(This slide show is dedicated to Rhebs from Kuya D )

When my Flying Knight first suggested that I play tennis ,over  year ago, I was quite doubtful that I would ever get into the game. I have never played any kind of sport before, not even "takyan" . The only games I used to play were "hide and seek", and "dakop-dakop"  .

David, on the other hand, had been into sports and physical fitness at various stages in his life. He wanted to get back to playing tennis and encouraged me to try the game. I did not jump into the wagon right away. He played with his cousin or went to the  court to practice. Once, I went to the court with him just for the ride. I brought a book and read while he would practice.  

He  bought one of those practice tennis ball for indoor use. I don't remember how it started, but one evening, we found ourselves playing "indoor tennis" in our basement at about eleven in the evening. It was fun. A few days later, we bought an inexpensive tennis racquet to I could hit some balls at the court. One of the advantages of living in Columbus is having access to several well maintained public tennis courts.

At first my shots were going all over the place except the right place  . Fortunately, David was most encouraging so I kept at it. It helped tremendously when we started using a ball machine because I could correct my shots and make adjustments.  By summer the following year, I was ready for tennis lessons.

We have had two teachers and both teachers said that I was the "most improved" among all the students   which simply meant that I could not get any worse  . By the end of summer, David and I joined our first "mini tournament". We played doubles and were assigned different partners for every game. I won 2 games out of 5 (and only because I had good partners ). I think David won 3 out of 5 games.

I never thought that I would take up a sport at 45(!) and enjoy it. Doing it with my husband made it even more gratifying. We liked going to the lessons and playing with other tennis enthusiasts. I am most grateful to my two teachers Cris and Jarod.

A big part of what made the classes so much fun was that my classmates were a likable bunch. They often gave me a little leeway because they knew I was a beginner (until I hit a few good shots, by chance, and then they were not as generous   ).

One thing I noticed during tennis lessons was that when someone would hit a winner, the other players would say "good shot!" and meant it. I relished the supportive atmosphere.

We had the chance to play in three different types of courts (hard court, clay and indoor courts). For each court I had to make adjustments in my game because the ball behaved differently in each court.

I still remember my frustration when I first played on a clay court after playing on hard court for a few months. My shots were not going the way I wanted them to. I thought my game had taken a backslide until David mentioned that the ball did not bounce as high on a clay court as it would on a hard court. I felt relieved that it was not me, it was the court . Still it took time to rectify my shots.

We started watching tennis on TV and I became familiar with the different players. We went to the Cincinnati tennis tournament for two consecutive years and observed the professionals up close and personal (slide show above). I even got my program autographed.

We took indoor tennis lessons  after the summer classes were over. Playing indoors was a great experience.  Our classes were from 9 to 10:30pm. Most of our classmates were from the summer classes so we pretty much knew each other.

The classes ended last January. We look forward to going back to the courts again.

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