Playing Ball: Tennis More Than Ever

Christmas for adults is largely a remembered holiday. Every year at this time we’re reminded of the magical sound that the word had for us as kids, the feverish sense of anticipation we felt as it approach, our uncontrollable 5:00 A.M dash downstairs to the tree, against our parents’ pointless warnings.

What was it all about? What did Christmas have that the other 364 days didn’t? It was about getting stuff, of course—hopefully more stuff than your brothers and sisters, in particular. But that fact doesn’t taint my childhood recollections of the day. I can see myself racing down the stairs and tearing up a hallway in the half-light of morning to open the last window on the advent tree that was taped to our kitchen wall. It’s hard to imagine, short of winning a lottery, ever feeling that fired up about anything again. And even if I did win the lottery, it wouldn’t take long for me to start wondering how much was going to come out in taxes. There was no taking anything out of Christmas.

In none of this, of course, is the holiday unique. Our early obsessions tend to fade and leave us wondering, years later, what the big deal was. Getting older brings a little more perspective, and a little less enchantment, to the objects of our affection.

These days, for example, I don’t lie on my bed and listen to the Top 40 countdown on my clock radio, writing down each song as it was announced, the way I did when I was nine or 10 or 11. I no longer walk, as fast as possible, to the comic-book store on Saturday mornings to see the latest that Marvel has to offer, or to gaze at the Iron Man No. 1 pinned to the wall behind the counter. I even felt too old to go see Iron Man and the other Marvel movies when they started invading theaters a decade ago. Last year in Brooklyn, I was amazed to eavesdrop on a bar conversation between a group of recent college graduates in which the scripts, acting, politics, artistic merits, and deeper meanings of Batman, Superman, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers, The Hulk and other comic-book movies were debated in heated, Talmudic detail. These were obviously sacred texts.

I started to laugh at how serious it all sounded, until I remembered that once upon a time I had been perched on a stool at a different Brooklyn bar, arguing, in Talmudic detail, with my own fellow college graduates about the relative merits of our own set of sacred texts: Exile on Main Street vs. Marquee Moon, Al Green vs. Marvin Gaye, Pavement vs. Nirvana, Mean Streets vs. Goodfellas, The Clash’s “Remote Control” vs. The Clash’s “Complete Control.” (Don’t get me started on the guy who claimed that “Remote Control” is better than “Complete Control.”) Like I said, some obsessions are best left behind. Or at least not talked about out loud anymore.

As far as sports goes, I still follow the same Philadelphia teams I followed as a kid, and when they win I still feel the same rush of irrational pride. But I can no longer name every starter on all 30-odd teams in major league baseball, the way I once could. And I’d like to think that if the Phillies' centerfielder made two errors to lose a playoff series, the way my favorite player, Garry Maddox, did in 1978, I wouldn’t break down in tears, as I did then. Even my tennis watching, which I do for a living now, isn’t quite the same. I loved this year’s Wimbledon final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, but I’ll never remember it, or its scoreline, the way I remember Bjorn Borg’s 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-7 (16) 8-6 win over John McEnroe at Wimbledon in 1980. That involuntary recollection, that sense of a memory being burned in you forever, is the difference between an 11-year-old fan and a 40-something-year-old fan.

This doesn’t mean our early passions wither and die; I’ve watched as some of mine have popped back up in new places over the years. I go see fewer movies and less music than I once did, but I see more art exhibits in New York. Indie-rock shows in pitch-black Brooklyn clubs have given way to the ballet at Lincoln Center—at least you can sit down there. And while I can’t sit through more than one quarter of an NBA game these days, I’ve come to appreciate the day-stretching, brain-quieting languor of cricket after a few trips to Australia.

(Cultural aging isn’t always so graceful. In my lowest moment of 2014, I skipped a Replacements/Hold Steady/Deer Tick show, which was held on the old U.S. Open stadium court at Forest Hills, because I didn’t like the fact that it was going to be 50 degrees—i.e., “too cold”—and I didn’t feel like taking a half-hour subway ride to a whole other borough. Instead, I sat in my apartment, complained that the show wasn’t streaming online anywhere, and kicked myself.)

There’s one other obsession from my youth that has been transformed over the years, and which I came to appreciate more than ever in 2014: Playing tennis. When I was 14, I wanted to travel as far and as often as possible to compete in tournaments. I practiced two hours a day and worried about my ranking the other 22. I can remember propping my USTA membership card up proudly on my desk lamp at home, and I can still recite the number that was on it, the way I can recite the Borg-McEnroe score from 1980. Now I look back and wonder what was driving that kid. Today, the idea of traveling somewhere, in my free time, to play someone I don’t know and may never see again doesn’t sound like much fun. It sounds like a test I don’t need to take.

Yet that doesn’t mean the desire to get on court has diminished. Playing racquet sports—I added squash 15 years ago—is the one passion that hasn’t cooled, the one experience that hasn’t lost any of its luster. If anything, the need to do it and the reward gained from it are greater, physically and psychologically, than they've ever been.

Let me use an example from a recent weekend. I was scheduled to play tennis on a Sunday, but my partner canceled the day before, citing pain in various joints. I couldn’t blame him; I’ve done my share of last-minute canceling for exactly the same reasons. But there was also no getting around it: My weekend, carefully constructed around this tennis session, was blown to pieces.

I wouldn’t, at the most basic level, get to sweat, wouldn’t get to pound a ball, wouldn’t get to run, wouldn’t get to feel my blood pumping, wouldn’t get to think strategically. Just as important, I wouldn’t get to go through all of the rituals that come with a tennis session. I wouldn’t trade wisecracks with the world-weary head pro behind his desk, wouldn’t make small talk with my opponent on the changeovers about our holiday plans, wouldn’t hear him burst out in a profane rage after a missed shot, and then apologize to the kids on the next court for his language.

I wouldn’t walk to the subway feeling happily tired. Wouldn't savor the sense of time being slowed down again, after it had been sped up while I was on court; after I play, I feel, suddenly, like I have all day. I wouldn’t get to take the train and read a book along the way. Wouldn’t get to feel, as the day went on, the pleasant ache of exertion, and heightened energy—the blood keeps flowing—into the evening. Perhaps most important of all, I wouldn’t get to eat my dinner and drink my wine and feel like I’d earned it.

Studies have shown how much stress-relief playing tennis can offer, just from its social side—it’s often our only chance to interact with people away from the competitive world of work, and the particular pressures of family life. When we were young, there was more on the line when we played tennis; as we age, there's less on the line when we're with our tennis friends, and that’s good for us. The sport affects us, helps us, beyond the hour or so we play it.

As a kid, I played tennis to win. As an adult, it may mean even more to me: I play it to stay sane. Now I just need to find a club that stays open on Christmas.

Have a good holiday and New Year, everyone. I'll be back here to start the new season on Monday, January 5.