Something that you may not know about me is that I’m a huge tennis fan (when I say huge I mean the amount in which I like tennis not my overall size and girth). As a youngster I would hone my skills in my hometown of Port Dover, Ontario at the local tennis courts. It was there where I would play for hours upon hours with my pals firing baseline winner after baseline winner past a mentally fatigued opponent named Ludgie.
There were many epic battles on the well used courts of Dover with such luminaries by the protected names of Flask, The Turk, Jadin, Ludgie, The King and Stets, just to name a few (the real names of these gentlemen have been changed to protect them from random internet searches from headhunters and other government officials. Also this allows me not to have frantic phone calls from a raving mad Philipino demanding me to “take my name down….take my name down.” So nicknames it is from here on out. Cool?)
Although we played for the fun of it and to keep out of trouble, the competition between us all was intense and fierce. I could probably bore you with many tales of the spells of poor sportsmanship and lack of tennis etiquette that each of us were guilty of displaying from time to time. However I think I’ll let you the reader paint the picture for yourselves (isn’t that the ultimate sign of laziness by me. You do the work for me, okay?)
To gain a glimpse into the type of anger we displayed I give you exhibit A: Marcos Baghdatis. He was rather upset after dropping two sets to Stanislas Wawrinka in his second round match at the Australian Open. So he did what any sane player would do in that situation–he busted four rackets.
We would have no doubt broken as many in succession as Baghdatis, but unfortunately we couldn’t afford to break our one and only gamer. So many times we substituted the broken racket to that more patented Jadin tennis racket helicopter. This manoeuvre was a classic to be sure. It was when you flung your racket with relative ease in a spinning fashion. All the while the guilty party would be having a hissy fit of rage. Unfortunately at this time I don’t have any video evidence. So Baghdatis’ fit of rage will have to suffice.
Those were the days. Good times I say, good times indeed my friends.
