Love Game

I weighed in Saturday at 186.75 pounds, off 64.25 from my peak, and just 7 pounds away from my next goal of dipping below 180.0, a weight I carried prior to my last tennis injury.

I discovered tennis late, at 29. I'd just ended a year-long relationship with a man, and while the relationship was wrong from the beginning and all the way through to the end, it figured heavily in my eventual decision to have DS, and so (now) I am grateful for its existence in my history.

At the time, though, hostility trumped grace, and while I wasn't happy in the affair, I hadn't quite been ready to say good-bye. See, my partner had children-3 school-aged girls. We met realtively soon after I started dating "Father", and my terror of minors melted into novelty, and then eventually serenity as the 5 of us (he, me, those 3) settled into something roughly resembling domesticity. That is, if you don't count the fact that the girls lived full time with us for 2 weeks and then full time with their mother for the next 2, and that my partner had a Hostile-On-A-Good Day relationship with his ex, AND that "Father" had no concept of intimacy, emotional or physical, beyond the theoretical. He talked a great game, but when it came time to serve, well, let's just say he double-faulted. A lot.

Even so, any relationship develops its setpoints and its imperfect places, and we imperfect humans choose to make house anyway, figuring that nobody's racquet fits exactly right in someone else's hand, but at least the racquet, and the court, are known. Father and I lived a quiet, homey life for the better part of a year, and I built 3 marvelous relationships wth 3 young women whom I would never otherwise have met and whom I have never forgotten. I took one girl shopping for her first bra, I coaxed another one from juniors into misses jeans, and I taught the youngest that there was more to life than video games and fruit roll-ups. They shared Alladin with me, I shared cooking with them. I gave a lesson in condom usage to the 2 older girls, and they backed me up when both of their parents flipped at the "StepMonster" giving sex ed lectures in Father's bedroom with a Barbie doll and a condom bought in a gas station rest room, just for the occasion.

Though I knew that Father wasn't The One, I learned a lot about myself as a prospective parent and as a mentor, and I liked how I felt when I was around these would-be women. I cried harder at losing them than at losing their Dad, and while now, 13 years later, I have no interest in finding Father or knowing what he's doing, I often think of those 3 and wonder how their lives turned out.

So when Father came home one night and announced that he wanted to be alone for a while and to raise his children without assistance, I found a new place to live, moved out in a week, and looked for something distinctly undomestic to do while I rode out the post-breakup Single and Celibate While Healing period. It was April, and the hard court season had begun in earnest.

I had long held a fascination with Tennis The Sport. My dad played when I was young, and I watched Wimbledon and the US Open every year. I liked that women sweated and grunted and ran around like Romans while wearing skirts that would be considered slutty under any other circumstances. Oh, the dichotomy! Running like a fiend in a dress not meant to withstand movement, let alone running, stretching, and bending. I mean, in what other sport are you allowed, even encouraged, to show your panties, and then shake hands with your likewise-dressed opponent at game’s end? There is truly nothing more beautiful than that.

Determined not to sit around pining for my lover or wishing he would die of a painful and disfiguring disease, I ordered myself to learn this intriguing game. I found a beginner’s clinic at a club near my new apartment. Thirty-six dollars for six weeks, bring your own racquet, no experience required. That first night, I shot 4 balls over the fence and cracked the instructor in the temple with my racquet, but the game hooked me harder than any lover ever had. I left, exhausted but triumphant, and by month-end, I was taking 4 clinics a week, and snuck out of work on Friday afternoons for private lessons. At the end of the year, I took my women’s tennis team to New Orleans for the national finals. We placed 4th overall, and I went undefeated the whole year. An addict was born.

For the next 7 years, I played no fewer than 5 times per week, including at least 1 private lesson and 1 competitive match. I played doubles the first year, but as soon as I could, I moved over to singles and never went back. I found tennis camps offering 6 or even 8 hours of instruction per day, and I went twice a year, striking balls and perfecting my footwork until I could barely walk at night.

Recreational tennis players are rated on a simple numeric scale, from 1.0 to 7.0, according to their ability. I’ve never seen anything below a 2.5, which is a rank beginner, or above a 5.0, which is ‘open class’. When I first got rated, I’d been playing about 4 weeks and I barely got a ball inside the court. I was rated a 2.5. While in theory the rating goes up by tenths of a point, the USTA (United States Tennis Association) only recognizes ratings and teams on half points. So the first year I played 2.5 tennis, the next year I ‘moved up’ to 3.0, and so on.

