ABOUT ME
I love tennis. I love watching tennis, I love playing tennis and now I want to make a blog all about tennis. I am distinctly average myself when it comes to playing, but that doesn't stop me trying to get on the court whenever I can.
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However, this wasn't always the case. When I was around 18 years old I turned my back on tennis after 10 years of lessons and coaching. Realising I was not good enough to make it as a tennis player I instead turned my attention to becoming a stereotypical student who drank, smoked and occasionally attended his lectures.
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12 years later and the pandemic hit. The UK was in strict lockdown and we all had to stay at home. The gym had replaced tennis as my escape from reality. A place where I could go to get away from the perils of work and house chores. But the gym was now closed and I was stuck in a small terraced house, working from home, where the only human interaction I had was with my partner and the UPS delivery man. We did get a cat, and that did help delay my descent into madness, but it wasn't enough.
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Then a few months later tennis courts re-opened. I hadn't held a tennis racket in probably over 8 years, but I had this itch that I needed to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING that would get me out of the house. So I signed up to a local tennis club, bought a tennis racket (which had the completely wrong specs, but more on that in my blog) and booked myself a few coaching sessions during the week. Needless to say the very first tennis ball I hit went out of bounds into the nearby cemetery, but after a few weeks I was back to being a competent amateur.
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It was from here that I fell back in love with tennis. I remembered all the great things about this sport. The sportsmanship, the mental resilience needed to succeed, the fantastic cardio workout, which in the summer left me a sweaty crumpled heap on the floor. That feeling of hitting an ace (usually a lefty slice out wide) or blasting a backhand down the line. I then started to watch professional games on TV again. Although the 3 same guys were still dominating the sport, so not much had changed there. I also bought a more appropriate racket and invested in a ball machine. Joined a doubles team and in spite of having me on the team, we were promoted to the top division in our district.​
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This blog might not amount to much and most people may find it boring, but I also love to write down my thoughts and feelings. So if anyone out there does like reading about my top 5 tennis serve motions, thank you.
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