Tram-Line Talk: Titanium Tarts

I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately, I’m just so tired all the time. Being a typical Virgo though, I immediately assume the worst: the possible onset of Diabetes, or even scarier, menopause. I have the energy levels of a sloth on Valium. Funnily enough, this doesn’t apply to tennis. We all usually bounce onto the tennis court on Sunday mornings with the enthusiasm of the Blue Bulls cheerleaders, oblivious to the impending approach of our advancing years. Our bodies give us a reality check when necessary though.

Theresa had to miss one Sunday of tennis after intrepidly leaping for a high ball, missing, and then landing a perfect dive roll which ended with her lying on the court whimpering for a masseur. Preferably male, tall, tanned and handsome, she managed to add. I think she might also have mentioned something about drugs, to which I retorted, “Do you think this is the bloody Tour de France?” “Anti-inflammatories”, she specified. Anti-inflammatories I believe, we sportsmen and women are allowed to take without facing a lifelong ban in our competitive little tennis club.

On another occasion, the ever-resilient Theresa weaved onto the tennis court with a patch over one eye. Cleaning out the garage the day before, she got a fleck of dust in her eye which had developed into an infection after unsuccessfully trying to remove the fleck. No fear, tennis went on as usual until we realised that everytime Theresa was playing net, she was diving left for balls that were actually going right and in dire fear for her safety, and ours,  after she hit herself on her ear with her racquet, we made her retire to the tramlines.

My misfounded belief that I was still a teenager led me to believe that I could still scale a tennis court fence in pursuit of yet another renegade ball. While Patty pointed out my potential as a cat burglar, my impertinent son and tennis partner at the time, said, “Mom, do you think you should be doing that?!” followed by a very obvious unsaid, “At your age?”. I felt and heard my hamstring in my left thigh rip. Leaping down with the missing ball in hand, I bent down to pick up my racquet, used it as a crutch and limped off the court unable to return for at least two weeks.

Sadly for Rose, during a particularly grueling revenge match, her knees packed up. Just like that. After a consultation with her doctor, she was told that she would have to have an operation on her knee and was advised never to play tennis again or risk a future knee replacement operation. We told her to find another doctor. Titanium knees could prove to be beneficial if you have the right mind set, but reality set in yet again. Rose cried quietly, wiped away the tears and sniffed, “I’ll have to catch you in the Tramlines, Tarts”.

Tram-Line Talk: Tasty Tarts

A great motivation and part of the original incentive for the Tarts to get onto the tennis court in the first place, were the obvious health benefits. The fresh outdoor air, the aerobic antics and the chasing down of gravity defying lobs and searing cross courts. Given the strenuous nature of our chosen sport, it is not unusual to walk onto the court on a Sunday morning to find Rose lying on her back on the court with her legs bent backwards over her head in what I assume to be a limbering up exercise of yoga origin, or Theresa is doing some stretching lunges against the net. I never have to warm up because I’m pretty well warmed up by the time I reach the court from always running late. Meg doesn’t have to warm up either. She usually arrives at tennis directly from some grueling triathlon or marathon, sometimes with her race number still pinned on her back. 

So it stands to reason that our usual post-tennis snacks in the form of champagne and cholesterol loaded Woolies kettle-fried chips dipped in MSG-loaded guacamole laced with lashings of sour cream, (the non-light version), don’t do much for our original intention of improving our health status. I can just picture our now deceased former Health Minister lying in her hospital bed after her 5th liver transplant, with a Jack Daniels clutched in one hand and a Man-size KFC Box Meal in the other, reading “The Tennis Tarts Guide to Healthy Living” on her Kindle and saying, “Eish, thees ees so unhealthy, thees tennis, sies! I theenk we must ban it. Where ees the sweet potato and the beetroot? Khuli! Where ees that lazy slut? Khuli? Get Jacob on the phone now! What you mean you don’t have ehtime? We get R100 000,00 ehtime every month from the texpayers. Call heem now and tell heem I want thees tennis banned. Eet ees very unhealthy, slurp, and theese peoples are heving too much fun!”

