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!
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