The Next Filipino Serena Williams

Yesterday, I held a tennis racket in my hand for the first time in seventeen years. The last time I “played” tennis was when I was eight years old in a park by my cousin’s house near the Cow Palace in the City. If you consider hitting a tennis ball against a wall and actually making contact with it twenty-five percent of the time, playing…then I played. In my little eight-year-old delusional mind, I was the next Filipino Chris Everett. In reality, I was just thwacking balls and I spent most of the time chasing after them, swearing like an eight-year-old truck driver (“Fudge! Shoot, dog! Stupid, mother-scrubbin’ball!”).

Perhaps it’s my poor vision but I think it would help my tennis game if the balls were bigger. They’re just too small to see properly, let alone hit. The bright green color helps but if they were the size of say, a bocci ball, I think I’d stand a chance of hitting them. I feel the same way about most sports with small objects as targets—golf, hockey, baseball. Make that ball or puck the size of a small cantaloupe and I might gain proficiency in this lifetime. Watching the games (or matches, tournaments, what have you) on television would certainly be easier for me to follow if I could locate that puck on the ice as easy and as often as a hockey player swings his stick at another player’s head.

My S.O. and I caught the last hour or so of daylight at the courts at Laney College in Oakland. There were two main areas, each area housing five or six courts. The “smoother” courts, the newer ones without cracks in the ground, were occupied. The older courts had a long crack running across them and were obviously less desirable. Balls would invariably hit them and fly off at funny angles (as I would soon discover).

Less prone to fantasy than my younger self and a bit more (but not much more) grounded in reality, I had no desire to embarrass myself with my lack of tennis acumen. In kickboxing class, I often have to look away from beginners still learning, who flail their arms and kick their legs in funky, jerky ways. I lack a good teacher’s patience, one who is willing to slog through an ear-splitting, chalk-board-scratching version of a novice violinist’s “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. As much as I know the learning process is often the richest part of any journey, yesterday, I just wanted to skip it and get to the good stuff already.

I relegated myself to playing on the “Siberian” courts, lest someone view my tennis playing as unforgivingly as I viewed a beginner’s kickboxing. My goals were simple (“See the ball. Hit the ball.”). But increased in complexity (“Hit the ball, over the net”) and specificity (“Hit the ball, over the net, in the court you’re playing on!”).

By the end of it, I hadn’t done as badly as I had anticipated. At least I made racket-to-ball contact, more times than I had when I was eight, anyway. I secretly declared it a worthy sport in my mind and one I wouldn’t mind trying out again despite the fact that I have absolutely no hope of being the next Filipino Serena Williams.