Well we beat her to it, for one Sunday anyway .... Rose had decided to embark on a metabolic diet and arrived at tennis with freshly peeled, julienned carrots, her own home-grown rocket and because it was the official diet declared “Cheese Day”, a tub of cream cheese, cubes of Feta and thinly sliced cheddar. Our Health Minister would have been impressed, even my almond-coated, sugar-dusted fruit mince pies were ignored in favour of Rose’s health buffet. In our defence, we were hungry, very hungry as a result of all that high speed, exhilarating ball chasing around the court. Besides, it was all quite delicious, especially accompanied by the bottle of chilled champagne I suspect our Minister would have approved of. So bring on the next diet Rose, and may our Minister R.I.P. Cheers!

Tram-Line Talk: Tartlets

I come from a tennis-mad family. The entire extended family played tennis, we had a tennis court at home, weekends revolved around tennis and my uncle was a tennis coach! Every July school holiday he and my aunt ran a week-long holiday tennis tournament which was sometimes sponsored by Pepsi and even Groovy. Remember Groovy colddrinks? Wow ...... “Feelin’ Groooovy!”. Those were the days .....

This tournament was the highlight of our winter holidays and we all played in it. Brother, sisters, our friends, cousins, their friends. We were one huge happy tennis family. My friend Stace and I would plan our tennis outfits for each day well in advance, right down to the last detail, like matching pompom socks and frilly broeks complete with Beach Bronze pantihose to ward off  the crisp, cold chill of the those early Highveld winter mornings. The pantihose attire was also because we didn’t want to run around the court with lily white legs even though it was mid-winter and everyone else was. Being typical teenage girls, our tennis agenda included following my uncle’s latest assistant coaches around like love-sick puppies. They were always young, handsome and made of tennis hero material. If they ever even spoke one word to us our beach bronzed legs would turn to jelly. Okay, maybe it was bordering on stalking.

We played quite a lot of tennis too because my aunt was very fair and ensured that no matter what the level of your tennis was, everyone got to play the same amount of games everyday. From the organisational side this entailed making sure that every group and section had a plate or a play-off, and that that plate had a plate which had a plate which also had a plate until either the days ran out or the plates. Despite the numerous opportunities made available to us, Stace and I never managed to win a single plate. After a couple of years, tournaments and many plates later, my aunt must have felt sorry for us, because one year Stace and I won the “Best Dressed” prize! As I said my aunt was a very fair lady.

By far the best part of the tournament was the tuckshop run by my gran. Much to my grandfather’s exasperation, she always managed to run it at a massive loss. She would go to Makro and buy huge boxes of sweets and chips in bulk, spend days baking crunchies, cup cakes, rock buns and muffins and then cover everything in chocolate icing. All these wonderful goodies would then be loaded up in her Beetle where some of the stock would get depleted by us in the back seat en route to tennis. Since so many of us were her grandchildren, you can guess where most of her stock went during the course of the day. If by some slim chance she had anything left to sell she would feel sorry for the kids who hadn’t brought any money and tell them they could pay the next day, which of course they never did.  And then we would all go home and she would start the whole process again while my grandfather sat at the kitchen table elbow deep in flour and icing sugar shaking his head in despair.

Tram-Line Talk: Honourary Tarts

We never miss tennis except for circumstances beyond our control, like a broken limb or bucketing rain accompanied by gale force winds, but every so often it is inevitable that one or more of us has something more pressing than tennis to attend to. When that happens, we call on our Honourary Tennis Tarts.

There is the unflappable Meg, who initiated a spate of bird-killer lobs because it is almost impossible to get a tennis ball past her at the net. My neighbour Tandy filled in for us a couple of times, but family commitments prevailed. Then there was my old school friend Daphne who plays league tennis and squash and ended up nearly killing us, and our budding confidence off. Our friend Ed also indicated his willingness to play with us. Initially wary given that he is, according to popular literature, from Mars and we are from Venus, he redeemed himself immediately by arriving not only with chilled champagne, but also a Tart!  Our faith in mankind restored, he also upped our game tremendously through his encouraging shouts of “Run you lazy Tart! Why didn’t you get that?” as we come gasping back from the tram-line in an attempt to get to a 120 km per hour, 45 degreed blazing cross court return.

