TENNIS- GIVE IT SOME THOUGHT

“Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players - and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer's opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They're inches away. In tennis you're on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement....”Andre Agassi from his Biography- Open

Tennis is a sport that not unlike the great Andre Agassi , i in fact dislike also. I write about the sport on my Blog site and i regularly have a 'shot' at the way the sport is run in this country. I also refuse to teach my kids tennis, they can all hit a ball, in fact my daughter Caitlin has played in her school team for inter school tennis for the past 3 years , but i don't coach her. Why ? Because of the nature of the sport, it's a gamble, a punt, a risk, a sport that gives a student of the game moments of anxiety that can be traced back to the loneliness of the game , just as Andre Agassi is quoted as saying in the opening paragraph. I sometimes wonder whether my own  issues in life stemmed from my failure to make it as a professional tennis player , after all , it's a game that has the same odds of success as a big win in Lotto. 

Did i fall into a depressive state because my tennis playing career didn't take off or was it simply that i was unhappy with life? , as i told the psychologist , i thought i was insane , lying back on his couch. Whatever the issue was  i often wish i never took up the game, it haunts me every day , the what if's and the soul destroying nature of the sport that comes with a bad loss, especially as a kid.

 As a tennis coach of 27 years i am sometimes too brutally honest, just this last season i refused to finish two lessons, the season before i refused to finish another, why? Because the kids didn't even want to be there, it seemed they were only there because their parents wanted them to be. I can't conduct a lesson under these circumstances. "Keep your money , let me know when you are interested in learning". I refused to accept any payment, i considered what i told them to be 'good free advice'.

This book is a true account of the struggles of someone who still teaches the game , but reluctantly , for reasons detailed further into this book . I am  someone who once tried to make it as a professional, but failed , this is  how has the process affected me.

Read on ......

Glenn Thompson