Generally, it takes a year of determined play to move from 2.5 to 3.0, and then, after that, it’s at least 2 years per level; longer if you’re playing singles. By the time you hit 4.0, you’re facing women who have played all their lives, and in some cases, played competitively in college and are still swift and dangerous, just not as roadrunner fast as they once were. I learned early, and often, never to trust gray hair or frail limbs. The only group I was never able to beat with any consistency were those blue-haired, wash-and-set women who came to matches wearing make-up and who refused to put any speed on the ball.

In my last year, I was playing #1 singles in the USTA 4.0 category and beating everyone. I planned to finish the summer as a 4.0 and then start the fall season as a 4.5. I had everything I needed to play competitive at that level, and I was ready.

Then tendonitis appeared. I didn’t rest my arm as I should have-hey, it was the outdoor season!, and so it worsened until I couldn’t even hold my racquet without wincing. Every time I struck the ball I yelped, and at last even I conceded that I would have to lay my racquet down until my elbow healed. It was July of 2001, and by the time I returned to my beloved game, the outdoor season would be over. I would have roughly 1 week to prepare for the 4.5 tryouts. I could still do it. Every pro at the club knew me and knew my game. I’d make it. The last stop on the road before Open Play was mine. I only had to rest for 6 weeks, and then to recover quickly, and I’d be on the team.

I distracted myself by cross training. I ran until I couldn’t hold myself up anymore, and I went back to weightlifting, taking care not to harass my elbow, but building my core and my legs, so I could bend and run even faster once I returned. I took to relaxing in the sauna after workouts, reading about tennis stroke production and visualizing victories at my new level.

I got pregnant on August 23. While I longed to keep playing until DS’s head crowned, everything I read said that I must not exercise vigorously, as that might injure the baby. I retired my racquet, certain that after a suitable post-partum vacation, I could return. I might have to donate another year to 4.0 while I refreshed my skills, but that was all right. I would reunite with the courts, and do it post-baby, and my world would be right once more.

I never returned.

I tried once, about 3 years ago. I dug out my racquet from the back of the closet, and my blood rushed just holding it again. I bought a can of balls, drove to a nearby park, and DS ran around the free court while X and I played. Or rather, we tried.

The key to tennis is timing. It takes a dozen things to hit the ball with precision, and if even one things is off, the shot goes wild. Timing is a fickle mistress, and if you don’t tend to her every need, she’ll leave you. When I hit with X, I hadn’t swung the racquet in nearly 3 years. We played for about an hour, until I couldn’t bear to watch my once-stunning forehand spray so far off the court that it threatened to clock DS, who was 2 courts away. My serve, once my best weapon, never made it into the service box. Mistress Timing had left the building.

I thought about tennis constantly after that. I’d remember a grueling 3-hour match in blistering St. Louis heat, or some night when the ball went exactly where I told it and I crushed someone completely and without effort. I’d remember the hundreds of balls I’d hit, the same shot over and over, until I could feel my muscles register the stroke, the feel, and the sound of the shot, and I knew I could reproduce it at will. But I couldn’t go back. I had trouble staying lithe on my feet at 180 pounds, and I would have hurt something important if I’d tried to swing a racquet at 251. I could barely walk; there was no way I could run, and jumping for an overhead smash was inconceivable. Tennis became something I used to do—a pre-Mommy activity. I wanted to go back to it, but I simply couldn’t. I miss it still: I miss the competition, the manners inherent in the game, and, yes, I miss those cute little white skirts.

Now that I’m closer to my pre-injury weight I think again about returning, but tennis gave me as many headaches as it cured. I’m tragically competitive, and while I had every shot, my brain never relaxed enough to let me enjoy the talent I had or the progress I’d made. Any win where the score was more than 6-0, 6-0 I considered a loss, and I cursed myself through every match. I don’t miss that.

Tennis really is a jealous mistress. You can have no other love if you are to maintain her favor, and I have 2 other loves now, DS and my WW buddy. Plus, I’m not sure that I’m willing to give up that much money to play a game that makes me salivate every time I hear the thwop of a fresh ball on tight strings. Before I quit, my club statements averaged just over $1,000 a month, and I never put anything on my tab other than lessons, clinics, and tournament fees. All my racquets, all my equipment, and all my clothes came separately. In my later years, I preferred dresses to skirts, and those averaged $70 a pop, never mind shoes, socks, sweat bands, or those lovely little white panties. These days, I’d rather see that go to supplement DS’s speech therapy or remodel the bathroom in my house. So it could be that tennis is gone for good.

I might never return to the game, and certainly I’ll never play it with the intensity and passion that I gave to it all those years ago. But maybe my passion belongs in other places, like my family and my weight loss. And maybe it’s enough to know that I could wear one of those little pleated numbers and woo the Timing Temptress from her throne once more, if I wanted to. Maybe.

After all: in 7 pounds, I’ll have the body back to do it.

A the T(ennis, anyone?)