*Ed. Note: The news of TennisWorld Elder Ray Stonada’s big win on the court a few weeks ago got us thinking, and we decided to add a new feature to TW’s coverage of the game: Battlefield Reports by our readers. A lot of you play tournament tennis, right? You know the issues at stake whenever you keep score for some “official” reason, like a trophy, or bragging rights at your local club: choking, hooking, grinding it out, grinding your opponent down, sportsmanship, self-knowledge, raw, slice-of-life glimpses of humanity at its best – and worst.
So we thought it would be fun to keep a record of the mighty flailings and thrashings, the astronaut or Icarus-like flights toward the sun, the good, the bad and the ugly, and the triumphs and disasters experienced by the TW tribe, in their own words.
Battlefield Reports will not be limited to tournaments, either. If you have a story to tell (I can’t beat my doubles partner in singles, but I can beat everyone who beats her. It’s driving me nuts! or I played my sister in our town tournament and she hooked me on match-point and I went on to lose, or How come my old man can still beat me), shoot an email to me or Steggy, TW’s Hillbilly Princess, and we’ll take it from there. . .
To kick things off, I asked Steggy to write up the first Battlefield Report, based on the quarterly tournament she and a few friends stage in Houston, Tejas.
Her report:
*Spuds MacKenzie Summer Invitational
When: July 28th, 2005
Where: Courts at the corner of Tanglewilde/Ella Lee
Time: 8:00 pm
What to Bring: Booze, Babes, Balls, and Bug Repellant
Trophy: Vintage 4' tall, 100% Polyester stuffed "Spuds MacKenzie"
For anyone who is passionate about tennis, the heart of the game is not really found on the world stages of Melbourne Park, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, or Flushing Meadows. Rather, it beats and makes itself heard out on the anonymous, sodium-lit backcourts where Joe Q. Public battles DNA, self-doubt, and bodily punishment in order to win the ultimate prize: bragging rights for an all-too-brief season of glory.
Time flew past during my stint as reigning Spring Champion of our quarterly Not-Quite-Grand-Slam and my stats pedigree going into the Summer tournament (held this year in honor of my 32nd birthday) was modest; I was ranked #3 out of eight in our league standings. I was in passable shape and did not consider my advancing age to be a hindrance against my rivals, who represented both sexes and a span of ages and talent levels.
I felt good going in.
My preparation was erratic; while I thoughtfully took along an extra can of balls, I managed to forget the bug repellant. We crowded bags and bodies into three cars and headed off to the courts where we started things off with a small birthday champagne toast -- two magnums' worth. Then, elegantly and with great ceremony, names were drawn from an empty Cheetos bag. I was in the “soft” top half of the draw, along with two ladies in their 30s and one man in his early 40's. The bottom half of the draw was stacked with youth, masculinity, and brute-force power; four men in their early to mid 20's.
I managed to make it through the sudden-death first and second rounds (we only play one set in each, winner advancing in the single-elimination format) despite feeling slightly dizzy and overly loose from the pre-match champagne.
It was down to me vs. Geoffrey in the final, a David and Goliath match-up . Geoff is eleven years younger, five inches taller, twenty pounds heavier - and has the advantage of a testosterone-driven 130mph serve on his side. I had knocked Geoff out in the first round of the Spring tournament. As a result, I knew he would be out for blood, both physical and mental.
As we flipped a coin to see who would serve, Geoff fired his warning shot across the bow. For the second time that day, he wished me a happy 32nd birthday and inquired "So, how's it feel to be playing to five at your age?" – a reference to our old school, Grand-Slam-grade, five-set final.
Geoff, for the record, is a strapping 21-year old who pops five-setters like Smarties. I smiled sweetly, told him to go roast in hell, and prayed that my knees wouldn't let me down.
They didn't. I blistered Geoff in the first set by blunting his power with tactical precision and extreme pace changes. Every drop-shot landed soft and short, forcing him to come scrambling up from the baseline to
retrieve. The calculating, angled passing shots I executed appeared to bewilder him. It was no surprise to any of the onlookers, nor me, when Geoff the Hothead sent his racquet flying over the fence to the Back-40 after I closed out the first set, 6-2.
Geoff spent the 3-minute break between sets bush-hogging his way through live oaks and scrub cedar to retrieve his Babolat. I drank more champagne. Enough alcohol in my blood, I figured, just might ward off the mosquitos.
The second set was a reversal of fortune. Geoff kept me pinned to the baseline with his forehand and a feral gleam in his eye. His shotmaking was, I admit, gorgeous and precise. From one corner of the court to the other, game after agonizing game, he kept stretching my reach out wide until I could not return the ball. Geoff finished the set off at 6-3.
While he basked in the attentions of his blonde admirers during the break, I spent the time chugging water and cursing myself, my ageing body, the vicious bugs, the fuzzy balls, and my absolute lack of the latter.
Intense self-loathing occasionally proves useful on court. I managed to eke out the third set (mostly due to luck), 7-5. Geoff countered with 6-4 in the fourth, brutalizing my body at the baseline once more and bringing us all even for the final, and deciding, set.
It was nearing midnight and we were both exhausted. So tired, in fact, that we had long since stopped swatting away biting insects. Geoff's serving speed dropped off and my footwork became lazy. As a result, the final set became a seemingly interminable battle of service breaks. On match point I made the fatal mistake of trying for a lob and the ball fell short, allowing Geoff to crush an overhead. Game, Set, Match, Goliath. (2-6), 6-3,(7-5), 6-4, 7-5.
I managed to drag my weary feet to the net to congratulate my opponent, thinking little and feeling nothing. Instead I began to see a three month vista of Geoff, newly crowned King of our little hill, exagerrating past rallies over happy-hour drinks and strutting like a rooster at upcoming hitting sessions. I had little consolation in knowing that I had, at least, made him earn his right to rule.
Geoff, not overtly concerned with winning, shook hands and asked where I'd like to eat a post-mortem meal. I paused a moment, and replied "Somewhere without mosquitos." We ate at House of Pies, where Geoff began to enjoy his reign as King by recounting the second set in all of its delicious detail to the entire restaurant staff, demolishing an entire Coconut Cream Pie in the process.
I plan to make his time on the throne very, very brief.
*Ed. Note: At various points in the second draft of this communiqué, where I had asked Steggy for things like more details, she inserted comments an strange confessions, like: “I Was Very Drunk, Bitter, and Seeing Things, Pete.”
Okay, that explains why in the first draft this was a (seeing) doubles tournament. I also didn’t know what to make of the rumor the police showed, and Steggy just narrowly averting the humiliation (actually, a triumph where I come from) of being led away from her own final in her own tournament on her own birthday in handcuffs.
Top that, Roscoe! (another Tennessean, I might add.)
Thanks, Steggy. I love a girl who knows what a bush hog is. I'll bet you’re barefoot right now!*