I played tennis this morning. Nothing new there, I play every Saturday and Sunday morning that has ever been invented. Today I played Aussie Johnno. He flew in from Sydney specifically and solely for the purpose of playing tennis with me. Why not? Other people I play come from as far away as Finchley, Golders Green, Barnet. Australia’s only a bit further. In the scale of the galaxies. Tomorrow he’s flying to Rome to play someone else. The competition is too strong here, so he needs to find some fat, debauched, Caligula-like Roman character for an easy ride. Although when they play it’ll be ‘girlie-tennis’. Not ‘proper tennis’ like wot I plays.

Girlie tennis, and please forgive any misconceptions of that being some kind of prejudicial or discriminatory or patronising term, which was never the intention, merely the interpretation, is how the game has degenerated. It’s the game where they keep stopping for a rest. Hit a ball (‘serve’, I believe its called), have a rest, then hit a second one. Play for 2 minutes then stop for a rest and some barley water, have a sit-down, maybe a back rub from the Physio before playing another gruelling 3 minutes of stop-start to take you to another 5-minute break for refreshments.

If you cut out all the rest periods and forget those horribly time-consuming serves, you end up in the real game where you play non-stop for an hour or more, running round constantly, chasing everything, not even stopping when the ball goes out of play. Who cares? Just play it back anyway. Because there’s no scoring in ‘proper tennis’ the purpose becomes just to keep playing, just hit it back. And hit it hard, fully and aim for the very corners. Because if you miss it just simply DOESN’T MATTER. And if, like me, you enjoy the chasing down of lost causes, shots that you might be able to get to but it’ll be a hard run to get there, just go for it. Or not. No-one cares, no-one judges, and no-one scores.

That’s the bit that gets to people. “How can you play tennis if you don’t score? If you don’t serve??” That’s what they say. What they mean is ‘how can I establish my undoubted superiority if there’s no statistical analysis to validate it?’ What’s the point of playing if you can’t WIN.

You play for the love of playing. For the sheer joy of being out there on a gorgeous, sunny, autumnal morning. And you’re liberated from everything that may inhibit or restrain you.

What’s the point(s)?

Happy Saturday

A xxxx