I am the first to admit that tennis can ofen be a wee bit boring. When Wimbledon starts, there are 128 men and the same number of women in the draw, and since we don't know most of them, it's hard to get all wrapped up in it. On top of that, they do tend to show the top players with whom we are familiar. The trouble with that, however, is that the top players generally win the early rounds all too easily.
But when it gets to the end and you have two magnificent and arguably equal opponents, it's a different story. Most other sports are played within a defined period of time, but close tennis matches can go on and on. When I see two players slug it out for almost five hours as I did yesterday, I am both amazed and enthralled. I was so into it that I was probably more exhausted than either of the contestants at the end.
So that's Wimbledon for another year, the long-standing, true beginning of summer for Cuppa and I. We even celebrate the event with sttawberries and cream, just like they do over there in Jolly Olde England. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any crumpets yesterday.
Come September, we'll watch the US Open, and it will mark the beginning of autumn, and formerly also the beginning of another year of the teaching grind. In between, we'll watch the lower key Canadian Open, but that's pretty well our tennis diet for the year.
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