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Thursday, December 11, 2003
I played tennis last night, for the first time in over 2 months.
I got a call on Monday inviting me to play indoors on Wednesday, to make up an 8.
"Ok" I said.
Wednesday came and so I drove over to the courts for 8pm. After a quick warm-up, I was playing. It was lovely, like getting back onto a bike after years of not riding.
The satisfying feeling of a beautifully struck backhand, the pleasure of pinging a top spin down the line, the smug delight of a well-placed drop-shot. I played 1 set of doubles and it was good - we won 6-4. I played pretty well, considering I'd been inactive for so long.
I then played singles with Dave. He's sort of my tennis nemesis: he's very good, very ego-centric and very annoying. I've never played well against him mainly because he's so annoying. He hits the ball very hard too, so hard he often passes me at the bassline.
Anyway, we started playing and straight away something was different: I was on fire! I was getting to his shots with ease and managing to pass him at the bassline, whacking the ball wherever I pleased, cracking forehands cross-court, whipping backhands into the corners, serving aces wide. It was great! We were 3-3 in the first set and I'd won the game but Dave reckoned it was 40-30. That was fine by me: I was playing really well and I didn't really care about the score. I lost that game. And the next. And the next. The score was 6-3. It didn't really matter though since I'd got 2 more games off him than I ever had before.
The next set went quicker and ended 6-1. I was still playing well but was a bit tired by now. The 3rd set was at 3-1 when the lights went off and our time was up.
It was a weird but wonderful chapter in my tennis history. I'd played like I always think I can but have never quite managed to. I'd done some truly outstanding shots, some utterly beautiful serves, run down some impossible shots.
But I still lost.
.....posted at 10:57 am permalink
babyatom's
old BIG BLOGS
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