For avid readers of this blog, you’ll know that my first “organized sports” love will always be soccer. But my runner-up (and top choice for middle-aged me) would have to be tennis. Having spent the bulk of my youth focusing on kicking goals and being a good teammate, tennis—which I took up in high school—was a real pivot for me.
I’m not positive why I added tennis to my repertoire. Perhaps it was because I was average at basketball, I didn’t care all that much for softball, volleyball hurt my wrists, and field hockey conflicted with the soccer season. Though I’d bet that my mother’s quiet insistence that tennis was a sport you could play for life helped tip the scales.
Whatever the rationale was, I went to a two-week tennis camp the summer before my junior year of high school. Somehow, I was just good enough to make the Varsity Tennis team that fall. Even though I started at the bottom of the curve, learning the game of tennis was quite enjoyable. I’d describe it as frustrating but fun—a sentiment that I still feel to this day. Which brings me to the life lesson I learned: have the courage to be bad at something new. Hopefully, with a little bit of skill, a lot of practice, and an equal measure of passion, you will eventually improve. And with tennis—like so many other pursuits—you have a lifetime to keep at it until you can ace it.
Here’s my story…
My “fault”
I want to think that my natural athleticism helped me quickly pick up the basics of tennis. I’m sure having decent hand-eye coordination helped, but with only two weeks of intensive tennis camp under my belt, I had a long way to go in learning such a highly technical and strategic game.
Fortunately for me, Roy C. Ketcham’s tennis team at the time was competitive only in singles and maybe in first doubles. I’m pretty sure they just needed warm bodies for third doubles, which was what I ended up playing. My partner, Allison, was an incoming freshman. She had been playing tennis for many years and was definitely a better player than me. I warned her that I had two weeks of experience when the coach first paired us up.
“But I’ll learn quickly,” I assured her.
Knowing that I was a developing player (aka “I stunk”), Allison had a great attitude. She laughed when I accidentally hit her in the back with one of my wild serves. She didn’t complain when I hit the ball out of our court, or worse, into the net. I did that with great frequency. What I lacked in skill, I made up for in humor. We joked a lot on the court, making fun of our bad shots (OK, they were mostly mine). Thanks to Allison’s low-key demeanor, I was able to play more freely and found myself steadily improving that first season. Though I wouldn’t necessarily say I’d aced tennis just yet.
Order on the court
Once you nail down the fundamentals, much of tennis comes down to repetition. After that first season of tennis, I was hooked. My parents weren’t about to join a country club or send me to a tennis academy for my newfound passion, though. Instead, I spent a lot of time in the public park with a wall, a ball, and my racket. While it was a slightly imperfect method, given the lack of a net, I was able to strengthen my forehand and make my backhand passable.
My second and final year of high school tennis came during my senior year. And wouldn’t you know it? Allison and I won a bunch of matches. As in, we won slightly more than we lost. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t graduate from high school with any trophies or tournament wins. But I did qualify to take an advanced rather than beginner’s tennis sports elective in college.
While I’d aced the gym class, I didn’t have room in my schedule to go beyond Binghamton’s physical education requirement. And so, those credits marked the end of my time playing tennis as a young adult. After all, I had two majors to study for, I was already on the school’s lacrosse club, and soon enough, I’d have to start studying for law school exams.
Sadly, tennis fell completely off my radar screen.
It wasn’t until I left the corporate working world that tennis and I discovered each other again.
A perfect match
With both of my kids in school full-time, and a book about to be published, I found myself with some flexibility in my schedule. A few of my “school mom” friends asked if I wanted to join them in a tennis clinic at a club in Queens. Although it was an ace of an idea, at first, I was hesitant. I hadn’t picked up a racket in years. Plus, Queens was a bit of a hike from my apartment. But the tug of getting back into tennis was too strong. It seemed like a perfect combination of socializing and sport. Something I didn’t have much of sitting at my computer and writing all day.
When I first returned to tennis in my now middle-aged body, there were definitely a few changes since my twenties. First, the tennis rackets were different. Oh, and I was slower. It took a while to improve my timing and anticipation, though frankly I don’t think it’ll ever be great.
But I kept working on my form and eventually got to the point where I was halfway decent again. As in, not embarrassing.
While my “mom tennis group” eventually disbanded, I stuck with tennis. And to my luck, I unearthed a whole other world of similarly sporty tennis ladies.
Tennis starts with love
If you ask my sons, who are both far stronger and faster than me, they will tell you that I still stink at tennis. In some respects, they are correct. I can only ace someone on a serve with an accidentally bad shot. I shut down their criticism by telling my kids that they should thank me for making sure they learned tennis when they were young; I wish I’d learned sooner.
But, going back to my mom’s earlier point, tennis is a lifelong sport.
Nowadays, I can spend a fortune on lessons and clinics…for marginal improvement. (And just in case my husband reads this, it’s only a very small fortune.) Given my forever-intermediate level, I’ve come to realize that I play tennis for the joy of the sport. Sure, I wish I were a gazillion times better, but this isn’t going to be my career. Though you’d never know based on my tennis sneaker collection. (Again, if my husband is reading this, everything was on sale.)
As a child, I loved tennis because of the challenge it presented me. It was a sport that was totally different from anything I’d ever played before. It required a whole new set of skills and a different way of approaching the game.
As an adult, I love the strategy of tennis. I also enjoy the test of constantly going back to refine and hone my basic skills. Well, I don’t really love that part. But it’s something every player should do. But most of all, there’s now a huge social element—something I realized I’d been missing once I took on my more solitary writing career. Given the number of new friends I’ve made, I think I’ve aced that part of tennis.
A grand slam
The best and worst part of tennis is that it’s not a game of perfection. Even Roger Federer, my all-time favorite player, agrees with me. (In his famous Dartmouth University graduation speech, Federer said, “In tennis, perfection is impossible.”)
Yet even knowing that the odds are stacked against you, nearly one hundred and six million people around the world still pick up a racquet. Myself included. Had I been deterred by knowing that even at my best, I would only be “decent,” I never would’ve tried to make a varsity team. I never would’ve made so many friends at an advanced age where social circles are often set in stone. I never would’ve added some gorgeous, insanely bright sneakers to my beloved shoe collection.
But again, imperfection is the beauty of tennis. Like anything in life, you become stagnant unless you take chances and take calculated risks. In tennis, you have permission to make mistakes, just as much as you have permission to make amazing shots.
And if someday, I somehow get to the point where people are impressed by my abilities, well, that’s when I know heaven exists. I sure hope they have tennis rackets there.
Do you recall any childhood memories that had a strong impact on you later in life? Please share your stories with me in the comments section.
