Tennis – A part of my life?
I grew up watching Tennis with my father being a die-hard fan of Sports especially Tennis. My father always praised the era of tennis mentioning the great’s courage and bravery shown with his remarkable detailed explanation, with the stars being Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors,Vijay Amritraj, Ivan Lendyl , Stephan Edberg and Boris Becker among the list.
As for me, being born in the 80’s, it took time to get to know the whereabouts of the game. By the time I was in my teens and I had learnt the nuances of the game, we began taking sides and being opponents off the field while the opponents battled it out on the field. We battled it out for them cheering, creating an aura of a stadium at home.
The only time I got a chance to chance myself as a Tennis player was at my friends place. The place was open field, cemented ground used as a go down to dry and stock rice. As it was a rice mill, we used heavy rice bags as a resource to tie the nets. We had his father’s old fashioned racquet’s two as neat as never used and the other two were broken. We were in our early teens when we tried out this thrilling game. We found it interesting, but we never could persist as our passion for Cricket never ever let it happen again. Tennis was an expensive game, not as cheap as cricket which could be played anywhere and everywhere.
The aura of watching a game live was always electrifying. My mother job was very simple, more games more refreshments. My father always made it a point to express his strategies and advices as though he were a coach.
Coming to my pick list, I admire the whole lot. I always loved to watch Boris Becker and Micheal Stitch play. The list of Ladies Singles consists of the most adorable Monica Seles, Justin Henin, Davenport, Martina Hingis, Steffi Graf and Mary Pierce. The Williams sisters were a big no for me.
My pick for the men’s stars that I grew up with changed as did the era of Tennis. Upcoming stars like Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi made their way to the Tennis Hall of Fame, but players like Jim Courier, Goran Ivanasevic, Mark Philipous, Nadal, Roger Federer, Ande Roddick and Marat Safin top my list.
For Doubles Paes and Bhupathi were an adorable pair and so were the Knowles brothers.
To End with on a thankful note: The seasons of tennis : US Open, Wimbledon, French Open and Australian Open, produce wonderful stars era by era bringing in a lot of new talent,sporting spirit and rejuvenated life for viewers year after year.
