So, now what? I purchased a tennis racquet. I assume people run jauntily around their house with white knee-high socks and headbands and their racquets over their shoulder, asking passersby Anyone For Tennis? The cardboard cutout stuck on the front of mine showcased a resplendent Roger Federer with his hair falling in a halo around his head. His eyes do not look at me; his eyes are focussed utterly on some ball which isn’t actually pictured in the photo. It contains all the modern marketing tools to make me think that I too, using this Wilson Federer Classic racquet, will also play at Number One level.
Oh, my wordy lordy no.
So I admit I’m not very good at these kind of sports, although I think it’s a safe bet to say I’m pretty ridiculous in most of my attempts at sport. Up until only a couple of years ago I have fought pretty heavily against the playing of any sport in public lest I get a sweaty brow or have to get pried away from books or something. I do distinctly remember resenting those once-a-week PE lessons where we trooped down to our school’s unused tennis courts, were rotated through on a single court, and consistently getting that dejected feeling as yet again, I could not hit the blasted ball over the net. I therefore declared tennis all too hard for any future endeavours, and crossed its name off the list of things I could enjoy in public. Sport was something to be endured at school, at least until I thankfully got eliminated and got to sit down on the sidelines with the rest of my nerdy, less prowess-like friends. I am kind of regretting that now.
I have found, through immersion in Dan’s family, that I actually enjoy tennis, in some kind of weird inverse proportion to the amount of shots I actually miss. Dan’s dad owns a tennis court, which means that visiting that side of his family means Doing Things instead of Talking About Things, and has so far meant that Dan will hit the ball around politely with me until he ultimately gets frustrated and shuffles me off the court in favour of some more agile and coordinated male relative. He is fiercely competitive about all things physical such as this, and after seeing him play his dad I can see it’s all genetic. To put it in a wider perspective, there exists an annual Mackenzie Family Tennis Tournament Day. On the surface it looks like a lovely, unstressful extended family gathering around a few beers while people lazily get up to compete in a doubles tournament going on in the background, but I harbour suspicions that it’s just an excuse for Dan’s dad to mercilessly flog all his relatives into the ground on the tennis court. I suspect we’re overdue for this year’s gathering.
Freyja and I (by Freyja, I mean housemate and not Norwegian love goddess) took our racquets today to the unkempt concrete uni campus courts across the road from our house and hit the ball around for an hour. As it had been some time since I’ve played (and by played, I mean kicked off the court by Dan), rallies were short and finished when all the tennis balls had nested along my side of the fence. I have promised to get better, at least until the summer evenings become unbearably hot and sticky and moist. So far she has commented that I hold my racquet funny which has only served to make me dizzyingly conscious of where all my limbs are at one time. No it hasn’t helped. Nor has her comments from a fortnight ago that the longer I run, my right foot starts moving in circles. All of this useful feedback on my neverending quest for physical superiority has just left me tense and hyper-aware and possibly even more retarded than when I started. Suggestions at the rock climbing gym to Just Go Up don’t feel as useful after two months’ absence when one’s muscles have gone to shit.
(Yes, I did have to look up the spelling of racquet. Where did that extranous c come from?)
