Few things inspire me more than tennis. I grew up watching a generation of greats, like Steffi Graf, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, and somehow tennis was always a game that these people played, something distant and alien, something I watched but that was it. However, it never took away any of the wonder I felt when I saw them hit those fantastic volleys and serves.
My dad used to play the game too. And I have many memories of childhood where I waited at the side of tennis courts while he played, but I don't really remember him in action now, all I remember were the times when he was done and it was time to go home.
Once, when I was in primary school, I joined the badminton club. I remember I didn't have a badminton racket then, and the only rackets at home were his tennis rackets. I tried using one of them to play badminton. It was a joke, not least because the racket was really too heavy for me, and I would end up swishing at nothing but air. My mom later bought me a badminton racket at a neighbourhood sundry stall. I wanted a Yonex. She bought me a cheap knockoff brand that started with the letter "Y". I still use it.
Now, several years on, I'm much older and I play tennis myself, and playing the game drives me crazy. It unleashes some sort of inner perfectionist in me. I want to play every shot, and I want to play it well. And it pisses me off bad when I don't take the shot perfectly where I want to take it, but I also know that playing the game well takes years of practice.
In lesson today, I learnt something that is part of every tennis player's main arsenal, the serve. I'd learnt the serve before, but I've never really been good at it. A serve is the first shot a tennis player plays, but it is also the hardest. Simply put, it consists of 5 to 6 different individual movements all coordinated together to deliver that perfect serve.
It was to say the least, extremely frustrating. For every 10 balls I hit, only one would be anything resembling correct technique. And for the other 9, if it wasn't the toss that went awry, it'd be the backswing, or where I took the ball on the racket. Sometimes, I would even miss the ball totally and it would land right back onto my head, which made me feel more than a little silly. And the tennis instructor would stand at the side and correct my moves with phrases like "you're taking the ball too low, you're not tossing high enough, bend your knees, pronate your forearm and hit the ball upwards"
The last one always gets me. Somehow, you're supposed to toss the ball straight upwards, and launch yourself at it extending your whole racket arm at the ball. And you have to hit the ball upwards, not forward as you might think. Apparently, it topspins the ball so that it clears the net high and then dips sharply downward so that it hits the service line. If it all sounds like greek to you, imagine what it is like trying to do it.
And the thing about finally doing a good serve as a beginner is, after you've done one you feel a little smug about it. You forget that tennis is actually a rallying game, so when your opponent hits one right back at you the result is a mad scramble to return it, which inevitably ends in failure.
I guess that having an understanding of how difficult playing the game is increases my appreciation for it. But I know that if I am to ever play tennis well, I will have to iron out all the little things, like keeping my eye on the ball, taking the ball at the right place, using the body to generate power, not the arm, and so on.
If not, what my coach said today will ring true.
"You can learn tennis, but at the end of the course, maybe you still won't look like a tennis player."