3 Reasons Why I Love Tennis
My kids got me back into tennis, and helped me recall why I like it so much.
The boys have gotten into tennis lately, and seem very eager to get back out there and wound local wildlife with their errant shots. However, it is raining today. Gerry the Groundhog and Sammy the Seagull are spared the threat of getting hit by a fuzzy yellow ball. The rain also means that I can take time to think about why I love tennis.
I played when I was a kid, and was actually pretty good. I won a few leagues on both clay courts and hard courts (never had a chance to play on grass). My “career” was cut short when I had to get a job at 14 cleaning up dog shit. That’s not a joke. I worked at a kennel — for $4.15/hour — taking dogs from their kennels to the area where they could run around a bit…and poop. Then, I’d have to wrangle the salty dogs back into the kennels and clean up what they had put down.
But back to tennis.
#1: The rapidly moving projectiles
At its core, tennis is nothing more than whacking an object at another human being. Tennis players spend hundreds of dollars on Implements of Doom (rackets) that have been engineered to efficiently rocket a rubber ball in a controlled manner at some poor sod. Sure, there are some unnecessary impediments. The net tends to get in the way, and those stupid white lines dictate where you can, and cannot, swat the ball. While these arbitrary bounds are annoying, the sport still gives you the chance to wallop an overhead shot at Bill after he hit a poor lob shot.
While the more noble aspiration is to simply hit the ball past your opponent, there is some satisfaction to be gained by hitting the dude on the other side of the net. Especially if s/he screams “LONG!” or “WIDE!” anytime you hit the ball out of bounds.
“Look man, you aren’t a linesman at the U.S. Open. Just tell me it was out. No need for melodramatic yelling.”
Doubles tennis is even more alluring in this regard: instead of one target, you have three. Ideally, you shouldn’t have to rocket a ball into your partner’s rump on a serve, but circumstances can change quickly on the court.
“That was a lousy drop shot, Tim. I know we are on the same team, but the next time I am serving…watch your back…”
#2: The rest
Tennis is delightfully spasmatic. The action is essentially a serve, a whack or two from each player, and then the point is over. The whole ordeal rarely takes longer than 30 seconds. After the point is won, each player has a plethora of options to stall the game and get some rest. The server can get in position to serve, but start bouncing the ball many, many times. From the outside, it looks like s/he may be plotting a strategy. In reality, they are just getting their heart rate back to an acceptable level that would not alarm a cardiologist.
The returner can retreat to his chair, where his sweat towel is, and wipe off a brow that had been wiped off less than a minute ago. Each wipe only collects 2.3 millilitres of sweat, but the 60-second break is well worth the “effort”. I get the professional players going five sets at Wimbledon is tough, but when we are yukking it it up in suburban Maryland…our sweat glands really don’t need such rigorous attention. That leads us to the last great part about tennis.
#3: The sweat
Tennis is played on a court that has been designed to radiate heat. It “helpfully” absorbs the sun’s energy, microwaves it, and emits the heat around 500 degrees Celsius hotter than before. This means that any good tennis player will have sweated through his/her underpants just by walking onto the court. This is a badge of honor. Just by walking 50 yards, you have already sweat more than some dope who decided to go for a five mile run. By the time the player has removed their racket from the superfluous protective bag, the armpit-sweat game has joined the party and is growing nicely.
I like to wear gray t-shirts when I play. That shade tends to highlight how sweaty I am. I like when passersby see my sweatiness and think:
Passerby: “Wow — that guy must have been working out for hours to get that sweaty!”
Me, to myself: “I got out of my car, texted my buddy, and walked to the court.”
Me, to the passerby: “Yeah bro — gettin’ after it today!”
While we are in rain delay status, I can think about tennis. I can reminisce about hitting a ball into some dude’s hog, taking an abnormal amount of time to rest in between extremely short periods of action, and playing up the sweat-factor to trick strangers into thinking I was some sort of workout monster.
When the rain clears, we’ll hit the courts again. I’ll keep teaching them about kick serves, drop shots, slices, and the like.
I’ll also teach them to never wear sleeveless shirts. That style of shirt is not very good at displaying pit-sweat to strangers.
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I have been a member of Medium since June of 2020. I am a husband and a father to two boys. I spent the last 15+ years working in national security. Now I am a stay-at-home dad, watching, teaching, and just hanging out with the kids. Please visit my website Dad Observations at https://brettchrest.com/ for more stories about my life as a stay at home dad.