Which brings me to my son Rich, who occasionally fills in for us when I drag him to the court by his ear amid threats of confiscating his Blackberry if he doesn’t come and play. Even if three of us played against him alone on one side, he would probably still beat us. He gets everything back. And I mean everything. He gives new meaning to the sport of Parkour. On one point he actually ran up the practice wall at the back of the court to return a lofty top spin lob and won the point because Theresa and Meg were immobilised by disbelief and failed to react to his return shot. His tenacity is all very well unless you are his partner. I happened to miss one of those blinding cross court return of serves that not even Martina in her heyday with Nadia Comaneci’s gymnastics abilities could retrieve, and I got, “Mom! You’re running in slow motion!” He is lucky I didn’t smack him on the shins with my racquet. Fortunately for him I was still trying to catch my breath.

When I can’t threaten Rich into being an Honourary Tart then my youngest son, Big D enthusiastically fills in for us. He is like a secret weapon because despite his size, which is small and cute, he is actually a Pocket Rocket! I always opt to play with him because the opposition usually underestimate him completely and then we blindside them. Its such good fun. They complacently humour the little guy until they are on the receiving end of one of his top spin base line scorchers. And then its game on!
 

Tram-Line Talk: The Court

While we were busy ensuring that our equipment was state of the art, the actual tennis court sadly did not reflect our burgeoning professional image. The recreational club court had been neglected and unused for a few years, mainly because no-one had shown any interest in tennis. That is until The Tarts arrived! As soon as people started seeing us using the court, they suddenly started arriving clutching cobweb covered racquets and ratty tennis balls, with the dog still usually attached. But we had claimed our turf.

The chairman, Les, on seeing our infectious enthusiasm decided to start renovating the court. He began by digging out the sprouting grass, filling the potholes, resurfacing and painting, all of which was fantastic except that he was busy doing all this while we were playing. It got a bit awkward when it came to painting the new white court lines, however, we decided not to complain since the lack of lines had been causing a few disputed line call spats and it was starting to get ugly. So we retired to the tram-lines to drink champagne, give Les colour scheme advice for the surface and generally encourage him in the hot, baking sun. His next project was to tear down the afore-mentioned fence and replace it with a wall. Having learned from previous experience not to attempt this while we were on the actual court, he sent his assistant to do the job instead. Les learns quickly, he popped in regularly to give his assistant colour scheme advice for the wall. Luckily we were there as colour consultants - some things are just better left to women, one of them being tennis court interior decor. I don’t think his assistant really cared what colour scheme we chose for the wall, he was just in one tearing hurry to finish the job. This probably had a lot to do with him having to dodge flying tennis balls and wild back swings, being knocked off his ladder, lots of shrieking and apologetic trudging through his still-wet cement to retrieve renegade tennis balls from his paint tin.

Next on the agenda was the broken net. We thought we had it sorted out by propping up the centre on a forked stick, cleverly secured by some impressive girl scout knots Rose learnt from somewhere. I don’t actually want to know where, I just know she never went to girl scouts?! Then one Sunday we arrived to find some vandals had stolen our stick and our net was sagging visibly. Although this did not deter us from playing tennis, we did eventually realise that we were under the false illusion that we were a lot better than we actually were. The net was so low we could have been playing table tennis. If we were to set our sights on Wimbledon, it was time to raise the level of the net. Just as I have no desire to learn the details of Rose’s vast knot-tieing experience, I don’t even want to ask how she managed lay her hands on a long steel tennis net cable, but she did. She arrived with it wrapped over her shoulder like a mountaineer en route to Everest and Beyond. After unsuccessfully trying to feed the cable through the top of the net, we abandoned the job as it was taking up too much tennis playing time. We were hoping Les might pop in to help. He did, but after examining the cable  and the net he concluded that we needed Fish Tape. Fish Tape? “Your husband will know what it is”, he says to me.

