WIth every passing week, I am getting better and better at tennis and it won't be soon before I am fit to lose 6-1, 6-1 to any decent player. Now you will wonder just what I mean by this? Well having started so late in the game, I am still a beginner. I might not fumble or look clumsy at the baseline or even serve well for a beginner but I still stand no chance. So where exactly is my tennis game. I mean I only have to climb a 40 storeyed building and gaze down at anything that looks as tiny as an ant. That ant is where my game is.
I started in the first week of August this year and gave myself a month to see if I would continue. At the end of 3 months if I was still smacking balls and wearing my soles thin at the net then I would present myself a good- quality racket.
I had bought a cheap Kuawei racket not knowing if I will still be with the game and not wanting to invest in something wishful if thats what my whim turned out to be. I am happy playing tennis and surprisingly it didnt take me long to actually connect the racket with the ball and send it smartly over the net. I had been watching Martina and Chris Evert, Steffi Graf and Sabatini, Becker and Sampras and also John McEnroe (though memories are fading and are restricted to his smashing the racket:)) and now my present day hero Roger Federer. He is GOD! I have recorded all those moves of theirs on court- all those shots that I loved, I now appreciate them even more and when I watch any game I participate-sigh when the beautiful forehand lands a whisker outside the sideline or a guaranteed volley is gulped down by the net just like people do while watching cricket. It thrills me that I got this far. It is absolutely more exhilirating than say completing a 5 Km walk on the threadmill or managing to do those painful push-ups for the 3rd time. You run, you swoop down on the ball, you smash, you make a passing forehand (believe me nothing is as thrilling as this) and you run across this court that you felt was so small that you could cover it in three strides and now that you are actually playing on it, the world seems like a smaller place than the court
And I must mention when I go to bed, I am thinking of my serve and my right hand actually involuntarily twitches. I see that as a "divine sign" that I will continue with tennis for many years to come and evetually turn a 1-6, 1-6 loss into a win with 6 on the left hand side.
