It must be love - Part 3

My tennis was washed out this week, but I learn that Bulldog Russell has won the French Open. This was a tournament won by our club, in case you were wondering why you hadn't seen his name listed in the Order of Play at Roland Garros.I was glad to hear that all those coaching lessons have paid off for him at last.I entered a tournament once. The effect remains so strong, that to this day I am unable to say the word in public. People look at me rather askance when I refer to "the T word".It didn't help that I'd been getting increasing elbow pain when playing, especially on serve. And I turned up to find that nearly everyone else was a team player, and I'd only just graduated (reluctantly) from the beginners' group. I was introduced to my partner, who clearly faced that dilemma familiar to any child opening a present expecting it to be the "must have" that will make them the envy of their friends; only to find it's some cheapskate version that will make them a laughing stock. There's an internal battle between crushing disappointment and the need to maintain some semblance of politeness. In this case, crushing disappointment won by a knock-out in the opening seconds of Round One. I made a remark about an elbow support she was putting on. "Well you're not having it!" This remark was not made in response to any kind of request of mine. Rather, it was delivered in the exasperated tone of a hostess who, having thought it would be charitable to invite the neighbours round for a sherry on Christmas Eve, had immediately regretted it upon their arrival, and had now noticed that one of them had just trodden something unmentionable into the Axminster. I thought it would be gallant to offer to serve into the sun, an offer that was quickly accepted. But this meant that when I tossed the ball up to serve, I completely lost sight of it. I swung the racket in the direction of where I thought the ball should be. Contact was confirmed when I felt a searing pain in my elbow. Through watering eyes I peered in vain to see where in the service area the ball had landed. But it hadn't landed in the service area; nor in any other part of the court. It had lodged, on the full, halfway up the back fence. For the second serve, I tried to adjust the power. This did land in the service area. Unfortunately, it was one of those on our side of the court. This proved to be the first of several double faults I would make during the day. The atmosphere between my partner and me descended from frosty, to something Messrs Celsius and Kelvin would have calculated to have been physically impossible. We lost every match, but did win some games. My partner was a pretty good player, and even I couldn't mess up all the time. We did, however, come last, by a considerable margin. I was expecting the men to be really competitive, and the women to be supportive. But it was the other way around. The men, especially the better players, often made encouraging comments. But to the women - Yummy Eileen and The Immaculate Karen excepted - I was about as welcome as flatulence in a mixed sauna. And even Yummy Eileen's sympathy was rather overshadowed by her joy at partnering one of the strongest men. He was also the husband of my partner, which I'm sure didn't help her mood any. The Immaculate Karen is, well, immaculate, and did sympathise later. But she's also the best player and a coach. So for all those reasons she doesn't mind playing with a weaker partner. And that's the point - I see it clearly now. This was a blind date. Both the men and women were looking for one thing in their partners, but it wasn't the same thing. For the men, obviously, it's looks. And I had no complaints on that score. But the women (TIK apart) wanted the best players. So I now have a huge amount of sympathy for my partner. She's turned up thinking she's in with a chance of a dinner date with George Clooney, only to discover she's been paired with the office nerd, who's promising she'll be really excited to see his extensive model railway collection. So I really should sign up to the course of counselling, get over my phobia and enter another tournament. Just another couple of things I need to do: firstly, I need to raise the standard of my tennis. Something on a par with Roger Federer should do it. And then I need to make myself available, which means fitting it in to my busy schedule. And at the moment, in my list of things to do, it lies just below organising an ice hockey match in Hell. David Donner