I'm not quite sure what has gotten into me, but over the past month I have become obsessed with playing tennis. My recent insatiable desire to work on my backhand and sharpen my forehand has lead me to play more in the last few weeks than I have in the past few years. The impetus for this new obsession was playing doubles five weeks ago and getting absolutely trampled by my inability to hit the ball over the net with any degree of accuracy. In my effort to get better, I've been playing a few times a week with my roommate and former racquetball superstar who has kicked my ass by a margin of 3 to 4 games per set. But besides my burning desire to "up my game" to a level of skilled proficiency, I want to quickly tick off the reasons why I am a newfound lover of tennis.
1. Finesse- Tennis is a game of finesse where you can't just smash the ball as hard as you want and hope that will score you a point, but rather you need to mediate your strength with your finesse to put some points up.
2. FTW- In tennis, you have to play for the win (FTW). Tennis is a game where you can either be on the attack and force a mistake, or be a passive player and wait for your opponent to mess up. I've tried both methods, and believe me, the moments I wait for a mistake are the moments I started to get destroyed. And call me crazy, but I think this has quite a few similarities with life, in that if you're just cruising and not trying to get that winning point at each shot, you're probably not going to win the game.
3. Longevity- It's always awesome to see elders staying active and running around and I feel like tennis, more so than most other sports, is a sport I can play until I old and rickety. I've seen some vintage people out at the Eastern Market courts tearing it up just as much as the high schoolers. Maybe some day I'll even be a senior tennis player... who knows.
4. Social, but not too social- I'm an athlete and a socialite and I like how if you want to play you have to find a partner. I also appreciate, unlike soccer, that if you want to play you don't have to field 21 other people but you can just roll over and start smashing.
So there you have it. I'm going to make an effort to stay on top of my tennis game so if you're in the bay area and play tennis, please holler. I'm very stoked on working to get better and mastering that finesse! Game, set, match.