Let me take you, however briefly and perhaps against your will, away from the vast red-clay arenas of Paris to five cramped gray clay courts deep in the outer boroughs of New York. There are no beautiful people in the stands here—there are no stands at all, even if there were beautiful people available to sit in them—and nothing approaching a professional player sliding back and forth along the baseline. “Slipping” is what we learn to do on these courts. Nevertheless, this is my tennis club, and it’s where I spent Saturday morning kicking off my playing season.
This year, the first day out for me was split between celebration and trepidation. Not only had I not played any tennis, I hadn’t undertaken any serious exercise since I pulled a hamstring back in January. In recent years, I’d been unable to make it through even half of a weekend day without working up some kind of sweat. Otherwise I’d begin to feel unaccountably irritable and sluggish. When the reality of my injury set in, I couldn’t imagine how I was going to make it through three weeks, let along three months, of weekends without any exercise. But like anything else, I got used to it with time, even if it was against my will. By April, as I strolled around my neighborhood or went to a museum, I began to wonder how I had ever had the energy or initiative to get up in the morning and practically kill myself on a squash court.
One problem I did have, and this may be the worst aspect of not being able to play your favorite sport, is that I lost touch with the group of friends I had built through competition. I’ve always enjoyed making the spring transition from my squash friends to my tennis friends, but this time I lost all those squash partners four months early. At first there were emails wishing me well and wondering when I’d be back. Those dwindled to a trickle of, “Hey, this must be serious!” or, alternatively, “You always were kind of soft…” Then, nothing. I didn’t blame anyone. I don’t email injured tennis or squash partners much either. But cutting out a third of my social contacts seemed about as bad for my health as drinking Bloody Marys on Sunday mornings instead of getting my cardio.
As you might guess, by this past Saturday I was more than ready to play some tennis, or at least to talk to people who could play tennis. I went to the club with a regular opponent, John, who I’ve described here in the past. He’s a university administrator in his late 50s, a natural athlete—he played basketball and tennis at Brown—and born tennis player who can keep up with guys 20 years younger (or at least he can keep up with me). He didn’t know I’d been injured, and I thought I would shift all the pressure in his direction when I told him I hadn’t touched any kind of racquet in four months. He didn't seem too phased by this information.
Of course, this was just a pick-up match, so why would there be any kind of pressure for either of us? We spent 15 minutes meeting with other old friends at the club. Is there a better feeling than getting back together with an old crew, whatever sport you play or activity you do together? When I shook his hands with one old friend, Don (who has also been described on this blog), I had an immediate flashback to one of my great moments in tennis. A few years ago, he and I had been two of the quarterfinalists in the club’s championship tournament, which is held at the end of each summer, right after the U.S. Open. The four quarters went on at the same time, on a brilliant, sunny Saturday morning. Don surveyed the four courts, looked over at me on the next court, threw his arms up, and announced with a grin, “We've got all the big guns out today!” He was right, for the first time that year, all the club's best players were crammed together and warming up at the same time. It was a local Murderer’s Row, and I admit I was proud to be a part of it. Such are the small but very real pleasures of camaraderie that come with being a member of a tennis club.
The place itself has been fixed up a bit this year. There’s a new 52-inch flat-screen TV, which was tuned to the French Open on the Tennis Channel on Sunday. Every year I’m reminded when I play of just how long the matches are in Paris. I watched a set of Monfils and Melzer, went out and played for an hour and a half, and came back to watch some more. I left during the fourth set and got home to watch the end of the fifth. How do those guys do it? How many momentum swings must there be in a five-setter on clay? It almost seems like you have to win two matches to get to the next round.
John and I finally made it to our court, and I felt good from the first warm-up swing. Tennis: sport of a lifetime. My forehand, from backswing to follow-though, came right back to me without the slightest thought. There are other "sports of a lifetime," obviously, golf being the prime example. But is there one that gives you such a variety of hard-earned satisfactions and happily familiar sensations? You can carve a slice backhand, snap down on an overhead, find your little-step footwork rhythm again. Then there’s that strange and slightly unnatural moment when you step to the baseline to serve and toss the first ball into the court. For the first few minutes, having to keep my feet back as I stretch forward makes me feel like I’m diving off a cliff or jumping into water.
There are also, admittedly, less satisfying sensations, like sending three straight half-volleys off the frame. But we’ll forget about those for the moment. Like I said, why would there be pressure on me today? There was none at the start of the match, so naturally I came out of the box playing well. Everything was dropping in for me, and John was missing by inches when he did get opportunities. I went up a break and then, out of nowhere, the old feeling came back: nerves, real nerves, as if I were in the final of an important tournament and playing in front of a crowd. Why, I wondered—why does this always happen?
I had an answer this time. I realized that I wasn’t nervous about losing to John. I was nervous because I didn’t want to blow a lead. It was clear to me that at this stage of my tennis “career,” my battle is with myself. It may be the most crucial battle in tennis—not to choke. In our heads, choking is not just losing to an opponent, it’s a sign of weakness beneath the surface, something fundamentally flawed in our makeup. It’s even more humiliating than simply being inferior to your opponent. If you get blown out, you just weren’t as good as the other guy, which can be excused in a million ways. But if you choke against another player, it means that at some level you feared him. This is something no one wants to admit, let alone have to find an excuse for. To choke is to be exposed.
Of course, it’s all nonsense. As we know, everyone chokes. John McEnroe has said it happens every time he plays, and even Bjorn Borg, after staring steely-eyed through a five-set Wimbledon final in 1979, said he could barely hold his racquet as he served for the match. Winning while choking is what tennis is really about. I managed to get through any nerves I had on Sunday, with some timely help from John, who played worse as the day progressed.
Winning helped, but it was the rush of playing and competing that made my day. Jogging has its physical satisfactions, but they don’t compare to what a competitive tennis match does to your muscles and your mind. It’s also a different, more draining, and ultimately more exciting feeling than the one your body goes through when you hit or drill. After the match, I immediately went to sit down on the sidelines. I was breathing hard, sweat was pouring into my eyes, and my stomach was slightly upset, as it usually is.
How could I have ever gotten used to not doing this?