Tennis is a game I love and a game that I have always wanted to play much much better than I can. When you are young you somehow think that the things that you love doing, you will eventually become good at. Not so for me and tennis. I remain very much a barely competent social player!
What I lacked (and still lack) in skill, I think I make up for with enthusiasm. While working in six different duty stations I was generally able to find a tennis court and someone to play with.
In 1999 in Baghdad I found the Alwiya Club, not too far away from the UNICEF Iraq Office (in those days). There I found Faris who was the Club Tennis Coach. Faris told me he had been a “professional” (perhaps semi? or maybe this designation was aspirational) in his day. No one else seemed to be playing tennis, or indeed frequenting the Alwiya Club, as sanctions, along with the Sadam Hussein regime, conspired to impoverish and control the lives and futures of Iraq’s people at that time, Faris was at first surprised to have someone who wanted to play or be coached, and then perhaps grateful for this unexpected income.
Faris soon realised that I wasn’t going to be a great tennis partner for him to hit up with and our early evening sessions soon began to focus on my serve. Faris would sit under a tree near the edge of the neglected clay courts and have me serve several buckets of balls. While I did that, he would provide shouted instructions on how to adjust my serve so I might get the ball over the net more a bit more often. Still today, whenever I serve a tennis ball I think of Faris sitting under a tree on a baking Baghdad evening, encouraging me, and probably praying for more accuracy from my serve.
Then there was the wonderful Chandaka in Sri Lanka. I met him when he was coaching my children once or twice a week. He persuaded my wife and I that we should have a lesson or two with him as well and I soon became a regular with him at 6am two or three mornings a week. Chandaka helped me with more than my serve, strengthening my forehand and helped me develop a double handed backhand when I started to get “tennis elbow”. Whenever I go back to Sri Lanka I still have a session or two with Chandaka and his team.
Chandaka and Faris became friends and people I could talk to about what was going on in their countries. In Sadam Hussein’s Iraq in 1999/2000 the regime’s surveillance and control meant conversations were often limited to the “weather” (which didn’t vary much in Iraq) and were punctuated, stopped or redirected with a look or gesture. But on the tennis court during baking hot Baghdad evenings conversations could move beyond my tennis serve and be a little more direct, and for me sometimes quite illuminating.
When I left UNICEF I knew I wanted to play tennis and join a tennis club. I knew it would be a great way to meet people in my new Community and be a way into getting an understanding of what was going in this country that I hadn’t lived in for almost 30 years.
There are two tennis Clubs in my area so I sent off emails to both of them. I heard back from one of the Clubs within a day, and five years later I am still waiting to hear back from the other. So I joined the club that replied to me and became a regular at social mornings on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
And I have met a great group of people through tennis. As in Baghdad, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, sport has been a great “connector” for me. Playing games is something that is common to almost all humanity everywhere. However far too many children are denied the opportunity to play games or sports by poverty, war, and repressive regimes (at state, and sometimes household level). In some societies the pursuit of academic achievement at seemingly any cost, seems to deny children a childhood with tuition classes stretching into the night.
I am still not a very good tennis player – as I noted earlier, I am definitely more enthusiastic than competent. But winning a game isn’t why I play (thankfully). It is about developing or even earning a connection with others. Yes, we talk tennis at the tennis club, but we also talk about what is going on in the world and people are (sometimes?) interested in what I have to say and why I say what I say. That said, I am pretty confident that my tennis partners would all agree that I am a better advocate for children than I am a tennis player.
More musings to come so please look out for - What to do la #6 – Democracy
Thank you Tim for writing about your tennis, a subject that is not often referred to in our Blog. As an avid player myself I enjoyed it very much. While I had played tennis on and off throughout my life starting quite young in fact, it was not my main sport. Of course during my working days the opportunity to play was limited in most places by availability of facilities and by work constraints. But I managed the occasional game in Beirut, Cairo, Khartoum, NY and even in Hanoi.In Sudan I had my first and only experience playing on grass, both in public courts and a few private ones.it was the thing to do when the heat came to 50 degrees Centigrade, in the shade! I took up tennis seriously after retiring in Canada in 1995. On Nuns Island where we live and a five minute drive from home, is one of the biggest indoor clubs in North America with twenty courts, including six that are clay . Also our condo has its own two courts where I play in the summer months. My game improved considerably but nowadays I only play in doubles with a standing group of 6 of us who alternate on the court as we play short sets to four games.We have a fixed schedule of two hours twice a week at the Club from October to May and then we move to our condo for the warm weather. Most of our group are in their 80’s with two in the 70’s. Our level is quite high by Quebec standards as one of our team is a classified ITF player who still competes in international venues and had recently reached number 11 in the world. I played doubles with him in a couple of regional tournaments and we reached the semi finals.It is a game that is both physical and social and it gives me the occasion to do some exercise and to enjoy the company of my colle@gues when we have a beer together after playing.
ReplyDeleteWhile tennis is still my main physical @ctivity both Nadia and I are also almost fanatical watching tennis, both live and on TV. Montreal is one of nine global venues for tennis Masters tournaments and for some years we attended most matches played here. But during a period of twelve years when we wintered in south California we never missed attending matches at Indian Wells, the so-called Tennis Paradise.Frankly we both agree with that description, the venue being really spectacular with the desert surrounded by snow capped mountains and beautiful vegetation and great facilities. All the pros love to play there as they can also enjoy numerous golf courses all around .The best remark about the place came from Kim Clisters who won the tournament when she was number one in WTA rankings: in the post game interview she told reporters “I am glad I won this year because I have difficulty playing her ,,,the surroundings are so beautiful I have trouble concentrating on my game!” Enough said….