My Experiments at Newcastle - Tennis

Not being inspired by Wimbledon, not to become RAFA II and of course not to participate in the impending US Open tournament, but only to reduce my gradually growing waist coa(s)t because of all the tempting burgers I have been eating since I landed here on this burger land, I decided to put on my sports shoe and start playing tennis.

Of course the Indian (hyderabadi) Tennis star Sania mirza also inspired me a bit as we were fervently watching her play in the packed common rooms of our hostels at BITS. One of my friends was even more enthusiastic about Sania (her play) that he started a community on orkut and pestered every one of us to join it. Just as we have our company’s wall paper all the time on our desktop, he used to have the picture of Sania (He used to change it as per his mood..but nothing except Sania).

We decided to play at evenings after six o’clock at the public tennis nets (after the office hours). We started our play after waiting for fifteen minutes to find a court. We were four of us and we started playing doubles as we would be exhausted if we play singles for an hour or so.

As an amateur, I was more like a ball boy as every shot of mine went directly on to the net. Sometimes I thought I should be playing cricket after hitting a ball so hard that crossed the fence in one big loop. I also had my embarrassing back hand shots which disturbed people playing on my left and right. I was not the culprit of all these but my senses which diverted my concentration from facing a serve to staring at a girl (age: more than fifteen by looks) playing in the adjacent court.

After some days of practice, I got the technique of play correctly and showed my expertise by winning games for my team with aces (unintentional good serves which beat the sleeping opponent) and some good returns (accidental collisions of the tennis balls with my racquet). I used to be very lazy on the court as well and as my friend keeps on counting 15-30, 30 all and so on, on any controversy about the point, I used to say ‘teek hain yaar…Point lelo!!’

Once, I was playing with my highest concentration and each return was going perfectly. A girl in short skirts appeared on the adjacent court and right opposite to me. As I was lost in looking at that girl, I could loosely hear my friend shouting aloud from the opposite end ’15-40 Serve’. He served and I was woken up from dreams as the ball hit me precisely just below the abdomen and I remained speechless succumbed to the pain. I laid myself on the ground as our opponents were celebrating their point. My partner rushed towards me asking ‘Kya Hua??’ (What happened?). I answered slowly swallowing the pain ‘Mujhe kya pata..dekhna padegaa!!’ (How can I know..I have to see!!’). This time I could clearly here my friend saying ’30-40 Serve’. It took me a day to recover from that fatal blow.

Apart from the game, I used to play attention to the drolly conversations on the courts. They were normal during the game, but hilarious when you relate them afterwards. These are some of them.

-That is my ball.
-Their racquets are so good that the balls rushes away as it touch it.
-We have reached the break point.
-Can we exchange our racquets?
- This racquet has very soft strings. It should have been much stiffer.
- This ball is too hard. That one is soft, fun to play with that.
-Why are you hitting my balls? (Aggressively asking partner on his/her misplay)
-You will not be given a chance after a double fault (be successful at least in the second time!!)
-I have only ball (the other one asks ..where is the another one then??)

In all the above conversations, ‘ball’ means tennis ball and ‘racquet’ means ‘tennis racquet’. I cannot help if you have found other synonyms.

And now it has become regular pastime for me to play tennis for fun and for exercise.
So, find your racquets and balls and start playing with the blessings of Sania Ji.

Cheers
--DJ