My dedication to tennis knowing no bounds, still in bed the following Sunday morning, I asked my husband if he had Fish Tape. Of course he had Fish Tape, and explained what it was in great detail. It sounded like the perfect tool to do the job we needed to do, and I love a man who knows how to use his tools. Needless to say I was late for tennis that morning, but I had Fish Tape! Were The Tarts grateful? No, they wanted to know where the handyman was that was supposed to accompany the Fish Tape. There is no pleasing some women. We never did get the cable fed into the net and the rolled up cable now lies dormant under the pool table in the clubhouse. Amazingly the net is fixed. The Tennis Fairy? Or Les just got fed up with our handy suggestions from the tram-lines on how to fix nets while he did all the work while we quaffed champagne, and just replaced the whole net.

Tram-Line Pics

The Fans

In the interests of maintaining our precious tennis court, Theresa and Rose decided to join the Club committee. This allows them to put forward suggestions for the club budget, like flood lights for the court so we can play at night and the erection of a grand stand for our legions of fans, these being Theresa’s two dogs, Brownie and Jedi Ginger. They never missed a match. They are another reason Theresa joined the committee: Dogs aren’t allowed at the club and she feels this is discriminatory as she needs their moral support. Rose objected to Theresa having an unfair advantage by having her supporters on the court, to which Theresa retorted, “Bring your own dogs.” The problem with this is that I don't have a dog so we considered borrowing my mother’s dog, Daisy. Unfortunately Daisy is so fluffy, fat and round she looks like a sheep with its legs cut off. I don't believe that being represented by a sheep is not going to do my image much good and could even be detrimental to my mind-set given that sheep are not known for their vast brain power, not to mention their lack of ability to show loyalty to sports stars. This could all have been resolved very amicably if we could just have taught Brownie and Jedi to be ball-fetchers, but they seemed to be more inclined to just loll around on the court in the sun without showing even a passing interest in rolling tennis balls.

Sadly Brownie and Jedi are no longer with us. They have been replaced by two new dogs, T-Rex and Fendy. While sharing their predecessors lack of ball fetching skills, these two are also completely lacking in tennis decorum. T-Rex thinks nothing of strolling casually across the court in mid-rally while Fendy bounds up to Theresa, leaping up and down in front of her in an attempt to reach her sun visor while she is trying to serve. No mean feat given that Fendy is a Jack Russell, often characterised by their lack of stature.

Being as focused as we are on tennis, we try to ignore these distractions, a remarkable achievement since at any given time a passing stranger might be forgiven for thinking they were walking past the local circus. Performing dogs and children on bicycles and skateboards abound, whizzing around the perimeter of the court narrowly escaping being hit by flying tennis balls. On one occasion, Theresa unintentionally hit a stray soccer ball over the net. I got such a fright seeing what I thought was a grossly enlarged tennis ball coming at me that I lost my nerve and Theresa won the point. This was disputed of course, but I had no back up from my partner at the time because Rose had wandered off the court mid-point to answer her cell phone. Twenty minutes and a leisurely chat later, Rose returned to take up her position to find Theresa trying to bribe the children and dogs off the court with food and I had fallen asleep in the tram-lines tanning my legs.

Tram-Line Talk: The Necessary Equipment

When we first started playing we were very ill-equipped. We also lost a lot of tennis balls. The court is surrounded by residential houses on three sides, so after losing yet another brand new Head tennis ball to the neighbour’s garden (and dog) we decided to yell for our balls to be thrown back. The lack of response from the neighbour might have had something to do with Theresa referring to him as “the garden boy” until she realised that that was so 70’s and he could very likely be the owner. They have subsequently put up a big sign at the back of the court forbidding players to yell to the neighbours for lost balls, “If its gone, its gone, please be considerate of the neighbours privacy” and even worse, we can’t swear on the court according to the sign. Ever tried playing a game of tennis without letting even one expletive loose? Impossible. Except for my gran maybe, but that's because no-one ever swore in front of her so she didn’t know how to swear, having never heard the actual words out loud. Otherwise she might have, because she took her tennis very seriously and played until she was 85. The only reason she quit was because they wouldn’t let her onto the court with her walking stick as it was considered performance enhancing equipment. They took tennis seriously in those days.

