My shonky forehand, getting high before tennis, a hot French woman
Dear diary, this is my week in tennis #1
Welcome, hitters, to a new series I’m christening Dear diary, this is my week in tennis. May it be a new method for containing my disorderly thoughts into neat parameters; a new way of arranging words under subheaders as is customary around here. In this dispatch and others like it, I will reveal how I played, what I saw on New York’s courts, what I consumed (watched/read/purchased), and what I talked about in a given week… where tennis is concerned.
How I played
I hit three times last week; which is a sharp improvement on any single week in my past four months. Performance was of course mixed, because when you’ve been a 4.0 for this long you should consider hypnotism to rewire your entire mental and cannot be trusted to uphold any sense of consistency. Boo hoo; now, anyway, the first hit of the week was with my patient and placid husband. I wasn’t feeling it, and decided to behave badly about it. I let my (still! after all this time!) problematic ball toss derail not only my service games but all my strokes. He’s the only one I’ll let observe my fully unsheathed petulance and I deserve the way he bemoans it.
I played with Dan a few days later. He served well and ripped some forehands but ultimately we’re a pair of yoyos and decided to retire at 6-6, burying the possibility of a tiebreak and one of us having to lose. We met Milo (patient husband) afterwards for breakfast and he complained to Dan about my immature behavior (patient, yet mouthy). I told him we’d talk about this when we get home*.
In between those two hits I played four “first to 10s” with Joe. I wouldn’t be reporting that I won four of four had he not written mercilessly about me in his little diary.
What I saw on New York’s courts
On a Monday, I am waiting, like Ashlee Simpson, at East River Park at 8am with my racquet in the fence behind twelve others. It’s an unpredictable locale, this one—which makes me realize how overzealous my intentions from the last newsletter were. On Wednesday, I saw someone who could be 100-year-old Dorothy from Instagram’s younger sister hitting at Pier 42, and she was unbelievable. She took little twinkle-toe steps to get perfectly into position before connecting with the ball so sweetly. Over the other side of the net was her husband who wasn’t as lively nor as good, not that you came here for a competitive analysis of strangers well into their eighties.
What I consumed
As a freelancer, it is my duty to—when clients do not own me—be laid out on the couch with nary a care for the time, the whims of the weather, the rhymes, the reasons. And so there I was, watching a few inconsequential matches from the ATP 250 tournament in Estoril, Portugal, simply because I could, and because I have my friend Angie’s Tennis Channel login (🙏).
I also consumed this infuriating reel about “hidden” tennis walls in New York; a fraudulent pantomime about handball walls that exist in plain sight for those walking around with their eyes open :)
I ogled some stuff on eBay and Poshmark—this 90s Bebe Sport one-piece is fab—ultimately not buying anything because I want for nothing material so long as my forehand is looking the way it currently is (jerky and dare I say, slappy). Leading me to my next point…
What I talked about
With my hitting brethren and my Instagram reply guys, I talked about the waxing and waning of said forehand and how it can be fixed only with coaching intervention, probably. Welp. I then texted a coach named Allan and begged him to Fix Me. This was my forehand last year; we have some issues. Rest assured, it is even worse now! Allan is in for quite the challenge.
Like a celebrity bosom splashed upon a tabloid cover, the group chat was heaving with tales of getting high, accidentally, before a hit. This is the only one that feels safe enough to publish:
With another anon associate, I discussed how hot Ugo Humbert’s girlfriend, Tessah Andrianjafitrimo, is.
So there’s all that. Anything to report on your end?
*We don’t because this is a joke.
freelancer tennis combo girlie here as well 🫡
On a Tuesday I’m fading