Which is why after 6 months of playing, Theresa and I decided to buy Rose a new racquet for her birthday. Up until then she was playing with her old wooden Dunlop Maxply she used at High school. The crunch came when some kid walking past the court asked her why she was playing tennis with a squash racquet. This was not good for our “serious tennis players” image, hence the upgrade. We have since come to regret this though because it added another 100 mph onto her serve. So they put a wall up around the court to put an end to all the flame-seared holes in the fence. Now her serves bounce off the wall and if you’re not quick enough, hit you on your bent over butt, at 50 mph.

The upgrades didn’t stop at Roses’s racquet though. Rose and I bought Theresa a proper tennis skirt for her birthday. She has since got the hang of it, but it took her awhile to figure out how the velcroe ball holder under the skirt worked, so for a while we thought she was scratching around under there in a very unbecoming manner to retrieve her hidden ball supply. No-one was prepared to accept balls from her hand to hand, we insisted she pass them either under the net or bounce them over. No direct contact with those balls, nuh-uh.

My upgrade came in the form of new tackies. I had been playing in my 10 year old Powers, a testament to how they don’t make ‘em like they used to. They were still in one piece but missing quite a bit of tread. Patty's nerves couldn’t handle much more of me going after shots, and going into a long tyre squealing skid right across the court only managing to stop myself on the fence and bounce back onto the court ready for the return shot. This had to come to end when they replaced the fence with a wall, there was no ricochet from the wall, just a face flattening sudden halt. The injuries were starting to affect my game, so my husband bought me new tackies for my birthday. Nice new Nikes with lots of tread. I still run into the wall every now and then, but the tyre-squealing sound effects have been minimised.

So no more excuses. We are all kitted out and ready to take on Wimbledon!

Tram-Line Pics

Tram-Line Talk

Four of us get together every Sunday morning for three sets of tennis and, just as important, if not more important is the regular sanity maintenance session which follows the game. Forget any images of frilly broekies, pompom socks and tea and cake. We have replaced this with g-strings, tank tops and the tea has been replaced with champagne.

The self-titled Tennis Tarts are made up of me and my sister Theresa, fondly known as the Williams Sisters. This is no reflection on the standard of our tennis, but rather on our competitiveness. We have been known to enquire, on hearing that Patty goes for a regular morning jog, whether she won or not. We are also more inclined to choose beer drinking and rugby watching over an all expenses paid afternoon spent at a luxury spa and consider anyone who might not put watching the Springboks thump the All Blacks as priority, with great suspicion.

Then there is Patty, who on the other hand, has been known to fly all the way to Paris for a Fois gras and Moet on the day of the rugby world cup final. She openly admits to not letting tap water pass her lips and will rather die of heat stroke than swim in a public swimming pool. We humour these little idiosyncracies of hers however, because she has a marvellously consistent serve and she brings the champagne, always chilled.

What makes this group work are the diverse characters thrown into a fenced court. Enter Rose, who is convinced that she was a gypsy in her former life, so she dresses the part. Her tennis attire consists of lots of extremely colourful flowing garments of indeterminate function with socks to match and Nike tackies. We drew the line at all the tinkling bells though, because they become very distracting when Rose is serving a 100 mph fence-shredding tennis ball right at you. She also believes in meditation and mediation as a personal development tool, as opposed to me, who finds that a well aimed round house kick at anyone who is interfering with my equilibrium (usually my husband), is far more therapeutic and satisfying. Its much quicker too.

And so The Tennis Tarts and my Sunday pocket of social sanity was born .......